Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles this weekend sparked mass protests across the city. Some of those protests escalated to violence and President Donald Trump deployed the national guard and marines to the city. The city imposed an overnight curfew on Tuesday to curb vandalism and looting.
Voices on the left often argued the protests were peaceful until Trump escalated them through military force, while voices on the right often argued for the necessity of law and order and noted that those on the left were downplaying the violence.
A writer in City Journal (Right bias) argued that Trump must restore order, saying, “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.”
In The Boston Globe (Left) a writer said, “After relatively small protests broke out Friday during unreasonably heavy-handed workplace immigration raids (did they really need an armored vehicle and flash-bang grenades?) and continued Saturday in and around Los Angeles, the president dispatched 2,000 members of the California National Guard to ‘address the lawlessness.’...Such an egregious show of force was obvious overkill…‘It was like a war zone here, you know?’ said a woman who lives across the street from the restaurant and came out to see what all the commotion was.”
USA Today (Lean Left) featured an opinion from Ingrid Jaques (Lean Right) who wrote, “As I’ve witnessed photos and videos of the burning cars, masked rioters wielding Mexican flags, blocked freeways and looted stores in Los Angeles in recent days, my conclusion is this: I’m glad Donald Trump is president. And I’m not alone,” adding “Rather than call out the bad behavior, Democrats and the news media appear to condone the rioting – and downplay what’s actually happening.”
Michelle Goldberg (Left) in The New York Times Opinion (Left) wrote, “There’s no sidestepping a president deploying the military in an American city based on ludicrous falsehoods about a foreign invasion. Indeed, it’s hard to think of a clearer signpost on the road to dictatorship.”
