Lots of troops, not enough rebellion, short on spectacle, what insurrection?
Crowds and LEOs nearly equal in number, "Dozens of protesters are leaving the complex of federal buildings in downtown Los Angeles and are spilling out onto nearby streets."
The contours of the ‘crisis’ are now clearer in Los Angeles. ICE raids will likely continue, even if the Trumpian incompetence will not deport the 380,000+ undocumented persons in Los Angeles County. This will happen despite Trump’s need for greater repression short of deploying conventional US troops in search and destroy missions.
Much like the first term, there are made-for-TV stunts that simply don’t reach the level of spectacle. Much like the planned 14 June birthday parade, the spectacle will fall short, like Trump-planned events such as the GOP conventions. Trump’s hope for some media coverage like the Rodney King police acquittal riots probably will come when the Zoot Suit returns into fashion.
People went to their regular day jobs rather than protesting. Law enforcement has prevented demonstrators from shutting down freeways.
So far, any organized protest has been appropriately controlled, with skirmishes between law-enforcement and police limited to suspicions that protesters waving Mexican national flags must be the overflow staff from those folks who spin arrow-shaped promotional signs on the sides of the road.
Kristi Noem calls Los Angeles a “city of criminals” “They are not city of immigrants, they are a city of criminals”
...actually, it’s more like a WWE preshow
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said he is concerned that U.S. President Donald Trump will use the unrest in Los Angeles as a "pretext" for "imposing martial law".
Blumenthal is working on legislation to limit presidential powers for troop deployments inside the U.S., an issue he has raised before. He wants to overhaul the Insurrection Act of 1792, seeing it as too broad in scope.
Trump has deployed 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles, in defiance of the wishes of state and local leaders, after protests against federal immigration raids descended into riots and looting.
"As Trump moves to expand military deployments, possibly using protests in L.A. as a pretext for more broadly silencing free speech or even imposing martial law, I'll be reintroducing reforms to the Insurrection Act that check potential abuse or overreach," Blumenthal posted to X, formerly Twitter, late Monday.
The Democratic Senator told POLITICO separately: "The mainstream of America really believes deeply that our military should be used to defend our national interests and security, not to silence protest at home."
www.newsweek.com/...
Jake Auchincloss @JakeAuch “I was a Marine officer stationed in Twentynine Palms. The president's deployment of those Marines to police Los Angeles violates posse comitatus and puts these officers in an impossible situation. Congress owes them reforms to posse comitatus, which generally prevents the president from using the military for domestic law enforcement. Here's a path.
Mayor Bass disparaged violent demonstrators, saying that most organizations that have fought for immigrant rights in Los Angeles for years have engaged in peaceful protest. But she said that she had made the case to the White House that the provocative decision to send the National Guard “would be like a deliberate attempt to create disorder and chaos in our city. It was very predictable what was going to happen, and it was completely unnecessary. This was a solution in search of a problem.”
Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles said she had spoken to the Trump administration, but not to the president directly. She urged the administration to stop the immigration raids, which have angered protesters. “Last Thursday, there was nothing happening in this town that called for the raids that took place on Friday,” she said. “Nothing was happening. Nothing warranted the raids.”
www.nytimes.com/...
Tom Nichols has it right:
By militarizing the situation in L.A., Trump is goading Americans more generally to take him on in the streets of their own cities, thus enabling his attacks on their constitutional freedoms. As I’ve listened to him and his advisers over the past several days, they seem almost eager for public violence that would justify the use of armed force against Americans.
The president and the men and women around him are acting with great ambition in this moment, and they are likely hoping to achieve three goals in one dramatic action.
First, they will turn America’s attention away from Trump’s many failures and inane feuds, and reestablish his campaign persona as a strongman who will brush aside the law if that’s what it takes to keep order in the streets. Perhaps nothing would please Trump more than to replace weird stories about Elon Musk with video of masked protesters burning cars as lines of helmeted police and soldiers march over them and impose draconian silence in one of the nation’s largest and most diverse cities.
Second, as my colleague David Frum warned this morning, Trump is establishing that he is willing to use the military any way he pleases, perhaps as a proof of concept for suppressing free elections in 2026 or 2028. Trump sees the U.S. military as his personal honor guard and his private muscle...
During the George Floyd protests in 2020, Trump was furious at what he saw as the fecklessness of military leaders determined to thwart his attempts to use deadly force against protesters. He’s learned his lesson: This time, he has installed a hapless sycophant at the Pentagon who is itching to execute the boss’s orders.
Third, Trump may be hoping to radicalize the citizen-soldiers drawn from the community who serve in the National Guard. ... He may be hoping to set neighbor against neighbor, so that the people called to duty return to their home and workplace with stories of violence and injuries.
www.theatlantic.com/…
GROK
The LA protests in June 2025 aren't solely peaceful. Reports show peaceful rallies, like those supporting David Huerta, but also violent acts, including 50 arrests, property damage, and Waymo robotaxis torched. The threat isn't just from police; protesters threw bottles and blocked streets, escalating clashes. Police used tear gas and rubber bullets, criticized as excessive, and National Guard deployment stirred controversy. Both sides contribute to the tension, making a one-sided label inaccurate.
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