Some eight months after President Donald Trump’s election signaled an about-face to the zeitgeist of progressivism, views of the unrest on Los Angeles streets as either “protests” or “riots” seem to offer an apt bellwether on prevailing political winds.
As battles between demonstrators and police played out on screen, politicians and media figures clashed over whether the unfolding events are “mostly peaceful protests,” sparked by a series of immigration raids and exacerbated by President Trump’s mobilization of the National Guard, or “riots” instigated by radicals intent on destroying property and obstructing law enforcement.
The most consistent element of President Trump’s political career has been a restrictive stance on immigration, which resonated with a plurality of Americans after illegal crossings reached crisis levels during the Biden administration. But his move to deploy National Guard units on L.A. streets may have rubbed too many Americans the wrong way.
Los Angeles, a sanctuary city in a state with over one-fifth of the nation’s 12 million illegal immigrants, certainly offers a fitting test case.
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