I wrote at Trump’s 100-day mark that a backlash was coming. As of last weekend, it’s here.
Violent protests in California erupted as a predictable result to ICE’s heavy handed tactics against people who are not the violent criminals that Donald Trump said he would target. Trump may have said that he would target violent criminals, but it was obvious to most of us that he would do what he is doing: Targeting almost any immigrants that he can find, including taking administrative actions that make legal immigrants illegal so they can be targeted as well.
Yes, there is a lot of justifiable anger at what Trump is doing. What is not justified is the violence. I’m going to be morally and logically consistent here and say that political violence is wrong, whether it’s carried out by BLM protesters, MAGA insurrectionists, or anti-ICE mobs.
Violence is also counterproductive. Immigration remains a strong point for Trump, but polling shows that Americans are concerned about the Administration going too far and not following due process. Violent protests against ICE play right into Trump’s hands. In fact, I’d go so far as to say Trump was waiting for and salivating at the possibility that his opponents would turn violent.
It’s no secret that Trump and Stephen Miller have looked for an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act. Trump’s quick decision to deploy the National Guard (and now Marines) to Los Angeles is an indication that the Administration had given the matter thought prior to the outbreak of riots. The fact that they considered using the Insurrection Act in 2020 is another indication.
Trump’s use of the military breaks with tradition in that it is over the objection of the state’s governor. The legality of the order is being debated, but I will say that the government should be restoring order, but it should be the governments of Los Angeles and California that should be doing so. Trump did not wait to see whether Gavin Newsom would take the matter seriously and request help if necessary. Rather, he usurped the traditional federalist order of allowing states to handle their own affairs.
Republicans used to agree with this view. As recently as 2020, Donald Trump said that he couldn’t deploy the National Guard without a state request. As recently as last year, Kristi Noem, last seen cosplaying as an ICE agent, tweeted that the possibility of President Biden might federalize the National Guard “would be a direct attack on states’ rights.”
I’m going to go out on a limb and say the legality of Trump’s deployment depends on what he asks the troops do. There is some evidence, including a statement from US Northern Command, that the troops are merely there “to support the protection of federal personnel and federal property in the greater Los Angeles area.” Such a mission is almost certainly lawful. On the other hand, if Trump attempts to use the military to engage in law enforcement, coerce California’s government, or detain political opponents, we move to gray and unconstitutional areas quickly.
As Americans, we must place some trust in our military as well. Military leaders and individual soldiers are aware of the law and the consequences if they break it. Most military people are honorable, law abiding, and patriotic. Not nearly all them are MAGA radicals.
Some MAGA supporters have favored martial law with Trump in charge. I’ve also seen people on the left calling for the military to intervene and depose Trump, so both sides can go from hot to cold and back again at the flick of a switch. Neither is probably going to happen.
Whether Trump’s actions are legal or not, they throw fuel on the fire. Bringing in the military over state objections raises the temperature and increases tensions and the possibility of additional violence.
Again, that may be the point. If Trump wants an excuse to deploy more troops around the country then more violence would play right into his hands. Even if Trump simply wants to paint his opponents as violent radicals, stoking more violence would fit the script.
I’m not sure it’s going to go according to the script. People are already uncomfortable with ICE and there are plenty of other reasons to dislike Trump. Adding chaos and violence to the mix won’t necessarily drive people into the arms of MAGA. That’s especially true if Trump is transparently provoking the violence.
If you doubt me, look back no further than 2020 when the BLM protests and riots were rocking the country. The left looked bad, but that did not make Trump look better. He lost the election that year no matter how MAGA rewrites history.
I think a big part of 2020 was that Trump fatigue, partly fueled by the domestic violence and Trump’s response to it, outweighed the public’s dislike of the violence. We could see a repeat of that dynamic if the situation continues to escalate.
I don’t think Trump’s response to the violence will help him with voters beyond his base. Even if he performs well, a very questionable possibility, it will be the old story of “Trump solves problem created by Trump.” The bottom line is that the violence would almost certainly not be happening under any other president. It’s a backlash to Donald Trump’s bad (and at times unlawful and unconstitutional) policy.
Like the Trump ads that purported to show chaos from Biden’s tenure, but actually showed riots from Trump’s first term, what we are seeing is Trump’s America. Chaos is a big part of Trump’s brand.
Violence is not the answer to Trump’s bad policies. Better answers are to let the courts work and focus on changing the government in upcoming elections.
That’s tough advice for people who are seeing their friends, family, and coworkers being detained and deported, however, sometimes for no good reason. Sometimes when they’ve followed the rules and done it the right way.
When people who are here legally or in the asylum system (remember it’s legal to request asylum after entering illegally) are shipped off to a Salvadoran prison for an undetermined periods of time with no recourse, people get desperate. And desperate people do desperate things… like attacking immigration officers and burning cars.
Yes, the violence is wrong, but it isn’t just caused by the people taking to the streets. I am very certain that Trump knew something like this would happen. I think he wanted it to happen because he believes it will be to his political advantage. It’s another way to create fear and division and focus hatred on minority scapegoat. It’s right out of the authoritarian playbook.
It’s going to get worse, and among the fallout will be further erosion of the trust in our government and institutions. That is one of the many of effects of the Trump Administration that will take decades to fix, always assuming we survive the next few years.
Yesterday, I was listening to someone in the Trump administration talk about the ongoing ICE actions. He took some time in his spiel to emphasize how DJT’s victory in 2024 was so overwhelming that it indicated a great deal of support from the American people for such actions. To say I was incredulous is probably a little bit of an understatement.
I will say I could be wrong, however. Perhaps this is what my fellow citizens want. After all, we did have a president in living memory order citizens to be rounded up and placed into concentration camps and hardly anyone batted an eye. Of course, those people didn’t look like the people in power either.
There have been additional protests all over California, in NYC, in Detroit and even in New Orleans against the administrations actions. Most citizens do not want this.
Liberals know how to riot. I have been pleasantly surprised it took this long, but here we are at the norm for Liberals.
I had wondered if the stunt pulled by the NJ mayor and the Democrat Representatives would incited violence, it took one month.
Yes, there is a lot of justifiable anger at what Trump is doing. What is not justified is the violence.
Hey, question: Is it justifiable to use violence against Na.zis putting people on trains to ship to concentration camps?
It’s a simple question, and I think a lot of people need to say the answer aloud. I mean that literally, everyone, while you are sitting at your computer, say either of the sentences ‘It justifiable to use violence against Na.zis putting people on trains to concentration camps.’ or ‘It not justifiable to use violence against Na.zis putting people on trains to concentration camps.’
I think we have an entire society of people who have not actually confronted what it means to say yes to that.
When people who are here legally or in the asylum system (remember it’s legal to request asylum after entering illegally) are shipped off to a Salvadoran prison for an undetermined periods of time with no recourse, people get desperate. And desperate people do desperate things… like attacking immigration officers and burning cars.
A Salvadoran _torture_ prison.
Human rights organizations and media outlets reported complaints of abuse and mistreatment of detainees by prison guards. On July 14, a coalition of human rights organizations at an Interamerican Human Rights Commission public audience stated they collectively interviewed more than 100 released detainees, many of whom reported systemic abuse in the prison system, including beatings by guards and the use of electric shocks. The coalition alleged the treatment of prisoners constituted torture.
On March 25, the newspaper El País reported a man released from Izalco prison said guards beat one of his cellmates to death with batons and the butts of their rifles. He also said guards activated electric stun guns against the prison’s wet floors to deliver electric shocks to all the prisoners in a cell.
Cristosal spoke with the family of a prisoner who died of stomach cancer on February 10, after being released from Zacatecoluca prison on January 28. Cristosal reported his body showed signs of torture, including significant bruising on his back and stomach, as well as signs of malnutrition and gastrointestinal hemorrhaging.
https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/528267_EL-SALVADOR-2023-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf
Is it justifiable to use violence against Na.zis putting people on trains to ship to concentration camps?
Of course it is. But that’s a straw man argument. The number of death camps Trump has set up is zero. The “children in cages” pictures from his first term turned out to be from Obama’s era.
Trump wants to send illegal immigrants back to their home countries. The “illegal” part should indicate what our existing laws already say. These laws were passed by the existing political process.
Those laws don’t include mass killings. Where Trump has had his fingers rapped is where he’s tried to ignore due process… but there is a strong argument that the opponents of these laws have put sand in the gears of due process to make it impossible so he’s just trying to make the system work.
If you’re going to make Na.zi arguments then you need to point to lots of dead bodies or you’re going to lose because you’re over reaching.
a man released from Izalco prison
We’re not going to be sending millions of people into that prison. Nor do we own it.
The law is set up, or at least it’s supposed to be, to make it difficult for the government to win its case. Bypassing the courts by herding deportees onto planes bound for countries other than their homelands is, to put it mildly, extralegal.
Sure. Fully agreed.
However, there is a vast ethical difference between “extralegal”, especially when being used for policies that are codified law, and “death camps”.
These policies are bad and their implementation is thus terrible.
However that’s the conversation we should be having and not “support what I want or you’re a Na.zi”. If all you have is Na.zi comparisons that only work in your head, then you have nothing but your own outrage.
The only one using death camps is Mr. Buss. DavidTC used concentration camps. I think the tendency to use the German example is due to it’s massive role in U.S. history. We could probably use the Trail of Tears, but that might require a little too much introspection, as well as inducing guilt, which conservatives seem a little averse to these days.
DavidTC used concentration camps
Na.zi concentration camps. More correctly known as death camps or murder factories.
We could probably use the Trail of Tears
And now you’re doing it. The Trail of Tears had a death rate of 14-19%. We moved 88k people and managed to kill 12-17k of them.
If you need to vastly overstate the impact to make your moral case then you showcase that you have no argument.
Just to show that the case can be made here:
Immigrants, including the illegal kind, create more jobs than they destroy. As a group they are less violent than natives. As a group they’re also younger, have more children, and can help massively with our various demographic issues.
Those demographic issues come down to “how do we fund our social safety nets”.
Immigrants are also more integrated than we like to imagine. Lots of families have one or more illegals with multiple legal members. The GOP can’t be elected dog catcher in California in large part because they did this whole anti-immigrant thing there and that poisoned the well.
Long term the USA owns the most aggressively assimilative culture on the planet and we have a long history of absorbing immigrants and turning them into normal citizens. We are a nation of immigrants and the various problems that come with multiculturalism and immigration have mostly been resolved.
The vast bulk of problems that illegal immigrants create is because they’re illegal, not because they’re immigrants. Give them a legal path and all of this goes away. Eventually we had to end prohibition for the same reason.
The law is set up, or at least it’s supposed to be, to make it difficult for the government to win its case.
It’s…really not, for immigration law. Pretty much all immigration cases are open-and-shut.
There are things people can do to defer things, but that’s not ‘difficult to win a case’, that’s just ‘there are exceptions codified into the law’. Most of those exceptions sound pretty reasonable when looked at.
Of course it is. But that’s a straw man argument. The number of death camps Trump has set up is zero.
That’s because they’re illegal here. So he’s using foreign ones.
If you’re going to make Na.zi arguments then you need to point to lots of dead bodies or you’re going to lose because you’re over reaching.
How can I point at them? They’d be happening in a El Salvadan prison no one has access to.
We’re not going to be sending millions of people into that prison. Nor do we own it.
To paraphase Churchhill: Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.
Is your argument that we’re only sending _a few people_ to concentration camps? What a strange argument.
If you’re looking for a leftist (distinctly not “liberal” in the American partisan political sense), the ebook version of this is free right now.
Karen Bass is doing everything in her power to give Trump a W by calling for a curfew.
She’s trying to govern a large city. If DJT gets something to crow about, then everyone’s a winner(?).
I think we can look at the L.A. protests using the MAGA viewpoint of Jan. 6. Most of the morons who entered the Capitol that stupid day did nothing more wrong than entering the building. Barely a crime. By the same token, most of the miscreants are spray painting stuff or similar minor stuff. A very small handful are chucking stuff at the cops or burning cars. The entirety of the Capitol mob, trespasser or actual attempted insurrectionist, got presidential pardons on 1/20 this year. Will the L.A. offenders get the same mercy? I think not.
Why call a curfew for a minor graffiti incident in a three-block area?
Who said a curfew was imposed for that?
That’s what it’ll turn into. “There was barely anything happening. A car got set on fire. There were 100 pictures of one car on fire and that makes it look like there were 100 cars on fire.”
A couple of people engaged in shenanigans. It was three blocks. It didn’t matter. The news media just like taking pictures of stuff on fire. There’s no reason to respond to it as if it were an insurrection.
Quinnipac poll on Trump:
New Quinnipiac poll: Pres approval 38-54, immigration policy 43-54, deportations 40-56.
https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3924
I think the Backlash is going to be against Trump, not the protestors or Dems. I don’t think Trump’s tactics are popular and I think most people see it as heavy-handed and authoritarian. I don’t think his Stalinesque Military Parade is popular. I don’t think it is popular that he threatened heavy force against anyone who protests it.
It is true that people generally don’t like disorder but Newsom is correct. Trump is the disorder.
Unfortunately, we are stuck with him for at least 3.5 more years
Trump’s use of troops in LA is unpopular: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-11-at-1.40.56%E2%80%AFPM.png