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In the summer of 2020, American cities were set ablaze in a maelstrom of protest and violence, but the first Trump administration respected tradition and did not mobilize the National Guard against the will of Democratic governors. The results were destructive and even deadly.
Never let it be said that President Donald Trump cannot learn from his mistakes. For this week we have seen the second Trump administration move swiftly and powerfully to stop the riots, almost before they even start, in Los Angeles.
The presence of the National Guard as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s promise of support from the U.S. Marines have had two major and incredibly positive impacts. These moves encouraged a stiffer local response to the riots and discouraged the average Joe from joining in.
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As to the first point, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, or as I like to think of them, the Lucy and Desi of incompetent governance, keep insisting that local authorities are capable of handling the protests.
This is likely true. But the problem is that until Trump sent in the guard, these two so-called leaders, and many like them in big blue cities across the land, simply refused to quell riots and looting. We all watched as literal encampments were created by criminal “protesters.”
Police stood by, and in many cases were told to stand down, as our cities were given over to chaos and ruin.
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The National Guard and the Marines are in LA in the hopes that they will not have to be used, and so far Trump has lit a fire beneath the otherwise ineffectual local officials who are finally letting the police do their jobs.
There are no encampments this time around and freeways have been forcibly opened when protesters try to shut them down.
But the second point is just as vital: the protests of the last few days in L.A. have not achieved the kind of critical mass of support and attendance by regular, non-activist people that the Antifa types need to run cover for their despicable antics.
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I’ve covered protests from Occupy Wall Street to the 2016 Democratic National Convention, to the “summer of love,” before that, I protested in them, and there are distinct rules and patterns.
When an urban American protest hits five to ten thousand people, it is divided into two groups: those willing to engage in what protesters call “direct actions,” and those who are not.
“Direct action” basically means anything that can get you arrested, from blocking a highway to burning a federal building.
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The job of everyone else at a massive protest. The vast majority, whether they know it or not, is to take up space and capture the attention of the authorities while the hardcore protesters engage in their “direct actions.”
I have witnessed first-hand as organizers make this division of labor explicit to protesters, and in Portland, Ore. in 2020 we saw the “wall of moms,’ who ran cover for Antifa’s wave of destruction.
The presence of the National Guard, as well as the sight of burning cars, has made it pretty clear to Angelenos that this isn’t the time to paint protest signs with the kids and bring a box lunch to the street brawl.
By doing these two things, stiffening the spine of LAPD leadership and dissuading massive crowds, Trump has turned what could have been days and nights of deadly riots into small, containable criminal acts.
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It was very telling on Monday night that CNN had three reporters on the ground with about 300 agitators near the federal building who were skirmishing with cops, but they did not interview them, even when they were right next to them.
This is almost certainly because it was a crowd of dangerous lunatics and CNN doesn’t want you to know that, neither do Mayor Karen Bass nor Gov. Gavin Newsom. They want us to believe these people are all Aunt Judy the Unitarian priestess.
If there is a mantra for the second iteration of the presidency of Donald Trump it might be, “you can just do things.” You can just close the border, you can just impose tariffs, you can just ban men from women’s sports, and yes, you can just shut down criminal protests.
It is possible that as the sweet breezes of June turn to sultry July and August we could see America in the flames of protest like we did in 2020, but that possibility has become far less likely as the Trump administration cracks down.
Americans seem very unlikely to spend this summer marching in anger under Mexican and Palestinian flags, in fact, Trump deportations have widespread support, and now, the bad guys, those who burn and loot, know that there are consequences.
Donald Trump learned his lesson from the riots of 2020, and if the violent activists in their masks and hoods don’t learn theirs from his mobilization of the national guard in 2025, they will have only themselves to blame.
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