Regarding the city of Los Angeles, you do, in fact, gotta hand it to them
Issuing a correction on a previous post of mine
It’s a tight race in the NL West right now, which is kinda fun, right? The Dodgers, Giants, and Padres are separated by two games, and just one in the loss column. The Giants are still right there in it, despite their utter inability to perform the moderately important work of scoring runs. The Padres have weathered disappointing seasons from Dylan Cease, Xander Bogaerts, and whoever’s in left field today. The Dodgers have maintained their hold on first place, even though every pitcher on their roster immediately gets injured and curses the day he was born.
This is because the Dodger strategy is to teach pitchers the craziest pitches they can, at high velocity with ridiculous movement, and these pitches break their pitchers’ arms, and then they call up a new pitcher who learned a crazy pitch at high velocity with ridiculous movement. Do the Giants really think they have a chance against that, even with Dom Smith in the lineup?
I mean, hell yeah they do, Dom Smith forever, 25 homer season incoming, but we’re not actually talking about that today. We’re not going to slam the Dodgers at all, other than the thing about their pitcher development program. We’re not going to call them servants of evil or depraved soulless monsters or avatars of America’s decline.
Because there are servants of evil in Los Angeles. There are depraved, soulless monsters. There are avatars of America’s decline. And they’re not the Dodgers. They’re all fucking cops.
A quick recap: ICE, having trouble finding criminals to deport in Los Angeles, started going to Home Depot to pick up day laborers. Angelinos started protesting. People agreed that these protests were peaceful, but they were also effective. ICE was not able to deport as many Dudes Who Just Wanted To Work as they wanted. This was, apparently, a problem for anyone besides them, so Trump called in the National Guard over California’s objections. Then, because Trump hadn’t escalated the situation enough, he called in the Marines. The protests grew much, much bigger. And now here we are.
None of this had to happen. The only reason that this is a story at all is that Donald Trump chose to escalate at every turn against imaginary enemies. ICE did not have to scour the Earth to find people to deport. They could have simply never done that. They did not have to go to Home Depot. They did not have to go to elementary schools. They did not have to go to immigration court. No part of that ever had to happen, except Donald Trump is a racist who has surrounded himself with racist people and racist media for decades, and so he wants to look racist and do racist things while also whining whenever he’s described as a racist.
Once protesters showed up, ICE could have just left. There was no need for this to be a story. They could have gone to another city and done the same thing. It would have been immoral and repugnant, because ICE is immoral and repugnant, but there was nothing stopping them from backing down. Instead, they didn’t, and the protests grew. Still peaceful, but larger.
Then Donald Trump chose to send in the National Guard and the Marines. At this point, it is impossible to come to any conclusion other than he wants a fight. He wants to see protesters get the shit beaten out of them. He wants Americans to suffer because he thinks it makes him look tough. He wants Americans to suffer because he thinks they deserve it for opposing him.
This is, in every way, a profound betrayal of the country and its people. This isn’t a surprise, of course; the man tried to incite a coup in 2021 in order to avoid the consequences of losing an election, which was also a profound betrayal of the country and its people. At his core, this is Donald Trump’s character: he’s a cowardly sack of shit who does not believe it is possible for him to lose, and can’t stand it when people think that’s what happened.
He is, in other words, a spoiled rich kid who’s never had to face the consequences of his own actions. I think that’s instructive as to why he’s acting the way he is: he thinks he’s gonna win. “Winning” is a vague, nebulous concept that Trump redefines as he sees fit in order to make himself look better. Take these LA protests. Even if Trump gets nothing he wants, and the military and National Guard both back down, and Mexicans are again free to stand on corners outside home improvement stores where they’ll be available to patch your stucco, Trump will just say he won and the media will uncritically report it. Just about anyone with any national platform has tacitly agreed to live in the Trump reality distortion field, and they intend to live up to that.
This is why deploying the Marines domestically — deploying the Marines domestically! — is not being treated as a scandal. This is literally a crossing the Rubicon moment, in that the phrase “crossing the Rubicon” refers to a time that Julius Caesar, in order to escape prosecution for various crimes he had committed, defied centuries of precedent to bring a military force to bear against any Romans who opposed him in the Roman heartland. Usually the phrase is less directly applicable than in this case, but at its heart is the simple truth that you do not come back from using military force against your own people.
Within a generation of that, the Roman Republic was dead, by the way. Seems important to note.
We are, of course, not the 1st century BCE Roman Republic, which was an expanding power that was ascendant in the Mediterranean. We have been the preeminent power in the world for 80 years, and are much further along in our life cycle than that. We are certainly in a much later phase, having lost much of what we were, desperately clinging to what we have.
We have abandoned our ties to each other, our belief in a world outside of ourselves, and our belief in the future. We are tearing ourselves apart out of greed and racism and ignorance and laziness. And for what? So rich people can keep getting richer without anyone ever telling them they’re wrong about anything. So white people can recite stereotypes about every other race and tell themselves they’re superior. So we don’t have to look in the mirror and see who we really are.
And that’s what Los Angeles is fighting, and why Los Angeles should be proud. They are being invaded without being told it’s an invasion, being attacked without a declaration of war. Journalists are being arrested for journalism, union leaders are being detained for nothing, and citizens are being told they can’t be in their city. A wannabe authoritarian is trying to flex his muscle, and right now, it’s not working. That’s a tribute to the spirit of LA.
Here’s to you, Los Angeles. You’re right, and you’ll always be right. Keep fighting as long as it takes, in as many places as it takes. You’ve got this, just like Dom Smith.
Any economist will tell you we need those "illegal immigrants." Everything from our population growth, construction and agricultural industries, tax revenue, etc will suffer if they are deported. Secure boarders? Sure. But also make a rational immigration policy! But that would require serious leaders though and that is why it won't happen.
We are all going down the toilet of an over grown rich fail son and his unique ability to rally uneducated people to him based on his celebrity and unearned wealth status. His vile authoritarian outlook on the world derives entirely from his own self loathing and as you say never having been held accountable for anything. This feels like an inescapable hell for at least three more years. Turns out running the 18th best educational system for decades has consequences.
Hear, hear, Maestro!
Luv that Rubicon allusion!!
Beat L.A... NOT!!!