What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Razgovory]

Some of the guys burning stuff in LA
Some far-left groups have encouraged peaceful protests to turn violent, experts say

It was approaching nightfall in Los Angeles on Sunday when black-clad demonstrators began to torch a row of self-driving Waymo taxis. Within minutes, videos of the fiery scenes began to pop up on social media.

"MORE. MORE AND MORE AND MORE," a group known as Unity of Fields posted on X, along with a video of the flaming vehicles.

The post wasn't an anomaly. Since the start of the demonstrations against immigration raids in Los Angeles, the Unity of Fields X account has been pumping out messages urging people to wreak havoc in the streets and "give 'em hell."

It's part of a far-left online ecosystem that has proliferated in recent years, experts say. Some of the groups behind the accounts express contempt for peaceful resistance and glorify acts of violence — and even murders, like those of the UnitedHealthcare CEO and two Israeli Embassy staffers.

The leftist networks tend to be different from right-wing groups in that they are typically decentralized with no leadership structures. But they can be highly adept at using social media, and some have been working hard to amplify and celebrate the acts of violent protesters in Los Angeles.

"Whether they directly threw a Molotov cocktail is actually not as essential as the ecosystem of encouragement and coordination they have created," said Joel Finkelstein, a co-founder of the Network Contagion Research Institute, a nonpartisan group that tracks online extremism.

The unrest in Los Angeles follows a pattern that has played out in numerous cities over the past five years in which protests that break out remain mostly peaceful during the day, but at night agitators engage in fiery clashes with police.


That dynamic tends to distract from the focus of the demonstrations — in this case, workplace immigration raids by federal agents — and provide fodder to people who oppose them. In this case, that's President Donald Trump and his supporters, who have sought to dismiss the broader protest movement as the work of "paid insurrectionists."

"What's concerning is the attempt to conflate the individual actors who do commit violence with the mass movement as a whole," said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.

He said the narrative pushed by some people on the right — in his words, that there's a "roving band of antifa groupies who are following protests from city to city" — doesn't comport with reality.

But, Lewis added, there has no doubt been a normalization of violence in parts of the left, although it is more fractured than in right-wing groups.

"It's a little bit of anti-capitalist stuff in one case. A little bit of antisemitic stuff in another case," he said. "I think that reflects the nature of those online leftist movements where there is no cohesive, central structure."

More than 300 people have been arrested since the demonstrations broke out Friday in Los Angeles, police say. The charges include failure to disperse, looting, arson and attacks on police officers. Police Chief Jim McDonnell said demonstrators have shot commercial-grade fireworks at police officers and hurled pieces of concrete at them.


Were they the acts of lone wolves seizing an opportunity to target police? Or was there a level of coordination and planning among the instigators?

Experts say it's likely to be a combination of both.

"You have the organized protests by people who are committed to a particular cause, and then you have radical fringes," said Dan Byman, the director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"They might put on airs and call themselves anarchists or something like that, but they're young people who like destruction."

The Network Contagion Research Institute has been analyzing the rise of what it calls "anarcho-socialist extremism." It has found that the chaos and violence that have broken out at some of the major protests in recent years, like those against the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, weren't as spontaneous as they might have seemed.


"What we found in our research is there are groups that were attempting to exploit the situation, oftentimes after dark, and their coordination was somewhat sophisticated," said Alex Goldenberg, a senior adviser to the Network Contagion Research Institute.

That involved demonstrators' surveilling police movements and sharing tips about making the most destructive Molotov cocktails, Goldenberg said.

"They were trying to exploit an already volatile situation in an attempt to provoke violent clashes with police, create viral moments to inflame tensions and draw in others through emotional triggers," he said.


Soon after it launched in 2019, the Network Contagion Research Institute focused on right-wing threats like the Boogaloos, a loose-knit anti-government movement that calls for violence against law enforcement and political opponents. But it soon found that left-wing groups were using many of the same tactics to incite violence.

A 2022 report by the institute found that animus toward law enforcement among anarchist types had been proliferating online for years. The appearance of posts with anti-police outrage and/or memes and coded language increased over 1,000% on Twitter and 300% on Reddit during the period of the Floyd protests in 2020, the report found.


'Assassination culture'
One anti-police group, the People's City Council Los Angeles, has taken to calling out the actions of officers at the protests, using expletives and slights.

Just before 1 a.m. Tuesday, it posted on X the name and picture of a police officer it said was firing rubber bullets at protesters.

He is "f-----g unhinged and unloading on protesters at point blank range," the post read. "F--K THIS PIG!!"

On Sunday, the group posted a video showing a line of police officers in riot gear.

"LAPD trying to kettle right now," the group wrote, referring to a crowd control tactic used by police. "Oink oink piggy piggy, we going make your life s----y..."

The violent demonstrators seemed to represent a mishmash of causes.

Many of the people seen hurling objects at police and setting fires were dressed in all black, their faces covered in masks. Some waved Mexican flags, others Palestinian flags. At least one man was photographed wearing a Hamas armband.

"Angelenos throwing Modelo Molotovs at ICE while wearing Keffiyehs," read a post on X by Unity of Fields. "We are locked the f--k in, folks."

Unity of Fields, which was formerly known as Palestine Action US, describes itself as a "militant front against the US-NATO-zionist axis of imperialism."

"The Unity of Fields concept comes from the Palestinian resistance," the group said last year in a blog post announcing the name change. "It refers to the coordination between all the factions on the battlefield despite their geographic fragmentation or ideological differences."

Finkelstein, the co-founder of the Network Contagion Research Institute, said such groups and the people who follow them represent what he described as "assassination culture" — in which targeted killings are considered acceptable by those who harbor an array of grievances.

Unity of Fields, for example, is helping raise money to cover legal costs for Elias Rodriguez, the Chicago man accused of fatally shooting the Israeli Embassy workers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington last month.

"My sense is that beneath these grievances is a shared sense of loss of control," said Finkelstein, who is a psychologist and a neuroscientist. "Who are the people that really feel a sense of hopelessness in their lives? Most are looking for significance, and they think they found it here."

In response to a request for comment, Unity of Fields wrote: "We will never condemn people who fight to free themselves. When the masses in Los Angeles began using direct action as a means of halting ICE-gestapo disappearances, the media saw only the violence of resistance and never the violence of the status quo."

It added: "All acts of resistance to state violence are justified and all power belongs to the masses."

The People's City Council Los Angeles didn't respond to a request for comment.

While the violent parts of the protests in Los Angeles began to die down Monday, demonstrations against the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants have spread to several other cities, including Boston, Chicago, Dallas and New York.

So far, none has experienced violence at the levels in Los Angeles, but whether that will remain the case is an open question. Unity of Fields has made it clear it's hoping for a repeat in cities like New York.

"NYC, how are you gonna let Angelenos beat you at your favorite pastime (terrorizing police officers)?" the group said Monday on X. "Hamas Marxist Army get down there and show them what New Yorkers can do when they put their heads together!"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/some-far-left-groups-have-encouraged-peaceful-protests-to-turn-violent-experts-say/ar-AA1Gzlfx?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=7e5070a8387a4c19ec336ab542448e01&ei=12

[Jacob]

One of the lesser stories in Danish media right now is about a Danish immigrant to the US who's been in ICE detention for about two months. He came over as a teenager IIRC, but some paperwork fuck-up 8-10 years ago meant he was "out of status" and got picked up.

He's married to an American and they have a handful of children.

The mother is stay-at-home-wife, homeschooling their children. They live in Mississippi and both the parents are loud virtue signallers in support of Trump, MAGA, and anti-vax values.

The guy was interviewed by Danish media the other day, and he explicitly blames Biden for his situation - something about if the previous administration hadn't been bad, then the guy wouldn't have messed up the immigration status thing, and everything would be fine.

It'll be interesting to see whether dogmatic and public adherence to MAGA principles (and being white) is going to get him off the hook.

[Sophie Scholl]

A solid article by one of my favorite commentators, Elie Mystal:

"The law will not stop Trump's attack on L.A., because laws do not stop authoritarians. Only the people can do that. And the people, a majority of them, elected Trump to do exactly what he is doing: use violence against the Americans they disagree with."

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/what-the-hell-is-posse-comitatus/

[Admiral Yi]

There's probably a chance that they decided to prioritize what works on signage over the semantic precision required by people looking for excuses to justify the deployment of national guard troops.

If we're doing this very literal reading of everything, then surely you also agree that "Abolish ICE"  does not equate "Abolish border controls"?

Unfortunately they also prioritized the catchy slogan that fits on a sign and angers up the blood of the in group over the actual meaning of the words of the slogan, which exists independently of the preference of the audience member for performative cruelty.

I can understand the motivation of radical-adjacent bobos to talk back inflamatory political rhetoric, but it's all really a con job.  You don't speak for the guys holding the signs.

I agree with your second point.  Abolishing ICE would still leave the Border Patrol, as garbon pointed out.  But it would eliminate deportations for the 11 million illegal aliens who've made it past the border.

[Syt]

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/alex-padilla-noem-los-angeles-protests/3722522/

Video: Sen. Alex Padilla removed from news conference with Homeland Security Secretary Noem

Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a news conference Thursday morning with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Noem was speaking in Los Angeles about recent ICE operations in the region when Padilla was removed from the room after saying, "You insist on exaggerating." At least two men approached Padilla, a Democrat, near a wall and removed him through doors near the rear of the room.

Noem continued speaking to the room of reporters and law enforcement officers.

In a hallway outside the room, Padilla told NBCLA, "We'll have plenty of time to take your questions after the press conference."

State and local leaders in California have been at odds with federal authorities about ICE raids and the federalization of the National Guard and Marines in response to recent demonstrations over the immigration enforcement operations.

Padilla, born and raised in Los Angeles, was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2022. He began serving in the Senate in January 2021 after he was appointed to a vacancy due to the election of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Th first Latino to represent California in the U.S. Senate, Padilla's family immigrated to to Los Angeles from Mexico in the 1960s.

Video: https://bsky.app/profile/phillewis.bsky.social/post/3lrgjf6nuek2m

[Sophie Scholl]

The line from Noem that caused him to object and get tossed is a pretty dramatic shift in the goals and reasons for the military and ICE occupation:

"We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city."

[bogh]

I wonder if Yi feels that should be taken at face value?

Seems a bit more serious in both scope and who's saying it than the random signs calling for abolishing ICE.

[Jacob]

Zooming out a bit again, I think the US is well on the way to become a Orbanesque pseudo-Oligarchy and potentially worse.

IMO, the key inflection points coming up are going to be:

• The midterms - how unpopular will Trump be, how organized and coherent is the opposition going to be? How blatant will vote-suppression and vote-fixing be?
• The next presidential election - do the Trumpists push for a third term? Or do they have a smooth succession planned out or does it turn into an internal knife-fight among the various factions of the Trumpist coalition?
• And, if Trump hangs on past this term, what happens when he dies or steps down from dementia. Trump succession is going to be more challenging if he continues past his current term.
• Finally, of course, there's always the risk of a major crisis testing the Trump administration, leading to failure and a loss of legitimacy.

[Bauer]

IMO the ball is in the democrats court to fix their house.  In Canadian politics you often see efforts to recruit candidates outside the party to get better people (ie Carney most obviously in recent times).  Do the democrats do this?  Surely there are talented people who have led companies who can be convinced, and help freshen the party up by not having so many career politicians.

[Oexmelin]

The ball is in everyone's court.

Waiting for Democrats to get it won't happen magically without outside pressure; letting authoritarian creep while waiting for courts or parties to self-reform will allow it to be normalize way more than it is now. The waiting for Godot,the Political Messiah is self-defeating, and ultimately, only energizes people like Newsom.

Also, I am not sure career business leaders are in any way better than career politicians.   

[bogh]

I refuse to accept that a lack of enticing Democratic candidates is the reason people elect an authoritarian ego with a coterie of crazies. If all it takes is a weak line up from one side for the system to fail then the system is structurally unsound. Don't know how to fix it, but I feel like hoping for a better Democratic candidate is pretty poor.

[garbon]

Welp.

[Syt]

 

[Zoupa]

My cousin-in-law (is that a word? My wife's cousin) is leaving the US. She went to Princeton and had a job lined up at Google in San Francisco.

She's scared of something happening to her, as she's half asian half italian and looks pretty brown.

Keep going, yanks. You're doing generational damage.

[Valmy]

Keep going, yanks. You're doing generational damage.

We are aware.