The Democrats are fanning the flames of the LA riots

Monday marked the fourth day of rioting in Los Angeles. The images from the streets are striking. Opponents of Donald Trump’s deportation policies have thrown rocks down on officers from freeway overpasses, hurled Molotov cocktails at police, set driverless taxis on fire, burned American flags, waved Mexican flags, and scrawled graffiti that reads ‘FUCK ICE’ – that is, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which conducts deportations. In response, police have used tear gas, ‘flash bang’ grenades and rubber bullets.

This mayhem started on Friday last week, when federal officials began immigration raids in LA. On Sunday, Trump ordered the deployment of California’s National Guard to protect federal agents and property. He did so without getting the approval of state governor Gavin Newsom – an unusual move by a US president, last done in 1965. Then, on Monday, defence secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly sent a Marine battalion to LA. It’s not clear when or how this will end.

With the city aflame, Newsom, along with LA mayor and fellow Democrat Karen Bass, expressed their anger – not at the rioters, but at Trump. Newsom said that Trump’s National Guard order was ‘an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act’. Bass said sending in the National Guard was ‘a chaotic escalation’. On Monday, Newsom, on behalf of the state of California, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for this deployment.

The Democratic Party’s narrative is that everything in LA was hunky-dory and peaceful until Trump gave his order on Sunday. ‘We didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved’, Newsom said in a post on X. CNN, which infamously described the George Floyd riots as ‘mostly peaceful’ in 2020, with scenes of flaming destruction in the background, describes the recent rioting in LA as ‘lawful protests’ with ‘some unrest’. The New York Times claims that ‘local law enforcement had kept protests over federal immigration raids, for the most part, under control’, prior to Trump’s order. ABC News says the original street battles in LA were no big deal, ‘just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn’, before Trump sent in the National Guard.

Of course, nowadays, we all have access to video and news reports from different media, and don’t have to rely on the likes of CNN and the New York Times. So we know that Newsom and his media friends are gaslighting us. The images of bedlam on the streets of LA showed that the city was not ‘under control’ prior to Trump’s intervention. Los Angeles police chief Jim McDonnell has admitted as much, saying his officers were ‘overwhelmed’.

Various Democrat politicians and officials view Trump’s deployment of the National Guard as a ‘provocation’ to violence. Former vice-president Kamala Harris says the LA demonstrators were ‘overwhelmingly peaceful’ and condemns Trump’s move as a ‘dangerous escalation meant to provoke chaos’. Kamala and other Democrats’ notion of provocation is a curious one. It’s not obvious why ‘overwhelmingly peaceful’ people would feel compelled to start throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails, just because National Guard troops turned up to protect a federal building. Rioters, according to the Democrats, just can’t help themselves.

The riots place a new spotlight on Trump’s deportation policy, but it’s worth noting that this policy is not as radical as the Democrats claim. Immigration enforcement carried out at homes and workplaces has been standard practice under Democratic and Republican administrations alike. Barack Obama deported more migrants over his two terms than every previous president combined, but there were few protests and no riots. Trump deported over 1.5million in his first term and, even with ICE’s recent actions in his second term, it will be difficult for him to reach Obama’s total number of deportations.

Trump’s deportation policy should come as no surprise, as immigration was the number one issue he campaigned on during the 2024 election. Democrats call Trump an undemocratic authoritarian, but when it comes to the issue of immigration, Trump has democracy on his side. He has an electoral mandate, and his ICE agents are simply enforcing the laws made by elected officials. And despite all of the fearmongering and ginned-up controversy from his opponents, a majority of Americans approve of the deportations, according to a recent poll.

In contrast, Democrats clearly believe there is little if any justification for enforcing immigration law. The Biden administration adopted a de facto open-borders policy and – in defiance of the law – allowed 10million (or more) people to enter the US illegally. Many protesters on the streets of LA today oppose the deportation of all illegal immigrants, including the removal of criminals. Democrats in LA and other cities have established ‘sanctuary city’ policies, prohibiting any local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE. Newsom, Bass and others who complain about Trump’s ‘lawlessness’, while endorsing ‘sanctuaries’ from the law, don’t have a leg to stand on.

Democratic politicians’ extreme rhetoric has encouraged protesters to take more radical stands in opposition to ICE. Minnesota governor Tim Walz called ICE officers the ‘Gestapo’, while other Democrats routinely refer to them as ‘fascists’ and ‘Nazis’. Mayors from cities like Newark and Boston have called on their supporters to escalate their ‘resistance’.

It’s transparent that Newsom and other Democrats are trying to use the LA riots to their political advantage. They hope the riots will focus public attention on Trump’s deportation policies, which they claim are cruel. Newsom hopes that others will agree with him that Trump’s deployment of the National Guard is ‘an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism that threatens the foundation of our republic’.

But such hopes fly in the face of reality. The fact is, the Democrats have not convinced Americans that all immigration enforcement must be opposed. That viewpoint was rejected at the ballot box last year. In blaming Trump for the chaos on LA’s streets, Democrats are deflecting attention away from their own lawless border policies, and many will see through that. Instead, voters will likely conclude that the Democrats have a soft spot for rioters. The optics of appearing to side with those who burn cars and attack law enforcement while waving Mexican flags are particularly bad for the Democrats, and they seem oblivious to that.

The situation in LA is volatile, and events on the streets could change public perceptions. It’s possible the National Guard or Marines will be goaded into over-reacting. But at this moment, Trump appears as the sole defender of law and order, and indeed democracy. Not for the first time, Democrats have handed him the moral high ground, even if they don’t realise it.

Sean Collins is a writer based in New York. Visit his blog, The American Situation.