The Riot Apologists Are Confused

By Charles C. W. Cooke

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

 

Once he could no longer pretend that all was well on the streets of Los Angeles, Senator Adam Schiff of California put out a statement about the riots that were being staged in his state.

 

“Violence is never the answer,” Schiff wrote. “Assaulting law enforcement is never ok.”

 

This was welcome.

 

“Indeed,” he continued, “doing so plays directly into the hands of those who seek to antagonize and weaponize the situation for their own gain. Don’t let them succeed.”

 

This was not.

 

Sometimes, adding a caveat to a declarative message serves to attenuate — or even to completely undermine — that message. This was one of those times. As with statements of sympathy that begin with “I never liked him, but,” the attachment of political motivations to a set of supposedly categorical injunctions serves to wipe out any useful meaning and reveal that the words were uttered under duress. The problem with violence is violence. The problem with assaulting law enforcement is assaulting law enforcement. The problem is not that one’s political opponents might benefit from one’s sins. Adam Schiff is a United States senator. He ought to be capable of summarizing the country’s fundamental social compact without appending conditional terms.

 

Alas, neither he, nor the leading figures within his state’s government, nor the mayor of Los Angeles, nor the mainstream American press seem to possess that elementary skill. Since the “unrest” began, they have all been on a mission to confuse the key concepts in the story. Thus have “illegal immigrants” become “immigrants” — as if those two groups have identical relationships with the federal government. Thus have “riots” become “protests” — as if the existence of those who are not committing crimes erases the actions of those who are. Thus has the enforcement of federal law been treated as if it were the prerogative of the states. Chronology, too, has taken a real beating. On CNN yesterday, L.A.’s mayor, Karen Bass, proposed that “if you dial back time and go to Friday, if immigration raids had not happened here, we would not have the disorder that went on last night.” Which is true — but is less a defense of the rioters than a blunt description of their misdeeds.

 

This sophistry notwithstanding, there is nothing especially nuanced about what is happening in Los Angeles. One is not allowed to be an illegal immigrant under our laws, and if one becomes one nevertheless, one is liable to be deported. One is not allowed to riot, and if one does so anyway, one is liable to be arrested, charged, and prosecuted for one’s transgressions. And, as has now been definitively established on a handful of pretty famous occasions, one is not allowed to prevent the enforcement of federal law. It is true, no doubt, that many people in California do not like America’s immigration laws. It is also entirely irrelevant. There are many federal laws that the residents of Florida, Texas, and Wyoming dislike, too, but those residents are not permitted to impede them simply because a president of the opposing party has elected to execute them with vigor. Immigration is a federal concern. Under Printz v. United States, California is not required to aid Washington, D.C., in its administration of that concern, but it may not impede it, either. Mayor Bass is correct when she suggests that the rioters started rioting because the federal government started enforcing federal law, but she is wrong to imply that this complicates the responsibility for those riots. Rioting is illegal. Why a person is doing it is of no consequence whatsoever.

 

Aware, perhaps, that the facts are arrayed against them, many of the apologists for the riots have moved beyond the immediate debate and begun to insinuate that the whole affair has been contrived by the Trump administration as a pretext for the establishment of a dictatorship. Aside from being silly — clearly, what President Trump actually wants to do in this instance is to deport the illegal immigrants that federal agents were sent to California to find — this suffers from the same sequential problems as Mayor Bass’s half-witted lament. Intrinsic to the notion is the idea that, by responding to attacks on federal officials, the federal government is provoking attacks on federal officials. But this, quite obviously, is backwards. The California state guard has been called up for “the protection and safety of Federal personnel and property,” not for its own sake, but because the “safety of Federal personnel and property” was at risk. It is true that, as some legal scholars have preemptively observed, there would be some legitimate questions about the propriety of Trump’s using the 1807 Insurrection Act in these circumstances. But, as of yet, Trump has not used the 1807 Insurrection Act. Instead, he has used the powers inherent in Article II “to use troops for the protection of federal property and federal functions,” and the authority granted in 10 U.S.C. 12406 to mobilize the National Guard. Why? Because there are rioters in California attacking federal property and federal functions, and, as the head of the executive branch, he cannot stand for that.

 

So much of our contemporary politics involves our public figures pretending aloud that straightforward questions about the Constitution or the law or the structure of our government are, in fact, exquisitely convoluted. Most of the time, they are no such thing — and, in this case, the answers are so bloody obvious that only the worst strain of flunkies could miss them. There is one way — and only one way — to deescalate this situation, and that is for the people who are staging illegal riots to stop.