Radicals of all types join as one to riot

Jeffrey Blehar of National Review Online assesses the current state of American political unrest.

Don’t talk to me about ICE activities in Los Angeles being a “provocation.” People are here illegally; they must go. If you disagree with me, then you fundamentally disagree with American law, and I am utterly uninterested in the opinion of a political interlocutor who insists that these particular laws are not important while those other ones are. The precise reason ICE workplace raids are necessary in Southern California is because the Democratic politics of “sanctuary cities” has turned the state into a throbbing hive of uncontrolled illegal-alien activity. If Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass want to argue that federal immigration law cannot be enforced within the boundaries of California, then I am genuinely eager to see the Trump administration force the issue. …

… In fact, the only thing that really impressed me at all about the riot — in the sense that it stood out as a notable tell — was the mixture of people it drew out onto the street. …

… And one major detail I remember about the George Floyd riots in Chicago was that the most violent street protesters — a very different proposition from the later looters who took over — were usually white people and/or “young activist” types, often flying flags for unrelated leftist movements — not just LGBT symbols, which were ubiquitous, but the colors of Palestine, Cuba, Soviet Russia, China, etc. Similarly, for all that the Los Angeles riot was a notional protest against ICE, it was impossible not to notice (as I doom-scrolled video after video from the various conflagrations) how often keffiyehs and Palestinian flags competed with Mexican ones for pride of place in the crowds. (There was usually at least one USSR flag or logo visible in all scenes as well — Ol’ Reliable, as I like to think of it.)

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