As Dems play up outrage, Republicans lean into 'liberation'
The story of the week was told in two less-touristed parts of Los Angeles, 12 miles apart. Protests against ICE enforcement in the city, and of the National Guard deployment that followed it, mostly took place in a square mile curfew zone between Dodger Stadium and the Fashion District. Sen. Alex Padilla, the state's first Latino senator, was arrested at a Department of Homeland Security press conference in the Wilshire Federal building, a bleached set of modernist towers designed by the firm that made Madison Square Garden.
Those incidents, both legally unresolved, told us how differently the Trump administration and Democrats see the world. Kristi Noem, whom Padilla had tried to interrupt at the FBI's field office, pledged to 'liberate this city from the socialist and burdensome leadership' of 'this Governor Newsom and this mayor.' It was, in her telling, an intervention against an oppressive government, probably (according to the president) with rigged elections, occupied (according to him again) by a 'Migrant Invasion.'
Most Republicans agreed that the intervention would save lives and livelihoods. The deportations needed to continue, and the city needed to be saved from rioting. In a Thursday afternoon email, the president's joint fundraising committee told donors that 'if I didn't 'SEND IN THE TROOPS' to Los Angeles, that once beautiful and great City would be burning to the ground right now due to these incompetent leaders.' This was Minneapolis in the summer of 2020, and the lesson of that was to maintain 'peace through strength' and prevent mass rioting.
Padilla's protest was in the Democrats' tradition of resistance, which looks back to Selma in 1965. Conflicts are won by street mobilization and civil disobedience, until conservative governments overreact and spark a backlash. 'Arrest me — but stop attacking these vulnerable people,' Gov. Gavin Newsom told Trump, through reporters, whom he talked to all week.
On MSNBC, Padilla said that he had interrupted because 'at a certain point hearing Noem say they had to rescue LA from the governor and mayor was too much to take.' In the House Oversight Committee, where news of the Padilla arrest was brought in by Democrats during a hearing with Democratic governors, Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) led them in calling for Noem to be subpoenaed, while Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called Frost a former Antifa member.
'Me?' asked Frost. After a short break, Greene corrected herself: Frost had been arrested at a voting rights protest. 'Proudly,' he said.
That's the conflict. Democrats don't venerate every protest, as a Canadian trucker could tell you. They don't control everything that happens at their favored protests, such as the anarchists who crack concrete blocks to throw them at windows. They are waiting for the electorate to get as outraged as them. The administration sees that outrage as manufactured, something to save real people from.
In Reason, Nancy Rommelmann covers the L.A. protests up close, explaining how descriptions of war zone or a city nearly burning down were bogus. 'The majority of sounds coming from downtown in the hours before the curfew were from law enforcement: helicopters, sirens, flash-bang grenades.'
In Politico, Catherine Kim examines how AI-generated images and videos are making the protests and scattered violence look much worse. 'One of a hypocritical protester who preaches peace and then throws a molotov cocktail. Or another of a man screaming 'Viva Mexico,' but then cowering away from an officer who says he will take him to Mexico.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
36 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Donald Trump is losing. Here's how California can keep the pressure on
Californians are angry. They should be. President Donald Trump's militarized mass deportation policies aren't just thoughtless and cruel — they have, in many instances, been executed illegally. This includes targeting international college students with legal residence for their political expression. Four undocumented children in San Francisco were also among those rounded up, among them a 3-year-old, whose family was lawfully complying with a scheduled check-in with immigration authorities. Abundant evidence suggests racial profiling is part and parcel of the administration's strategy. Federal agents aren't simply doing the hard work of tracking down the immigrants with criminal records whom Trump has emphasized for deportation. Instead, they've fished for people en masse at places like Home Depot — sometimes masked and without visible identification — sweeping up citizens of color in the process. In some cases, Trump isn't deporting people back to their native lands. He has sent hundreds of undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom had violated no other law than coming to the country without authorization, to prisons in places that are not their country of origin — including what could best be described as a gulag in El Salvador. In the fear and confusion that has ensued from these actions, criminals pretending to be Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are exploiting the chaos to attack vulnerable communities. And so Californians — and increasingly people across the nation — have taken to the streets in protest. The Constitution and the moral imperative are on their side. In response, Trump has sent thousands of federalized National Guard troops and 700 Marines to the streets of Los Angeles in a clear act of intimidation — claiming an insurrection, but notably not invoking the Insurrection Act statue that would give him the legal authority (and the checks and balances that come with it) to mobilize troops. When U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California attempted to publicly question Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about these excesses and injustices, he was shoved and handcuffed by federal agents. It's a perilous time for American democracy. The threat of a descent into unchecked authoritarianism is real. Protestors are correct in their assessment that silence in the face of such tyranny is unacceptable. But as citizens of conscience take to the streets — particularly in California, where the undocumented migrant population is bearing the brunt of our nation's political war — there is something important they should keep in mind: Donald Trump is losing. In recent months, courts have shot down any number of his executive orders, along with his targeting of international students with legal residence. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled on Thursday that Trump's federalization and deployment of California National Guard troops was 'illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.' The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will consider an appeal of Breyer's ruling on Tuesday. Beyond the legal realm, Trump's economic policies are floundering. His 'big, beautiful' budget is in disarray after an embarrassing public fallout with the world's richest man. His tariff negotiations have gone nowhere. His foreign policy bluster has resulted in heightened global instability. The American people are beginning to widely see Trump for what he is: a failure Only 38% of registered voters approve of his performance, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday. And on immigration, 57% disapprove of his policies. Perhaps recognizing the turning tide, Trump has wobbled on many of his more aggressive stances. After calling for an all-out ban on Chinese students, he suggested this week that he would actually like 500,000 to come to the United States. He further said he had changed his views on migrant farm workers. 'You go into a farm and you look at people — they've been there for 20, 25 years, and they've worked great, and the owner of the farm loves them, and everything else and then you're supposed to throw them out,' Trump said Thursday at the White House. He ultimately backed down from these positions. But the flip-flopping shows his weakness — and the reality that better federal immigration policy, not crackdowns, are needed if we want to better meet the country's workforce needs. The question now for Californians is how to keep the pressure on Trump and defend the rights of immigrants without turning against one another or giving the Trump administration the kind of public spectacle it craves. While Trump is weak, he remains a master manipulator. He has already tried to leverage scenes of carnage stemming from a handful of bad actors at the protests in Los Angeles. California cannot afford to give him more fodder. That danger runs particularly high in Los Angeles, where Trump's federalized troops add an element of unpredictability. 'It's like bringing in a new player to a game and not giving them the playbook,' former Houston police chief and crowd control expert Art Acevedo told the editorial board. 'It's counterproductive. It's theater. And it's not operationally sound.' Acevedo, who drew nationwide praise for his handling of the 2020 protests in George Floyd's native Houston in the wake of his murder by police, said that the best way to protect the public's First Amendment rights is through local organization and communication. Here in San Francisco, Mayor Daniel Lurie has been criticized for his reluctance to even say Trump's name in public. But San Francisco doesn't need him to make fiery speeches. What it needs, Acevedo said, is for officials and the police department to keep lines of communication open with activists and protest leaders and to signal their compassion. San Franciscans are more than capable of speaking for their city. They need to trust that they will be safely empowered to do so. That does not preclude the necessity of weeding out bad actors. Trump is weak. With the discipline to maintain the moral high ground, he can be defeated. As Michael Ansara, who as a student helped organize the March on Washington in 1965, concluded in a recent op-ed: Protesting against Trump is good. Organizing against him is better.
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
BROADCAST BIAS: Media's LA riot coverage relies on a sneaky trick to look less one-sided
Democrats and their publicity partners at the broadcast TV networks have often preached about how President Donald Trump's actions – like his pardons – are an affront to the "rule of law" in America. But when it comes to Trump's attempt at mass deportations, the media-Democrat alliance lines up fiercely against any attempt to remove immigrants who have ignored the rule of law. Riots broke out on June 6 after several immigration raids in the Los Angeles area by U.S. Immigrations and Custom Enforcement enraged the left, as so-called "peaceful protesters" tried to block entrances and exits for the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building downtown, where detainees were being processed. In a legal sense, it is not merely a "protest" to obstruct law enforcement. It's a crime. It is not "protest" to throw bricks at ICE agents or police, or set cars on fire. But the broadcast coverage of this unrest sounded disturbingly like the excuse-making for the George Floyd riots of 2020, when violent mobs were described as a "racial reckoning." Once again, the TV networks used the mantra that the protests are "mostly peaceful," like it was a tiny sideshow, and Trump calling out the National Guard to quell the violence was treated as a provocation that worsened the crisis. The original, radical "idealism" of these protests – that ICE shouldn't be deporting anyone, like deportations were tyrannical – served as the rhetorical underpinning of the biased coverage. Any idealism from the Republican side – favoring that "rule of law" and for protecting law enforcement personnel from violent attacks – was dismissed as Trumpian blather. By Monday morning, the network morning shows kicked into anti-Trump gear. ABC "Good Morning America" host George Stephanopoulos warned viewers that Trump's ordering in the National Guard "is the first time since 1965 that a president's ordered troops in over the objections of the governor," and "California Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the action as inflammatory, called on the administration to rescind it, said they were manufacturing a crisis." When Democrats can't keep control of their cities, pointing it out is "manufacturing a crisis." It's like Stephanopoulos never stopped being a Democrat press spokesman. It's subtle wordplay, but the networks have a sneaky habit of not putting the party label on Trump's Democrat opponents. One might say their party should be obvious from their opposition, but in a setting of violent action, the avoidance of party labels was far too common, especially at ABC. On Wednesday night, June 11's "World News Tonight," reporter Matt Gutman announced "in an emotional press conference, 37 mayors coming together" against Trump, no party labels needed. Arturo Flores, the mayor Huntington Park, was described as "a combat veteran, appealing to the military." Flores bizarrely argued about illegal immigrants: "These are Americans." As a legal matter, that's untrue, but ABC put that concept on screen: "Officials: 'Remember, You Are Dealing With Americans." That's just "Officials," no party ID needed. Flores also lit into Trump as "a dictator" and "a tyrant." Nobody ever fact-checks politicians who call Trump a dictator. Gutman then added Newsom attacking Trump for calling out the National Gard, without the party label. On Thursday night, ABC evening anchor David Muir repeated the tactic. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was abruptly interrupted at a press conference by "California Senator Alex Padilla," and he was forced to the ground and handcuffed. This transparently partisan stunt was treated as deadly serious, complete with a Padilla soundbite full of quavering moral outrage about how Latino farm hands and cooks are treated by the feds, with no mention of party. It's subtle wordplay, but the networks have a sneaky habit of not putting the party label on Trump's Democrat opponents. Late in that Thursday story, ABC reporter Matt Rivers did highlight the party when "Democratic Governors" lectured House Republicans at a hearing about their laxity on illegal immigration. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told Viewers that Trump engaged in a "flagrant abuse of power." ABC did not show Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz being pressed in that hearing about his smears in a recent commencement speech where he accused ICE agents of being "Trump's modern-day Gestapo." Nobody "fact checks" that, and no Republican question or concern from that hearing was mentioned by ABC. This is why Republicans and independent voters are shunning ABC, CBS and NBC as talking-point assembly lines for the Democrats.
Atlantic
an hour ago
- Atlantic
Trump Has Turned Deportations Into a Spectacle
From the beginning, Donald Trump's approach to deportations has been about both removing people from the country and the spectacle of removing people from the country. If any doubt lingered about the president's commitment to the cause, he erased it in Los Angeles, where his response to the widespread protests against a series of ICE raids—he has dispatched roughly 4,000 California National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines, all against the wishes of the state's governor—has been an extraordinary (and extraordinarily excessive) demonstration of force. Trump's message has been clear: No matter who or what tries to get in the way, his administration will push forward with deportations. L.A. is 'the first, perhaps, of many' military deployments in the United States, Trump said earlier this week. The spectacle part, Trump has down. The president has ushered in one of the most aggressive immigration campaigns in recent American history. The ICE raids in L.A. are just the latest of many high-profile instances in which federal law-enforcement officials have antagonized and rounded up suspected undocumented immigrants—some of whom are citizens or legal residents. Hundreds of immigrants have been swept away to what functionally is a modern Gulag in El Salvador, and the administration has recently tried to send others to South Sudan, which is on the verge of civil war. Enforcing immigration policy does not have to be inhumane, but the Trump administration is gloating in the very barbarity. Amid all the bravado, however, the administration much more quietly has been struggling to deliver on Trump's campaign promise to 'launch the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America.' So far, deportations have not dramatically spiked under Trump, though daily rates have been on the rise in recent weeks. According to government data obtained by The New York Times, the administration has deported more than 200,000 people since Trump's return to office, well below the rate needed to meet the White House's reported goal of removing 1 million unauthorized immigrants in his first year in office. If the pace over the first five months of Trump's presidency continues through the end of the year, total deportations would only slightly exceed that of President Barack Obama in fiscal year 2012. The discrepancy is surprising. Given the visibility of Trump's efforts, you'd be forgiven for believing deportations were unfolding on a never-before-seen scale. The actual numbers don't diminish the cruelty of Trump's approach or the pain his administration has caused to those it has targeted. But they do reveal Trump's ever-increasing mastery of bending perceptions of reality. The administration's immigration tactics are so shocking, callous, and inescapable that they have generated the appearance of mass deportations. Paranoid rumors of ICE agents hovering around playgrounds, waiting to arrest noncitizen nannies, have spread. Some immigrants have opted to self-deport instead of subjecting themselves to the potential horrors of ICE detainment and deportation. No reason exists to think the White House has been deliberately falling behind on its deportation promise. The administration has run into several challenges: The easiest migrants to deport are those who have just crossed the border, and unauthorized immigration has dropped significantly since Trump took office. (Trump's deportation approach and rhetoric has, in other words, seemingly been successful at keeping people out of the country in the first place.) At times, ICE has faced detention space constraints, and some of the administration's deportations have been stymied in the courts. In an email, the White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson wrote, 'President Trump has already secured the border in record time and is now fulfilling his promise to deport illegal aliens.' The administration plans to use a 'full-of-government approach to ensure the efficient mass deportation of terrorist and criminal illegal aliens.' In Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' that is working its way through Congress, Republican lawmakers are set to give ICE a massive funding injection to help the agency finally carry out mass deportations. 'If that money goes out, the amount of people they can arrest and remove will be extraordinary,' Paul Hunker, who was formerly ICE's lead attorney in Dallas, told my colleague Nick Miroff. For now, Trump is faking it until he makes it, with his administration doing everything it can to draw attention to its immigration tactics. Yesterday, federal agents handcuffed and forcibly removed Senator Alex Padilla of California just after he interrupted an immigration press conference featuring Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. In March, Noem had generated a previous viral moment when she traveled to the El Salvador megaprison where the administration has sent hundreds of supposed gang members, and gave remarks in front of shirtless, tattooed prisoners. The administration has even brought along right-wing media figures for its ICE arrests, producing further images of its immigration enforcement. Phil McGraw—the former host of Dr. Phil, who now hosts a show for MeritTV, a right-wing network he founded— was at ICE headquarters in L.A. the same day of the immigration sweeps in the city that prompted the protests last week. Consider, too, the shocking ways in which the administration has discussed the deportation campaign on social media. On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security posted an ima ge styled like a World War II propaganda flyer, urging Americans to 'report all foreign invaders' to a DHS hotline. The White House's X account has created a meme about a crying woman in ICE custody, and uploaded a video of a deportee boarding a plane in clanking shackles with the caption 'ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight.' In one sense, all of this is just classic political spin. Instead of admitting that it's falling behind on one of its core promises, the White House is attempting to control the narrative. But the scale of reality-warping going on in this case is hard to fathom. Trump's actions are part of a larger way in which he has come to understand that he can sway the nation with the right viral imagery. When he was indicted on racketeering and other charges and forced to take a mug shot in 2023, Trump glowered into the camera instead of looking embarrassed or guilty, generating an image that became the subject of viral memes and campaign merchandise—and seemingly inspired his second presidential portrait, in which he strikes the same glowering pose. When he came within inches of dying during the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania last summer, he had the instincts to produce one of the most significant images in modern American history. The series of videos, pictures, and aggressive actions his administration has taken regarding deportations are of the same genre. Trump takes the reality in front of him and does what he can to create a perception closer to what he wants: in this case, one of fear and terror. This is authoritarian behavior. Trump is marshaling propaganda to mislead Americans about what is really happening. Other recent strongmen leaders, such as Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and Viktor Orbán in Hungary, have used a similar playbook. If Trump can't remove as many immigrants as he promised, the president can still use his talent for warping perceptions to make it feel as though he is. Laws don't need to change for free speech to be chilled, for immigrants to flee, and for people to be afraid.
