WASHINGTON — The script for how big media outlets cover left-wing riots never changes.
Progressive protests destroy blue cities. Then cable news anchors inform viewers that protests that have brought chaos and destruction started out peacefully.
Yes, there is a pattern to progressive protests that turn violent. The demonstrations, like those in parts of Los Angeles over the weekend, start out peacefully during the daylight hours and then descend into chaos as masked thugs use force, fire and rocks to destroy and intimidate.
Are Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom angry at the violent protesters who are trashing their territory?
Not that you’d notice. Bass and Newsom are saving their fire for President Donald Trump. Trump is to blame, they argue, for the gratuitous violence that Americans can expect when the left voices its objection to Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions.
Newsom maintained, “We didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved.”
“If immigration raids had not happened here, we would not have the disorder that went on last night,” Bass told CNN Monday.
Disorder?
Disorder, to Bass, is law enforcement.
To them, disorder is not activists hurling bottles and rocks at ICE vehicles and members of the National Guard, torched self-driving cars and American flags, and freeways shut down to the taxpaying public.
“The guy riding around on his motorcycle carrying the Mexican flag,” said consultant Sean Walsh, who was deputy chief of staff to former California Gov. Pete Wilson, he’s not exactly helpful for the anti-ICE folk’s image.
Walsh recalls that protests against Proposition 187, a measure to deny health, welfare and education benefits to illegal immigrants, helped the measure pass overwhelmingly in 1994.
Every time I see protesters wave Mexican or other foreign flags, I recognize their right to express their solidarity with other countries, even if it does undercut their argument for inclusiveness.
The message I take away is that California Democrats believe that Trump should not enforce immigration law — because many migrants successfully flouted federal immigration law for years, which gives them a right to remain.
Somehow Golden State Democrats think they win by going to the mattresses for migrants who break American laws.
A recent Los Angeles Times story captured the irrational nature of like-minded news coverage. “Torrance boy, 9, detained by ICE for planned deportation to Honduras,” read the headline. “Community is outraged.”
According to the Times, 50-year-old father Martir Garcia-Benegas and his son arrived in the United States on July 10, 2021. A judge ordered father and son to be deported on Sept. 1, 2022. The father appealed. The appeal was dismissed in August 2023, the L.A. Times reported. But the two did not leave the country, according to an ICE spokesperson.
Father and son were taken into custody in May, the Times reported, “and officials plan to deport them to Honduras.”
In short, when the government enforces federal immigration law, it’s considered big news.
When ICE captures murderers, sex offenders and other violent criminals, there’s barely a story.
And that’s why Trump won in November.
Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.