Trump lied about LA protests to deploy the National Guard. He wants violence.
Donald Trump, the president who glibly pardoned the men and women convicted in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021, wants you to believe that the second most populated city in America is in ruins, destroyed by 'insurrectionist mobs.'
That's nonsense. Trump inhabits an imaginary, dystopian America spun from his opportunistic lies.
The president wants you to believe, because it's politically expedient for him, that predominantly peaceful protests in Los Angeles over intentionally provocative raids by agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency are vast and violent. He wants you to believe that Los Angeles has burned. He wants you to believe that, as he posted on social media June 8, 'violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents,' and that the city is under siege from a 'Migrant Invasion.'
I'll say it again: Our president inhabits an imaginary, dystopian America spun from his opportunistic lies.
After promising to target 'criminals,' Trump's administration, to make up for the paltry number of actual criminals ICE agents have been able to find and deport, has resorted to going after immigrants waiting for work in Home Depot parking lots.
It's targeting immigrants who are properly following the immigration process, posting ICE agents outside courthouses to snatch noncriminals who are seeking a better life.
It's making a point of hitting a liberal city with a large immigrant population for one reason and one reason alone: Trump wants violence.
He wants you to believe there are hordes of murderous immigrants making America dangerous and unlivable. He used that baseless imagery to justify ordering National Guard troops to Los Angeles, against the wishes of the California governor. Trump wants to normalize this kind of power grab.
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Because that's the kind of power you want if you exist in an imaginary version of America spun from opportunistic lies.
Republican leaders want all of this as well. Trump is living, breathing evidence that the GOP wants power at any cost, and Republican lawmakers are more than happy to parrot their leader's xenophobic fearmongering. Despite years of screaming about 'government overreach,' they'll sit back and gladly watch Trump sic U.S. soldiers on American citizens and use a blue-state city as a test model for tyranny.
Why? Because our president and members of his party inhabit an imaginary, dystopian America spun from their opportunistic lies.
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California officials, from Gov. Gavin Newsom to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, have made clear they don't want or need the National Guard in the city.
Over the weekend, there were isolated incidents involving property damage, vehicles burned and, as KLTA-5 reported, "LAPD said officers encountered demonstrators throwing 'concrete, bottles and other objects.' " Police responded with sizable force, from tear gas to rubber bullets and flash bangs.
But overall, officials have said, and widespread reporting has supported, that the protests have been small and predominantly peaceful.
Still, Trump told his millions of social media followers that he was sending federal forces to 'liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots. Order will be restored, the Illegals will be expelled, and Los Angeles will be set free.'
I repeat, because it bears repeating: Trump inhabits an imaginary, dystopian America spun from his opportunistic lies.
On June 8, the same day Trump and Republicans were telling Americans that Los Angeles was a chaotic war zone, the Los Angeles Pride Parade went off in Hollywood without a hitch.
And The New York Times reported: 'The chaotic demonstrations that consumed social media and cable news in recent days were concentrated around only a couple parts of the region ‒ the working-class suburb of Paramount, where federal agents clashed with protesters near a Home Depot, and downtown Los Angeles.'
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The city is immense. The chaos, in terms of people and the extent of any damage, has been minimal.
Yet Trump and his Republican enablers choose to live in an imaginary, dystopian America spun from their opportunistic lies.
Making all of this worse, of course, is that the supposed need for mass deportations is built on lies. Lies about a 'migrant crime wave.' Lies about America being unsafe because of immigrants.
If the ICE raids targeting Los Angeles are necessary, why aren't they also necessary in the red states one would assume Trump is more inclined to protect? Why are ICE agents not searching for undocumented workers on farms in Nebraska or in meat-packing plants in Indiana? Why are anti-ICE protests in red states not being met with equal federal force?
Why go to one of the bluest cities in one of the bluest states? Why doesn't Trump simply let those Democrats deal with the alleged 'migrant crime' and focus on the 'real Americans' he claims to care about?
Perhaps because this is all nonsense. Or a distraction from Trump's recent clash with Elon Musk or the criticism of his deficit-ballooning tax bill making its way through Congress.
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Newsom was asked late June 8 what he wanted to say to Trump about the situation in Los Angeles and the decision to federalize the National Guard and send soldiers in. The governor said: 'Where's your decency, Mr. President? Stop. Rescind this order, it's illegal and unconstitutional, and I said it, I'll say it again, it's immoral. You're creating the conditions that you claim you're solving, and you're not. And you're putting real people's lives at risk.'
One last time: Trump inhabits an imaginary, dystopian America spun from his opportunistic lies.
And that, unlike fabricated 'migrant riots,' puts every American in danger.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk
You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump is using LA as a testing ground for tyranny | Opinion
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