What is fueling the LA riots: Trump’s fascism or Newsom’s incompetence? | Opinion

Editor’s note: Welcome to Double Take, a regular conversation from opinion writers Melinda Henneberger and David Mastio tackling news with differing perspectives.

MELINDA: When L.A. really was burning, Donald Trump sent water, which was never an issue, somewhere else that it wasn’t needed.

When there really was an insurrection, intended to keep Himself in power illegally, he intentionally whipped up the mayhem, tweeting, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.” And only reluctantly, hours into cops being beaten and our democracy getting pooped on, literally and figuratively, did he ask his followers to maybe mosey on.

I’m not ever for looting or setting cars or anything else on fire, in Los Angeles or elsewhere.

But the response to protests against the ICE detention of day laborers in Home Depot parking lots is wildly disproportionate to what’s actually happening in Los Angeles. It may yet explode, as our arsonist president seems to be hoping it does. But for now, we’ve seen far worse, there and across the country, without calling in the military.

DAVID: I think you need to look a little more closely at what is happening in Los Angeles. Gov. Gavin Newsom was concerned enough that he sent in 800 more police officers and the police chief himself said that he was reconsidering whether the city needed help after the violence on Sunday.

Here’s what The New York Times reported: “Chief McDonnell, asked whether the National Guard was needed, said, “This thing has gotten out of control.” He said that although the LAPD would not have initially requested assistance from the National Guard, “looking at the violence today, I think we’ve got to make a reassessment.”

MELINDA: Oh, I’m looking closely. Today, for instance, I looked closely at the appalling sight of U.S. Senator Alex Padilla being physically pushed out of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s LA press conference. They threw down and handcuffed a U.S. senator for showing up to speak. Imagine how bummed her boys were that they couldn’t send him to El Salvador.

Here’s the proof that this whole exercise has nothing to do with quelling violence: “We are not going away,” Noem said at her news conference, which certainly did make news. “We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and burdensome leadership that this Gov. Newsom and this mayor,” Karen Bass, “placed on this country and tried to insert into this city.” She’s come right out and said this is a political operation, and an occupation.

It galls me, David, that some protesters are being charged with attacking local law enforcement in a time of civil unrest, which I guess means that unlike those who attacked local law enforcement officers on J6, they didn’t do it for Donald Trump and so won’t be pardoned later. And Trump has called these protesters “paid insurrectionists.” Unlike his insurrectionists, who did it for free? I’ll never forget the one poor Trumpist rioter who testified that a world in which Donald was not in charge was not a world worth living in.

DAVID: When I do this, our readers call it whataboutism. I agree the Jan. 6 insurrection was awful and Trump’s pardons, particularly of insurrectionists who assaulted police officers, were sickening. But that is no excuse for what is going on in Los Angeles.

MELINDA: Fair enough, but I said already that there’s no excuse for violence, there or anywhere. When I was watching Portland, Oregon, supposedly ablaze five years ago, my friends who live there said it was only like that on TV; they were having dinner outside blocks away from the nightly theatrical presentation and feeling no fear.

My former New York Times colleague Todd Purdum, who’s been in California for a long time now, told me that the way this current provocation is being broadcast to the nation is similarly cynical: “If you’re living in Los Angeles, you’re not afraid for your life.” Unless, of course, you’re a dreaded day laborer. Or somebody’s beloved nanny.

This is happening on a few streets and could have been handled by the city and state, except that it suited Trump’s agenda to pretend that only the U.S. Marines could address looting and cars on fire.

DAVID: So what do you want? A return to the open border policy of the Biden administration? I think there is a need to restore order to the immigration system and that starts with getting out millions of people who shouldn’t be here at all.

MELINDA: If you’ve spent any time at all in Southern California, you know that its economy would collapse without immigrant labor. Just like the economy in western Kansas, where the meatpacking industry couldn’t function, right? So much hypocrisy, so few willing to own what’s happening.

But maybe the failure of California’s economy is the goal? I wonder all the time what Trump hasn’t done, from canceling lifesaving medical research to smashing alliances, that I’d do if what I really wanted was America’s failure.

DAVID: Even with the flood of illegal labor, California’s economy is no great shakes under Newsom. The state hasn’t created a net new job outside government and government-funded sectors of the economy in years.

Well-off people are actually fleeing the state in droves to move to Texas and Florida while lower-income people move in. Major businesses are decamping, too.

One thing I would like to see Trump do is bring criminal charges against the businesses that are hiring all these undocumented workers. Those jobs are the magnet that brings them into the country in the first place.

MELINDA: I’m telling you, not only would Los Angeles be unable to build for the 2028 Olympics with no immigrant workers, but if you really were able to send everyone back, the whole country would suffer. They pay taxes and contribute so much in every way.

Of course ICE is already sweeping up innocents like that third grader in New York and a beloved waitress in Kennott, Missouri, and guys standing outside California Home Depots just waiting for work so they can feed their families. Because, as I’ve been saying forever, there were never going to be enough violent criminals to fulfill Trump’s promise of the mass deportation of 11 million people.

You could, of course, send people back to their countries without all this televised drama or ruinous trauma, like Barack Obama did, but what fun would that be? Obama deported 3.1 million in eight years, compared to the 1.2 million Trump deported in his first four.

This is America, so naturally there are protests. As an authoritarian — I think we can stop calling him an aspiring one — Donald Trump is happy for any excuse to shut down constitutionally-protected speech and the right to assemble. When, that is, it’s speech he doesn’t like and protesters who don’t agree with him, not only in California but everywhere. Because he’s definitely taking this show on the road after its world premiere in Los Angeles.

Turning the military on civilians is a horrible thought. But it’s not a shocking one, since Trump’s own people reported that during his first term, he asked why cops couldn’t just shoot peaceful protesters in the legs. What he wants to shut down is not really any violence; having pardoned even the J6 rioters who did the most harm, he’s shown that he’s OK with that.

Instead, he wants to stop expressions of disagreement with him.

DAVID: That’s baloney. The Gestapo isn’t showing up at critical columnists’ houses and taking them away to reeducation camps. Trump didn’t send in the National Guard until police cars were burning and immigration enforcement officers needed a backstop that local police couldn’t provide.

And Newsom has no problem sending in the National Guard to help law enforcement when he wants to do it. He sent hundreds into San Francisco and elsewhere to help deal with crime by backing police and prosecutors in the state. .

One thing I am worried about is sending in the Marines. National Guardsmen are rooted in the communities of the state they protect. The training and experience they have includes civil matters. Active duty Marines, on the other hand, are razor sharp at killing people and breaking things. That is a dangerous move.

MELINDA: Of course it is. It’s a move many applaud, and if you don’t think he’s trying to shut down dissent, listen again to what he says about anyone who would come out to disagree with the parade he’s throwing for himself this weekend: “If there’s any protester who wants to come out, they will be met with very big force. I haven’t even heard about a protest, but (there are) people that hate our country.”

To disagree with his disregard for the U.S. Constitution is the opposite of hating our country.

I’m going to spend his birthday covering the protest of some women living in a retirement home. To me, you have to love your country quite a lot to get out, as one of their daughters told me, “on their walkers and wheelchairs to protest the Medicaid cuts, birthday parade debacle, ICE tragedy, Ugly Bill, etc.”

The one thing I would really like to see come out of this disaster? I would love to see Trump debate Gavin Newsom, someone he has said should be arrested for doing a bad job.

This story was originally published June 12, 2025 at 11:07 AM with the headline "What is fueling the LA riots: Trump’s fascism or Newsom’s incompetence? | Opinion."