(Daily Signal)—Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. This weekend we saw rioting in Los Angeles against Immigration and Customs Enforcement for its efforts to apprehend illegal aliens and employers who were hiring illegal aliens.
And the riots started out initially without very many numbers but then they turned violent. And by violence, I would define that as throwing rocks at cars, torching cars, defacing government buildings, and attacking law enforcement.
But here’s what’s interesting. The mayor, Karen Bass, came down, in her public comments, on the side of the protesters who were protesting the idea of deportation at all. Kind of like former Vice President Kamala Harris used to march against deportation.
And California Gov. Gavin Newsom then gave a series of editorializations that I think have ruined his chances ever to be a serious national candidate. He said this was “chaotic,” this was “reckless.” And he said that they were just trying to have “an arbitrary” deportation “quota.”
Gavin, 12 million people came into the country illegally. That was 3 million a year. That was 250,000 per month. That was over 8,000 a day. They have not been able to deport more than a thousand on most days—sometimes 500. They would have to deport 8,000 people every single day for four years to get back where we were with 20 million illegal aliens when President Joe Biden entered office. So, it’s not a quota, it’s an effort to stop an invasion.
And it’s a very funny invasion because now Gavin is mad that they nationalized the California guard. President Donald Trump has that ability. And people said, “No. No president—they have to request it.” No, they don’t. You think that JFK said to George Wallace, when he nationalized the Alabama National Guard, said, “Would you please let us nationalize your guard so you can be removed from stopping African American people going to the University of Alabama?” No.
So, what I’m getting at is, on one side of these violent acts, you have these protesters. And I’ll just give a word of advice. You’re going to lose the optics—Democrats, the Left, and immigration protesters—if you have a lot of people here illegally and they’re waving, not the American flag, but the Mexican flag, as they’re committing acts of violence.
Think of the logic: “I am waving the flag of the country under no circumstances I want to return, but I am attacking the officers and the infrastructure of the country that under every circumstance I want to stay in.”
That might explain why, in the midst of all of this negative publicity, a CBS poll taken to show that people were outraged showed that just the opposite: 54% of the American people are for continued deportations.
So, you know what is really “reckless,” Gavin? You know what is “chaotic?” It’s you. You. You. You. You did not intervene to stop the violence.
Donald Trump does not want to see a May, June, July, August, September 2020 $2 billion in property damage, 35 people killed, 1,500 officers assaulted, $14,000 in arrests, precinct burned, courthouse burned, historic church burned. He doesn’t want to see that.
And you’re egging this on. And you think it’s going to be peaceful when people throw rocks at cars, innocent bystanders and people wave the flag as they burn things—the Mexican flag of a foreign country. You are undermining your own argument.
And what is your argument? I don’t know what it is. What is your argument, Karen Bass, the mayor—now that you’re not in Ghana and you’re here in the United States during a burning? Is it burning is OK, whether it’s burning a car or burning a whole neighborhood down? And you don’t act.
It was pathetic, the chief of police of Los Angeles, I felt like it was some Soviet apparatchik, he was saying, ”There is no violence. We are very proud of First Amendment.” And it’s like, I was given a text that my job is in danger, probably, if I say the truth because meanwhile, the LA County sheriff was saying, “We’re going to warn you that we will stop this. And we will make arrests. And we will use tear gas.”
And apparently, they saw a different riot. And they were more in charge of that area of the rioting than the Los Angeles Police Department.
But I guess Mayor Bass—they’re scared, the LA police chief and the police hierarchy. Because they see that when the fire chief objected to Mayor Bass being on—I don’t know—a junket, or the deputy mayor being arrested for phoning in a bomb threat, or the water and power director leaving a reservoir that was critical to the survival of Pacific Palisades empty and unattended for months and fire hydrants not working and she voiced—they fired her.
So, I guess this police chief says, “If I tell the truth that these people are violent and they are assaulting officers and the mayor is doing nothing and the governor is doing nothing, I will be fired. So, I will lie and say it’s mostly—I am really impressed by the restraint of the protesters.”
Final bottom line: If you take an oath to enforce the laws of your state or the country and you see people swarming detention centers, swarming the streets, obstructing traffic, burning cars, trying to injure people with rocks, and you do nothing, then you are forsaking your oath of office.
And secondly: Mayor Bass, Gov. Newsom, would you please tell us what is your position on 12 million people who entered the United States illegally, who are residing illegally at a time when the country is running a $2 trillion deficit and your state, at one point, recently owed $75 billion that it did not have?
What is your solution? Is it to let one more million in? Three more million in? Five more million in? What is it? What is your solution to find the 300,000 to 500,000 people believed to have criminal records? Just tell us, what is your solution?
What is your solution when you have, apparently, violent protesters waving the flag of a foreign national country as a way of persuading us that we should not deport them when they are burning things and committing violence about the country they want to stay in but waving the flag of the country they do not want to return to?
What is the position of the Mexican government? Because I can tell you that there is a bill right now—the big, beautiful bill—that will tax remittances, the $63 billion.
And all this is going to do is give rise to voices who will say, “I think we need a higher percentage to tax these remittances because they’re not getting the message. The people who are demonstrating and violent apparently think that we are going to subsidize them with social services, to free up money so they can send to Mexico, on tax, $63 billion—their greatest source of foreign exchange—while they run $170 billion trade surplus, while the cartels kill between 60,000 and 80,000 Americans.” That’s an unsustainable situation, as are these riots.
Bottom line: I think, Gavin Newsom, you took your recent effort to be moderate, centrist, your podcast, and you lit a fuse and you blew it up. Nobody in their right mind would ever vote for you for anything after you went into a volatile, dangerous situation and tried to pour gasoline on it by essentially saying you, the governor, will not do anything to restore order or quiet. And you sided with people committing violence against their fellow residents of Los Angeles.
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