KURT SCHLICHTER: The LA Chaos Is an Illusion and Trump Will Not Fall for It.
The left has two main options going forward. One is to become even more violent and see if they can provoke an overreaction – remember, they don’t have the combat power to achieve anything by force. Even if they increase their level of violence, this is still an information operation. However, they risk overplaying their hand and justifying a forceful reaction by Trump. If some criminal – a substantial number of the rioters are not political activists but common street thugs – decides to shoot a fed and the feds shoot back, normal people are going to cheer.
The second and more likely course of action is for the word to go out to dial back the disorder. It’s not working. It’s not having the desired effect. It’s also hurting the Democrats, who tacitly support the violence but want to maintain distance from it. It’s their city that’s in chaos, not Trump’s. The Democrats are united in whining about Trump not submitting like cowards to the thugs, but all this is doing is making them look weak. It’s not Trump‘s forces that are getting pushed around by the rioters; it’s the Democrats’ local cops who are. The Democrats have had nothing but problems lately, and the last thing they needed was to have several days of news footage making them look ineffectual while also blowing the Elon vs. Donald cage match off the front pages.
The only real question is whether or not Donald Trump and his team planned this. It’s working to his advantage – the Big Beautiful Bill debate just stopped being about saving a few pennies and became about saving our country from foreign invaders. You have to wonder whether the Trump 2.0 administration specifically choose a super leftist city to spin up ICE raids knowing that there would be a riotous backlash that they could then co-opt to message strength. Did they make a conscious decision to provide America a clear and unequivocal choice?
All I can say is that I hope so.
Christopher Rufo adds: Trump Should Crush the L.A. Riots—with a Subtle Hand.
In short, the Left is giving President Trump all the visual symbolism he needs to advance his immigration agenda. Most Americans see chaos in the name of a foreign flag and find it repellent. Though Trump’s language about a migrant “invasion” has sometimes been dismissed as hyperbolic, it seems that the Left is intent on turning it into a material reality.
The question: How should the president respond? Many on the right may feel an instinctual reaction to “send in the troops.” While this concern for law and order is natural and merited, it must be pursued in a way that maximizes the chance for success and minimizes the chance for blowback. As the president considers his options, he might keep in mind a number of strategic points that, if implemented, will increase his leverage in the fight for large-scale deportations.
The administration must deny the Left a strong visual counterargument. It’s easy to see how scenes of militarization, abuse of demonstrators, or a violent death could reverse public sympathies and present the administration as abusing its authority. The language of politics is visual—and therefore emotional, which means that a single mistake can reverse the flow of opinion and imperil the president’s immigration agenda. Left-wing tacticians have trained their foot soldiers to bait law enforcement into confrontation and to play victim for the press, to great effect.
To prevent this scenario, Trump has a number of strategic options available to him. First, rather than sending in more troops to stop the fires, the president might be better advised to hold off. Right now, California governor Gavin Newsom has sided with the demonstrators, but if the riots spread further, this stance will cost him in public opinion, and eventually, he will have to assume the mantle of authority. The public will expect Newsom to restore order, and he’ll have to incur the risk of using force.
Second, the president should pressure local leaders to buy in to the task of quelling the riots. He could wait for Governor Newsom to request the National Guard or appear at a press conference with Los Angeles County officials, bringing state Democrats into the risk-reward calculus and creating the option for the president to shift the blame in the future if they fail to respond effectively. California Democrats are anticipating that Trump will assume all the authority and, therefore, relieve them of any responsibility. He should resist the temptation to be the only player on the field with skin in the game.
However this plays out, as America’s Newspaper of Record notes, illegal immigrants are have surprisingly pitched in to help out the GOP’s 2028 messaging campaign:
