Images of unrest, political spin distort the reality on the ground in L.A.

Los Angeles Times

a day ago

Driverless Waymo vehicles, coated with graffiti and engulfed in flames. Masked protesters, dancing and cavorting around burning American flags. Anonymous figures brazenly blocking streets and shutting down major freeways, raining bottles and rocks on the police, while their compatriots waved Mexican flags.
The images flowing out of Los Angeles over nearly a week of protests against federal immigration raids have cast America's second most populous city as a terrifying hellscape, where lawbreakers rule the streets and regular citizens should fear to leave their homes.
In the relentless fever loop of online and broadcast video, it does not matter that the vast majority of Los Angeles neighborhoods remain safe and secure. Digital images create their own reality and it's one that President Trump and his supporters have used to condemn L.A. as a place that is 'out of control' and on the brink of total collapse.
The images and their true meaning and context have become the subject of a furious debate in the media and among political partisans, centered on the true roots and victims of the protests, which erupted on Friday as the Trump administration moved aggressively to expand its arrests of undocumented immigrants.
As the president and his supporters in conservative media tell it, he is the defender of law and order and American values. They cast their opponents as dangerous foreign-born criminals and their feckless enablers in the Democratic Party and mainstream media.
The state's political leaders and journalists offer a compelling rebuttal: that Trump touched off several days of protest and disruption with raids that went far beyond targeting criminals, as he previously promised, then escalated the conflict by taking the highly unusual step of sending the National Guard and Marines to Southern California.
Reaction to the raids by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the subsequent turmoil will divide Americans on what have become partisan lines that have become so predictable they are 'calcified,' said Lynn Vavreck, a political science professor at UCLA.
'The parties want to build very different worlds, voters know it, and they know which world they want to live in,' said Vavreck, who has focused on the country's extreme political polarization. 'And because the parties are so evenly divided, and this issue is so personal to so many, the stakes are very high for people.'
As a curfew was imposed Tuesday, the sharpest street confrontations appeared to be fading and a national poll suggested Americans have mixed feelings about the events that have dominated the news.
The YouGov survey of 4,231 people found that 50% disapprove of the Trump administration's handling of deportations, compared with 39% who approve. Pluralities of those sampled also disagreed with Trump's deployment of the National Guard and U.S. Marines to Southern California.
But 45% of those surveyed by YouGov said they disapprove of the protests that began after recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions. Another 36% approved of the protests, with the rest unsure how they feel.
Faced with a middling public response to the ICE raids and subsequent protests, Trump continued to use extreme language to exaggerate the magnitude of the public safety threat and to take credit for the reduction in hostilities as the week progressed.
In a post on his TruthSocial site, he suggested that, without his military intervention, 'Los Angeles would be burning just like it was burning a number of months ago, with all the houses that were lost. Los Angeles right now would be on fire.'
In reality, agitators set multiple spot fires in a few neighborhoods, including downtown Los Angeles and Paramount, but the blazes in recent days were tiny and quickly controlled, in contrast to the massive wildfires that devastated broad swaths of Southern California in January.
Trump's hyperbole continued in a fundraising appeal to his supporters Tuesday. In it, he again praised his decision to deploy the National Guard (without the approval of California Gov. Gavin Newsom), concluding: 'If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.'
The Republican had assistance in fueling the sense of unease.
His colleagues in Congress introduced a resolution to formally condemn the riots. 'Congress steps in amid 'out-of-control' Los Angeles riots as Democrats resist federal help,' Fox News reported on the resolution, being led by Rep. Young Kim of Orange County.
A journalist based in New Delhi pronounced, based on unspecified evidence, that Los Angeles 'is descending into a full-blown warzone.'
Veterans Affairs Secretary Douglas Collins suggested that the harm from the protesters was spreading; announcing in a social media post that a care center for vets in downtown L.A. had been temporarily closed.
'To the violent mobs in Los Angeles rioting in support of illegal immigrants and against the rule of law,' his post on X said, 'your actions are interfering with Veterans' health care.'
A chyron running with a Fox News commentary suggested 'Democrats have lost their mind,' as proved by their attempts to downplay the anti-ICE riots.
Many Angelenos mocked the claims of a widespread public safety crisis. One person on X posted a picture of a dog out for a walk along a neatly kept sidewalk in a serene neighborhood, with the caption: 'Los Angeles just an absolute warzone, as you can see.'
In stark contrast to the photos of Waymo vehicles burning and police cars being pelted with rocks, a video on social media showed a group of protestors line dancing. 'Oh my God! They must be stopped before their peaceful and joy filled dance party spreads to a city near you!' the caption read. 'Please send in the Marines before they start doing the Cha Cha and the Macarena!'
And many people noted on social media that Sunday's Pride parade in Hollywood for the LGBTQ+ community went off without incident, as reinforced by multiple videos of dancers and marchers celebrating along a sun-splashed parade route.
But other activists and Democrats signaled that they understand how Trump's position can be strengthened if it appears they are condoning the more extreme episodes that emerged along with the protests — police being pelted with bottles, businesses being looted and buildings being defaced with graffiti.
On Tuesday, an X post by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass reiterated her earlier admonitions: 'Let me be clear: ANYONE who vandalized Downtown or looted stores does not care about our immigrant communities,' the mayor wrote. 'You will be held accountable.'
The activist group Occupy Democrats posted a message online urging protesters to show their disdain for the violence and property damage.
'The moment violence of property damage begins, EVERY OTHER PROTESTER must immediately sit on the floor or the ground in silence, with signs down,' the advisory suggested. 'The media needs to film this. This will reveal paid fake thugs posing as protesters becoming violent. ….The rest of us will demonstrate our non-violent innocence and retain our Constitutional right to peaceful protest.'
Craig Silverman, a journalist and cofounder of Indicator, a site that investigates deception on digital platforms, said that reporting on the context and true scope of the protests would have a hard time competing with the visceral images broadcast into Americans' homes.
'It's inevitable that the most extreme and compelling imagery will win the battle for attention on social media and on TV,' Silverman said via email. 'It's particularly challenging to deliver context and facts when social platforms incentivize the most shocking videos and claims, federal and state authorities offer contradictory messages about what's happening.'
Dan Schnur, who teaches political science at USC and UC Berkeley, agreed. 'The overwhelming majority of the protesters are peaceful,' Schnur said, 'but they don't do stories on all the planes that land safely at LAX, either.'
Though it might be too early to assess the ultimate impact of the L.A. unrest, Schnur suggested that all of the most prominent politicians in the drama might have accomplished their messaging goals: Trump motivated his base and diverted attention from his nasty feud with his former top advisor, Elon Musk, and the lack of progress on peace talks with Russia and Ukraine. Newsom 'effectively unified the state and elevated his national profile' by taking on Trump. And Bass, under tough scrutiny for her handling of the city's wildfire disaster, has also gotten a chance to use Trump as a foil.
What was not disputed was that Trump's rapid deployment of the National Guard, without the approval of Newsom, had little precedent. And sending the Marines to L.A. was an even more extreme approach, with experts saying challenges to the deployment would test the limits of Trump's power.
The federal Insurrection Act allows the deployment of the military for law enforcement purposes, but only under certain conditions, such as a national emergency.
California leaders say Trump acted before a true emergency developed, thereby preempting standard protocols, including the institution of curfews and the mobilization of other local police departments in a true emergency.
Even real estate developer Rick Caruso, Bass' opponent in the last election, suggested Trump acted too hastily.
'There is no emergency, widespread threat, or out of control violence in Los Angeles,' Caruso wrote on X Sunday. 'And absolutely no danger that justifies deployment of the National Guard, military, or other federal force to the streets of this or any other Southern California City.'
'We must call for calm in the streets,' Caruso added, 'and deployment of the National Guard may prompt just the opposite.'