Aux Barricades! (Los Angeles Edition)

City of Angels—City of Insurrection.

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You may recall how Democrats and progressives wrung their hands and wept over the injuries suffered by US Capitol Police officers on January 6, 2022. It made a nice change from their Defund the Police! rhetoric, didn’t it? I have to say, however, that at the time, I doubted whether it denoted a genuine change of heart.

And I was right to be doubtful.

As I write, there’s an insurrection underway in Los Angeles. Violent mobs are attempting to prevent federal law enforcement officers from doing their job. Those officers are ICE agents, and their job is to apprehend illegal immigrants, in accordance with US immigration law. But in the eyes of the Left, not all laws are created equal—and any law that gets crosswise with the ideology of the comrades can and must be trampled underfoot.

The ridiculous governor of California and the absurd mayor of Los Angeles have decried the presence of ICE on the streets of LA. They describe it as a “provocation,” engineered by the nefarious Trump Administration. And they insist that state and local law enforcement have the situation well in hand. “LA authorities are able to access law enforcement assistance at a moment’s notice,” Governor Newsome claimed.

But this was a lie. To be clear, the mob physically assaulted ICE agents in an attempt to prevent them from doing their duty. And yesterday, LA chief of police Jim McDonnell admitted that his department is “overwhelmed.”

Last evening, thousands of anti-ICE rioters rampaged through the city. They blocked traffic on a major freeway. In downtown LA they detonated fireworks and torched vehicles. “Tonight, we had individuals out there shooting commercial-grade fireworks at our officers. That can kill you,” McDonnell said during a press conference. “They’ll take a backpack, and the backpack will have a cinderblock in it,” he continued. “They’ll break up the cinderblock and use that, pass it around to throw at officers, to throw at cars and other people.” Three LA County sheriff’s deputies were injured when a rioter hurled a Molotov cocktail at them.

This, you see, is what the comrades mean when they talk about defending “our democracy”: violent rioting to prevent the deportation of criminal illegal immigrants.

The Trump Administration’s response to the situation has been forceful: Two thousand troops of the California Army National Guard have been called into federal service and deployed against the rioters. Governor Gavin Newsome decried this as “purposefully inflammatory” and made out that it “will only escalate tensions.” But since tensions were already high enough to trigger attacks on federal law enforcement officers, it’s clear that he’s living in some alternate reality. Here in the real world, radical leftists are attempting to prevent the federal government from enforcing federal law, and the governor of California is on their side. So are other California Democrats. One can only marvel at the party’s fatal attraction to the wrong side of eighty-twenty issues.

As for the dysfunctional mayor of LA, Karen Bass had this to say in an official statement released on June 6:

This morning, we received reports of federal immigration enforcement actions in multiple locations in Los Angeles. As Mayor of a proud city of immigrants, who contribute to our city in so many ways, I am deeply angered by what has taken place. These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city. My Office is in close coordination with immigrant rights community organizations. We will not stand for this.

Got that? Enforcing federal law in her city is terrorism. And Mayor Bass won’t stand for it. That sure sounds like an insurrection to me!

These riots in Los Angeles and the nationwide spike in assaults on ICE officers come after Democratic politicians, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Mayor Michelle Wu of Boston, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, and others made statements denouncing the Trump Administration’s enforcement of US immigration laws and smearing ICE officers as Nazis and stormtroopers. Jeffries went into a lunatic rant over masked ICE officers and vowed that their identities will be revealed—presumably so that they and their families can be doxed and targeted by radical activists.

We have here a teachable moment. Clearly, all that leftist handwringing over the cops who were injured on January 6, all those paeans of praise for that day’s heroes of law enforcement, was hypocritical bullshit. With few exceptions, Democrats and progressives could not care less about the men and women who have the thankless task of policing America. And why would they? Since the summer of 2020, their behavior has made plain the fact that they represent the party of lawlessness and mob action—provided that the mobs are rioting in support of Palestine and Gaza, illegal immigrants, climate activism, or some other approved cause. Whole city blocks were burned down in the name of George Floyd!

Hilariously, Newsom has said that he plans to sue the Trump Administration over its federalization of the California ARNG. But the Governor’s lawyers will have to get creative. Ensuring the enforcement of federal law is a core presidential duty. And Trump could also invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, which empowers the president to federalize the National Guard for the purpose of suppressing civil disorder, insurrection, or armed rebellion.

In Los Angeles, with the connivance of state and local officials, radical activists are attempting to prevent enforcement of federal law, and that sure looks like an insurrection to me!