The whimper of the lash

This is not an organic backlash, but it is about optics

Do you know what anti-ICE organized protesters, Idaho sovereign citizens, New Hampshire rabid libertarians, Georgia CopTown protestors, and Alabama preppers have in common? They’re highly allergic to the Feds, particularly the National Guard (or in this case, U.S. Marines). I’ve always said to citizens who like to talk about violent resistance to federal military power: when the Bradley Fighting Vehicle comes rumbling down your road with its M252 Bushmaster pointed at you, you lose. All your cinderblock, reinforced concrete, earth berms and various other “keep out!” measures fail right then. It’s no different for violent chaos-agents who call Waymo vehicles just to burn them.

U.S. Soldiers of the 224th Sustainment Brigade, California Army National Guard, stand in front of the Hall of Justice in Los Angeles, June 3, 2020. Cal Guard Soldiers and Airmen were tasked to assist law enforcement in maintaining peace and calm during protests in downtown Los Angeles. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Matthew Ramelb)

Many in the media expect news consumers to believe that normal people with jobs and lives just put down everything to stand in unity against President Trump’s immigration enforcement policy. Or just against Trump. Forgive my sigh, because it’s been this way for, what, eight years now, not counting the four year break where we were treated to a somnolent Joe Biden and the highly indictable ex-and-now-present president. What’s ironic here is that Gov. Gavin Newsom is no wilting flower when it comes to calling up the militia. He did it in 2020 during COVID-19 and the George Floyd riots. But he won’t do it to protect ICE agents doing their jobs.

In fact, Newsom will sue to keep Trump from doing what presidents have the legal right to do, which is protect federal personnel and assets using federal troops. I’ve written plenty of ICE’s abuses. But you know, the backlash is not the worry here, like the reverse logic twisters want you to think. It’s the lash that hurts. In ICE’s case, the lash is mostly, really overwhelmingly, against people who should not be in the United States, because they’ve received final deportation orders, or they are not here requesting refugee status, but simply crossed the border illegally.

There is no way to clean up our illegal immigration problem without conducting job site raids in California. In fact, any claim it can be done any other way is fabulist pablum. It’s dishonest to say that Los Angeles was just fine until Trump brought ICE there to enforce immigration laws, and now it’s spontaneously erupting into violence over the round up of innocents. They go further by saying that Trump cooked the whole thing up because he was just dying to create a confrontation that allows him to declare some kind of martial law.

Hint: martial law is not in effect in Los Angeles. The curfew that was just put in place was declared by Mayor Karen Bass, who the AP could not bring itself to mention by name (here and here) until like 11 paragraphs into the article. Los Angeles police are enforcing the curfew, not federal troops, who are there to protect federal facilities. The number of protesters is not thousands, it’s a few hundred. And they are there for the optics, meaning they are going to burn something or create a violent situation. If not for the federal troops, I expect they would burn a lot more or create more chaos than they’ve been allowed to with the presence of overwhelming force.

As for American opinion, most Americans, 54 percent, approve of Trump’s deportation efforts, with 46 percent opposed, according to a CBS News/YouGov survey. Here’s the key sentence on that topic: “But if people don't think it is dangerous criminals who are the focus of the deportation effort, support drops dramatically.”

It’s all about the optics.

I do believe that the Trump administration has unleashed ICE in ways it’s not been done since President Dwight Eisenhower authorized “Operation Wetback” in 1955. I also believe that the Border Patrol and ICE in general are professionals at their jobs, with Tom Homan an expert in how to conduct mass deportation. It was literally Homan’s job under President Barack Obama. The things ICE is doing are generally not illegal, but yes, many of those things are abusive taken in individual cases. And the abuses make bad optics, and become the focus of the media and the opposition.

And it’s very convenient to blame the abuses for the backlash, because the lash hurts when the protesters who show up in L.A. aren’t protesting abuses, they are protesting any immigration enforcement at all. It’s the lash that stings.

Most Americans favor the lash, but they don’t favor the abuses. The optics will dictate how much the chaos agents can accomplish, because they are not in L.A. to right wrongs committed by some ICE agents. They are in L.A. to sow chaos, burn things, incite looting, and create a widespread lawless atmosphere that makes the backlash sting as bad as the lash. Or at least make it look like it does.

This is not a new tactic. I was there during President Trump’s inauguration when he was #45. I saw the protesters (who were paid and bused in) hanging around on the streets waiting for the crowds to leave the National Mall. They weren’t violent. In fact, they were telling the international camera crews where best to place cameras to capture the violence when it happens. And on cue, it happened, and the cameras were miraculously well placed to capture it. I saw that happen with my own eyes. It was organized optics made to look like spontaneous protest that just got out of hand.

In L.A., I would be surprised if some of these protesters were not recruited or bused in by organizers out of state. Then again, it’s California, so they may simply live there. But don’t tell me it’s spontaneous, or the result of Trump salivating over using the military against protesters. I am not saying he doesn’t enjoy doing that—in 2020 Trump wanted to use the military to clear Lafayette Square. But I also believe the protesters, the organized chaos agents, salivate over the opportunity to create bad optics for Trump because they are politically motivated and funded by political opponents of Trump.

Open borders, unlimited immigration, voting rights for non-citizens, and generally policies that hand power to progressive liberals are causes that progressive liberals will fund and tolerate (if not encourage) violent mobs.

This is no different than the policies and practices of those who want to discredit, bully, and intimidate Jews over Gaza. It’s the modus operandi of Hamas in their public face, while their inward face toward Palestinians in Gaza is the jackboot and the bullet to the back of the skull.

Of course, the organizers of anti-ICE protests aren’t to that level of devilish polish, but they are politically savvy and well-connected with the media. So when ICE comes to town, we only hear about the abuses. We see protests close, up to magnify the size of crowds. We see violence, but we don’t see the bad actors and drug dealers who are here illegally get rounded up. We don’t see the factories and warehouses who employ thousands of illegal immigrants using faked paperwork. We see how the owners of those places squeal like stuck pigs that they might have other pay California’s $15 minimum wage and that would put them out of business.

We only see the optics we’re shown, like the intolerable brat Greta Thunberg’s two bags of rice she didn’t get to personally deliver to Hamas, but refused to watch 47 minutes of video of Hamas atrocities on October 7, 2023 because that would mean believing Israeli authorities.

The friendly media shows the backlash, because they want us to believe that it’s not the lash that stings. They want us to believe that the same ICE agents who worked under the previous administration somehow became Nazis overnight, or they were crypto-Nazis before. Most Americans don’t believe that, but if they can get enough to believe it, the protests and their organizers might have their way.

And the worst part is that it might work.

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