By Jeffrey Blehar
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
What is there to add about the madness in Los Angeles
that has not been already said better by others here at National Review?
I advise you to read our house
editorial about the anti-ICE riots, as well as Jim
Geraghty’s pointed
thoughts from yesterday morning, because both capture
my feelings about the politics of this almost precisely.
Don’t talk to me about ICE activities in Los Angeles
being a “provocation.” People are here illegally; they must go. If you disagree
with me, then you fundamentally disagree with American law, and I am utterly
uninterested in the opinion of a political interlocutor who insists that these
particular laws are not important while those other ones are. The
precise reason ICE workplace raids are necessary in Southern California is
because the Democratic politics of “sanctuary cities” has turned the state into
a throbbing hive of uncontrolled illegal-alien activity. If Gavin Newsom and
Karen Bass want to argue that federal immigration law cannot be enforced within
the boundaries of California, then I am genuinely eager to see the Trump
administration force the issue. (I would also like to personally extend an
invitation to ICE: Feel free to come visit Chicago more often; we have great
Italian beef here.)
I am deeply unimpressed by the claims of some that these
riots were only a minor disturbance, or that they were “mostly peaceful” —
Chicagoland is enormous too, but if a bunch of protesters shut down the Dan
Ryan or started torching Waymos a block from the Daley Center, you can bet that
people would consider it a “citywide” affair. I am even less impressed by the
ham-handedly cynical rhetoric of politicians like Adam Schiff, who with his
public plea for peace emphasized that the rioting was bad primarily because it
Lets Trump Win. (Schiff: “Doing so plays directly into the hands of those who
seek to antagonize and weaponize the situation for their own gain.”) It would
be nice if California Democrats could oppose rioting because rioting is
inherently bad, but I’ve long since given up on such naïve fantasies.
In fact, the only thing that really impressed me at all
about the riot — in the sense that it stood out as a notable tell — was the
mixture of people it drew out onto the street. Many see urban protests and
civil unrest only online, through clips on social media or news reports, as
opposed to experiencing them. But when I say that I have seen this movie
before, I speak as a man who five years ago had a front-row seat I neither
requested nor could relinquish.
And one major detail I remember about the George Floyd
riots in Chicago was that the most violent street protesters — a very different
proposition from the later looters who took over — were usually white people
and/or “young activist” types, often flying flags for unrelated leftist
movements — not just LGBT symbols, which were ubiquitous, but the colors of
Palestine, Cuba, Soviet Russia, China, etc. Similarly, for all that the Los
Angeles riot was a notional protest against ICE, it was impossible not to notice
(as I doom-scrolled video after video from the various conflagrations) how
often keffiyehs and Palestinian flags competed with Mexican ones for pride of
place in the crowds. (There was usually at least one USSR flag or logo visible
in all scenes as well — Ol’ Reliable, as I like to think of it.)
Someone on Twitter/X described this phenomenon as “omnicause
leftism” — the way all the “Groups” tend to bleed together into one
indistinct blob of unregenerate nihilism when they meet and mix in the street.
This is a very old dynamic on the left; I well remember that post-10/7
pro-Palestinian protests in my own city were most heavily attended by
communist, socialist, and “workers” groups, and anyone old enough to remember
the days of International ANSWER and the Iraq War protests of the post-9/11 era
knows that such ideological confusion is practically part and parcel of left-wing
activist politics.
It’s important to understand how “the omnicause” informs
these sorts of civil disturbances. For every ten activists genuinely devoted to
the cause of illegal immigration, a hundred more young men and women will show
up just to feed off the energy of collected grievance, and they are almost
always the ones who show up ready for violence — because for them, the frisson
of the riot is the entire appeal, the point of the thing. What better or more
pathetic comment on the truth of this could there be than the fact that the Los
Angeles rioters were so desperate for something to showily set ablaze that they ordered
up their own autonomous self-driving cars to come
to the scene for their ritual obliteration?
None of this bodes well for the future. Trump has called
in the National Guard — without Gavin Newsom’s approval, a remarkably fraught
move — and the protesters are determined to continue with public shows of
resistance. Although the Guard will be involved primarily in securing
facilities (street-level enforcement will be left to the LAPD), I have little
doubt that at least a few activists dream of creating martyrs for their cause,
even if it means staging their own replay of Kent State. Let’s hope it doesn’t
come to that. But there is a point where the cosplay of radicalism becomes
commitment to actual deed, and we are swiftly approaching it.
David Hogg, My Hero
When I look at the havoc that Democratic National
Committee Vice Chairman David
Hogg has wrought upon his nominal party over the past
six months, I bow my head in a silent prayer
of thanks. I owe this man so much, literarily: He has given me the
opportunity to write piece after piece of joyfully savage mockery, allowing me to deploy every porcine
pun in the playbook as a bonus. I now regard this wispy man-child as my
creative muse; he is truly the gift that keeps on giving to Republicans and
comedians alike. And by gum, he’s done it again.
Because what David Hogg gives to Democrats, as
opposed to us, is reason to doubt the point of their continued existence. And
if current Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin’s word is anything
to go on, he is now at wits’ end himself, all because of his mutinous junior
associate. Politico broke
the news over the weekend:
Democratic National Committee
Chair Ken Martin told party leaders in a recent private conversation that he’s
unsure about his ability to lead the party because of infighting created by
Vice Chair David Hogg.
“I’ll be very honest with you,
for the first time in my 100 days on this job . . . the other night I said to
myself for the first time, I don’t know if I wanna do this anymore,” he said in
a May 15 Zoom meeting of DNC officers, according to a recording obtained by
POLITICO.
I can only hear this quote in the voice of Principal Seymour Skinner,
wailing in frustration about how out of touch he is. David Hogg’s youth
rebellion — and its impending quashing — has utterly killed Martin’s
credibility among the exact demographic that Democrats sought out David Hogg to
help them with. (“No, it’s the children who are wrong.”) And what makes this
cri de coeur that much sweeter is that Martin was speaking directly to Hogg
himself. Martin laments: “No one knows who the hell I am, right? . . . You
essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to.”
I can’t even say he’s wrong. And this is yet one more reason I am so grateful
to David Hogg, who not only gives me such joy, but saps the morale of all those
around him. There goes my hero, watch him as
he goes.
Greta Gets a Sandwich
Last Thursday I promised you, my readers, that I would
never write about activist
snot Greta Thunberg again. Now here I am, making a
liar out of myself almost immediately. But if you will allow me a brief
follow-up, I am disappointed to inform you that, as predicted, the
Israeli navy interdicted Thunberg’s “eco-friendly”
yacht along with the rest of the Freedom Flotilla without incident, before they
reached Gaza. All have been escorted to Israel, where they will be returned to
their home countries. Oh well.
The Israelis handled the entire affair with professional
dispatch and more than a bit of media savvy (all aboard looked appropriately
ridiculous). And you know what? I almost regret that, because I was hoping for
public humiliation on a grand scale. I was pulling for a memorably karmic
conclusion; I would have just let them land in Gaza — and abandoned them to
their fate. (“My advice is to head north as fast as you can. I wish you luck
with a capital F.”)
Or I was thinking that maybe the Israelis would prank
pro-Hamas protesters in the West by holding Thunberg hostage and making
demands. A friend talked me out of that one, however, by noting how swiftly
that would backfire when nobody wanted to bargain for her freedom. (Also:
Imagine how intolerable Greta Thunberg would be as a captive. Does “The Ransom of Red
Chief” translate properly in Swedish?)
Instead, the best we can get is a picture
of our young harridan sporting a blue rain slicker and
a dopey glaze-eyed grin as someone hands her a vacuum-sealed sandwich. Welcome
to Israel, Greta! Here’s your big reward! It was a fittingly anticlimactic
ending to an exercise in omphaloskepsis, even if I was hoping she might go out
in a blaze of glory, or at least petulant outrage.
And that did look like a pretty tasty sandwich. Maybe it
was worth it after all.
I Am Intrigued by Karine Jean-Pierre’s Fantasy World
and Wish to Subscribe to Her Newsletter
I already said pretty much everything I
felt needed to be said about the pathetic Karine
Jean-Pierre last week. That piece amounted to four paragraphs, which strikes me
as one more than she probably deserved. For those unaware, Joe Biden’s former
press secretary announced last week that she was writing a tell-all book, due
in the fall, titled Independent — and that she’s also leaving the
Democratic Party to become . . . an independent. That’s right: Ms. “Cheapfakes”
is now portraying herself as an iconoclast.
It’s a bold strategy for Jean-Pierre, whose muppet-like
demeanor and finger-wagging gaslighting made her the most prominent face of the
conspiracy to hide President Biden’s deteriorating condition from the public.
(Let’s see who’s convinced.) I do feel compelled to return for one last swipe
at this piñata, however, and this time without a blindfold; I wrote last week’s
piece in a contemptuous rush, and I regret not reading the fine print of her
pitch closely enough.
Because apparently Jean-Pierre is not making the argument
I expected — that the Democrats and Biden’s inner circle betrayed America by
concealing his mental and physical collapse. (I consider this to be an almost
axiomatic truth at this point.) No, apparently Jean-Pierre’s argument is that everybody
else betrayed Joe Biden. I kid you not: Until and unless she clarifies, it
seems we’re about to get a book whose thesis is that Joe Biden was stabbed in
the back and should’ve been allowed a fair shot at four more years.
Well now she’s got my attention! For once, I find myself
in complete agreement with Karine Jean-Pierre, insofar as I too would have
loved to see Republicans finally win Minnesota in a presidential election. (And
New Jersey. And New Mexico. And New Hampshire.) But I suspect her thesis is
going to be hard to sell to the rest of the nation in that case. Perhaps to
compensate, it will now leap to the top of my reading and reviewing list; I
love a ripping good fantasy yarn.
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