Gavin Newsom channels Jefferson Davis

Or is it George Wallace? Maybe Newsom's too young to remember what "states' rights" really means.

I’d be foolish to try to add a lot to Paul’s clear-eyed and careful post about the Los Angeles riots — oh, sorry, make that protests — but there is possibly a bit more to observe.

All the wailing about how the feds are butting in on the state’s authority to make its own judgment about what local circumstances require reminded me of the late 1950’s and 1960’s, when I was growing up. In the South, where my mother was reared, we heard lots and lots about states’ rights, and it was at least as angry and indignant as it is now. Even to a kid, though, it was transparent. It had zip to do with state authority or federalism or any of the other fancy stuff that got headlined. It had to do with preserving segregation and keeping blacks under the thumb of Jim Crow, legal inferiority and, to be blunt, fear.

Newsom’s current campaign about states’ rights is also a transparent phony. To an extent, as Paul noted, it’s about Newsom’s presidential ambitions, in particular where he needs to position himself in the Democratic field. His need to sneer at Trump may be especially acute now, since he recently observed that allowing biological boys to compete against girls is unfair. The fact that this is not merely true but obvious makes no difference: Again, this is not the general electorate we’re talking about, it’s the bunch that shows up for Democratic primaries. They’re still furious that Trump won; more furious that he got the popular vote, too; and madder than hell that he’s actually going to keep his campaign promise to deport people who entered the country illegally. (The notion that “no one is above the law” is, when considering illegal immigrants, soooooooooo yesterday).

Why has illegal immigration become such a cause ce’le’bre among the Democrats? Among the general electorate, it’s a big-time loser (like, of all things, frenetic transgenderism). So why embrace it?

Abe Greenwald of Commentary magazine takes a look.

I have two general rules about leftwing protests. The first is that the stated cause of a protest is always a pretext; the real cause is the protesters’ desire to create chaos and do harm to the United States, its interests, and its allies. That’s why someone like Greta Thunberg can go from lecturing about global warming to screaming about Israel…The left’s various grievances aren’t chosen at random; they all serve the single purpose of prosecuting a case against the U.S.-led West.

The second rule follows from the first: The protests always harm the designated victim group that the protesters claim to be supporting. This is because the activism stems from false motives. It’s not surprising that every minority group in the country has moved away from the activist left since they social-justice explosion of 2020.

See my post here, “Can the Democrats figure out why they’re in the wilderness?”

Black Lives Matter demonstrations led to defunded and apprehensive police. Violent crime shot up everywhere, but it was especially brutal in poor minority neighborhoods where police were needed the most. The “pro-Palestinian” demonstrations explicitly support Gazans’ terrorist tormentors. And transgender activism has pushed thousands of kids who were merely going through a rough patch into a life of emotional and physical torment.

It used to be appalling to me how little the Left cares about what its policies do to people genuinely in need, but it isn’t anymore, simply because it’s been going on my entire life.

It’s with these two rules in mind that I quote from an editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal: “The airwaves and social media are saturated with footage of protesters waving Mexican flags atop burning cars, carrying signs claiming California is ‘Stolen land’ and chanting ‘We don’t want ICE or police!’”

If the point of the Los Angeles protesters is to protect illegal immigrants from the consequences of lawbreaking…, why are they committing crimes, raising foreign flags, and declaring the State of California illegitimate? Because, as the first rule of protests states, their real aim is to tear down the U.S.

DING DING DING. This brings to mind my goodhearted conservative or moderate friends who say, more in sadness than in anger, that Obama’s and Biden’s administrations were “failures.” They were no such thing — not if you understand that the point of Democratic governance (the Vietnam disaster, socialist healthcare, rampant inflation, unchecked immigration) is to damage the country.

If this goes on for a decade or two, OK, that can be a mistake. When it goes on since the end of the Eisenhower administration, it’s a plan.

How, exactly, are illegals (or any immigrants in America) helped by riots featuring crime and claims of foreign loyalty in their name? It doesn’t matter how many times cable-news hosts describe mayhem as “mostly peaceful”…

You gotta love how they’re once again bringing out “mostly peaceful,” with torched police cars and mobs ransacking stores in the background.

…or how many New York Times op-eds blame Donald Trump for the violent scenes. The rioters are fanning out across California making the best possible case for Trump’s mass-deportation initiative.

Not to mention what now looks like the Number One campaign ad for Republicans in 2028.