Americans have a right to protest, to seek redress from their government. This nation’s history of protest is central to our national story, from patriots dumping tea in Boston Harbor to civil rights marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.
Those who are marching now against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown have every right to make their voices heard, too. But the recent history of protests in this country, and too much of what we have seen from Los Angeles to San Francisco in the last few days, is an indulgence in violence and destruction that no government can tolerate.
And yet, even as we acknowledge the responsibility of the government to protect life and property, the Trump administration’s actions in response to the protests raise profound questions about a potential abuse of power and the shattering of norms that have sharply defined American civic life for generations.
People are also reading…
Specifically, the decision to send U.S. Marines into Los Angeles is deeply troubling. Americans are not policed by our military. Authoritarian nations set their militaries against their people. That is not an American response.
The president’s decision to supersede the authority of California Gov. Gavin Newsom also raises concerns, though more tempered than the unacceptable deployment of Marines. There is no question that law enforcement, both federal immigration authorities and Los Angeles police, came under attack while performing their duties.
That demands a strong response. But the president should have given California and Los Angeles the opportunity to manage their own streets, despite a history of failing to do so.
We also need to examine what set off these protests. It is one thing for immigration enforcement to execute warrants against criminals or to pursue people facing final orders of removal who refuse to leave the country.
But what happened in Los Angeles when immigration officers pulled up to a Home Depot has all the markings of a roundup of people based on their appearance. Americans broadly oppose such roundups, as well as the removal of otherwise law-abiding undocumented people who have put down roots and contributed to this nation.
The president was quick to label those who protested insurrectionists, and many of them are behaving in ways that beg the question — attacking police, vandalizing buildings, burning cars and flying the flags of foreign nations. But where was the president’s judgment on Jan. 6, 2021, when his riotous supporters stormed our nation’s Capitol, defiling it in grotesque ways while attacking and harming law enforcement? The only difference then and now was loyalty to him.
Riots in our streets are intolerable, and wherever they occur, leaders have a responsibility to stop them and hold those responsible to account.
But no one can ignore these other truths, that our president has risked turning troops on our own people even as he provokes the people’s rage.
