Fox News’ depiction of the protests that began in and around Los Angeles over the weekend is a grim fantasy — but one that encourages President Donald Trump to realize his vision of U.S. troops crushing left-wing dissent.
Prime-time host Jesse Watters laid out his network’s dominant narrative in a Monday night monologue.
“Democrats are causing mayhem in their cities, so when Trump restores order, they can label him a dictator and stir up even more hatred and violence against him,” Watters alleged. “They're burning their own cities just to prove to their bloodthirsty base that they're fighting Trump in the streets, burning their own cities for power.”
None of this is true. The LA immigration protests are an organic response to Trump’s dramatic escalation of immigration enforcement. Democratic politicians have vocally opposed the riots that have sometimes accompanied those protests. That rioting, while deplorable, has not engulfed the city. But Trump has used it as a pretext to deploy U.S. troops for the confrontation with protesters he has long sought.
It is a core function of the government to maintain order on the streets and enforce the laws. That is properly the responsibility of officials like Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who have condemned the rioting, attacks on law enforcement, and destruction of property that at times have occurred amid the protests and called for legal accountability for perpetrators.
By suggesting that those officials are instead actively supporting riots, while inflating the extent of those riots, Fox is creating a justification for Trump to step in. And given Trump’s drive to dominate his perceived enemies and his glorification of state violence, that could end very badly.
Immigration protests are an organic response to Trump’s escalation of enforcement
The Wall Street Journal published on Tuesday an extensive investigation of what it termed “The White House Marching Orders That Sparked the L.A. Migrant Crackdown.”
The story details how White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller — disappointed by a pace of daily deportations that was below what the Biden administration attained last year — instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens” at targets like Home Depot and 7-Eleven.
According to the Journal, “ICE agents appeared to follow Miller’s tip and conducted an immigration sweep Friday at the Home Depot in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Westlake in Los Angeles, helping set off a weekend of protests around Los Angeles County, including at the federal detention center in the city’s downtown.”
The story also provides this summary of the extraordinary tactics the Trump administration has used to try to increase its deportation numbers:
Federal agents make warrantless arrests. Masked agents take people into custody without identifying themselves. Plainclothes agents in at least a dozen cities have arrested migrants who showed up to their court hearings. And across the U.S., people suspected of being in the country illegally are disappearing into the federal detention system without notice to families or lawyers, according to attorneys, witnesses and officials.
Trump won the 2024 presidential election while promising an agenda of mass deportation. But the naked cruelty and questionable legality of these policies will inevitably spur dissent, and some who oppose them will exercise their First Amendment rights to speak out against them, including at public protests.
Democratic politicians don't support rioting that sometimes accompanied those protests
The civic core of Los Angeles has seen unacceptable levels of violence over the past several days. As the Los Angeles Times reported, “Protests have devolved into clashes with police and made-for-TV scenes of chaos: Waymo taxis on fire. Vandals defacing city buildings with anti-police graffiti. Masked men lobbing chunks of concrete at California Highway Patrol officers keeping protesters off the 101 Freeway.”
That rioting, according to LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, was caused not by “the people that we see here in the day who are out there legitimately exercising their First Amendment rights,” but “by masked ‘anarchists’ who he said were bent on exploiting the state of unrest to vandalize property and attack police.”
Fox propagandists like Watters, echoing Trump administration officials, have suggested that Democrats could instantly make the rioting stop but are refusing to do so because they support the violence.
They don’t offer evidence for this Democratic support for rioting. Democratic leaders have rightfully and repeatedly condemned the violence targeting law enforcement and destruction of property as anathema, as a simple perusal of their X accounts reveals. In addition to denouncing such tactics on their merits, they frequently point out that rioting plays into Trump’s hands.
Newsom’s messages to the public over the last few days have included:
Bass has likewise said:
Their statements are not anomalous. Sen. Alex Padilla’s (D-CA) “message to the people in LA” is “keep speaking out and protest peacefully.” His colleague Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) posted, “Los Angeles — violence is never the answer. Assaulting law enforcement is never ok.” Other caucus members who are as ideologically diverse as Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are on the same page, calling for peaceful protest while condemning violence. Indeed, the lack of support for rioting has led to condemnations of the Democratic Party from the left.
No one in a position of authority in the Democratic Party is following the path that Trump and his supporters at Fox took after the January 6 insurrection by making excuses for rioting and paving the way to pardon the offenders.
These riots, while deplorable, have not engulfed the city
Right-wing pundits have suggested that journalists are minimizing the violence by pointing out that the protests are occurring in a tiny fraction of a massive city where the vast majority of residents are unaffected by any violence that has occurred. But the scope of the problem really does matter in determining the appropriate government response.
Trump claimed on Sunday that Los Angeles “has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals” and that action is needed “to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots.” On Monday, an official Defense Department social media account reported that “Los Angeles is burning, and local leaders are refusing to respond.”
The more extensive the destruction, the more justification there is for federal action.
In 1992, for example, President George H.W. Bush deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles in response to days of widespread rioting following the acquittal of the police officers who were videotaped beating Rodney King. Time reported of the LA riots:
Over the course of several days, more than 60 people died, while another 2,000 were injured. More than 1,000 buildings were defaced, leading to damages that amounted to some $1 billion.
Bush called up the National Guard under the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the President to deploy the typically state-controlled military force in certain situations involving invasions or insurrections, on the third day of the riots.
“What followed Wednesday's jury verdict in the Rodney King case was a tragic series of events for the city of Los Angeles: Nearly 4,000 fires, staggering property damage, hundreds of injuries, and the senseless deaths of over 30 people,” Bush said in an address at the time. He went on to announce the commitment of thousands of additional troops to the city “to help restore order” at the behest of the governor and mayor, and the federalization of the National Guard.
The violence against law enforcement and property damage that has occurred since Friday is unacceptable, and the governor and mayor are right to try to control the chaos. It’s also not on the scale of the Rodney King riots, happening over what amounts to a handful of city blocks, as these graphics from The New York Times show.
But Trump has responded in unprecedented fashion. He has federalized and deployed roughly 4,000 soldiers of the California National Guard, an order the state called “unlawful” and that Newsom said came without the president “conferring with the state.”
He also deployed 700 U.S. Marines, which “are typically not trained or equipped to deal with civil disturbances,” as retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré told Task and Purpose. Absent clear coordination, the arrival of those forces “presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us tasked with safeguarding this city,” according to McDonnell.
Trump is determined to get an escalation
The president has been described as a fascist by those who served at the highest levels of his first administration, including his former White House chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, as well as by Gen. Mark Milley, who served under him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He promised on the campaign trail to “root out the communist, Marxist, fascist and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,” and floated using the National Guard or even the military against “the enemy from within,” which he described as “radical left lunatics.”
He reportedly considered invoking the Insurrection Act during the 2020 civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd, was rebuffed by Esper and Milley, and said that he regretted not “immediately” sending in the military.
He has selected more pliant defense officials for his second term, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox host who supported the domestic deployment of the military and is known for defending U.S. service members who had been accused and convicted of war crimes.
Trump has praised the Chinese government’s murderous response to student protesters at Tiananmen Square, saying it showed “the power of strength,” and has repeatedly urged law enforcement officers to use rougher, more brutal tactics in dealing with those they apprehend.
And the president does not appear to observe a distinction between peaceful protest and violent riot — if the perpetrators aren’t his supporters, it’s all insurrection to him.
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.
