“The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity” said famed Israeli diplomat Abba Eban in 2002.
The same can be said for the Democrats in 2025 and their reaction to the LA riots of this past week. They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
First, let’s level set.
The arrests by ICE agents of criminal illegals is absolutely justified and should be applauded. The arrests of illegals waiting for day jobs at a Home Depot is wrong and should be condemned.
Peaceful protests are protected under the Constitution. Violent, destructive riots are not.
Democrat politicians in the Independent republic of California like Rep. Maxine Waters, who’ve said there was no violence this past week in LA, are imbeciles. Cars were torched. Molotov cocktails, fireworks and bricks were showered down on police officers. A federal building was vandalized. Stores were looted and a curfew was ordered for a one-square mile area of downtown.
So President Donald Trump, sensing a way to draw attention away from his controversial big, beautiful spending bill and make his base stand up and cheer, ordered in the National Guard and the US Marines, without the consent of California Governor Gavin Newsom.
A crass political move? Sure. He expected Newsom and co.’s Pavlovian reactions and they certainly didn’t disappoint.
Remember how I started. The Democrats never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
They just lost a presidential election and one of the big issues that got Trump elected was his promised crackdown and deportation of illegal immigrants.
Trump knows busting illegals continues to be a political winner for him, and not just amongst American-born voters. He has surging support for his policies with legal immigrants as well.
I’m not going to get into the legality of Trump sending in the National Guard and Marines, but given all those givens, it was certainly a political no-brainer for Trump to do what he did.
It should have been a political no-brainer for the Democrats to strongly and loudly condemn the rioters and to keep their focus on quelling lawlessness. But, they chose to turn the battles in the streets into battles against Trump. In the eyes of many, they appeared to be siding with the anarchists. Not a good look.
Trump gobbled up that political treat like a golden retriever gobbles up a milk bone.
The Dems continue to believe that by painting Trump as an authoritarian they will regain popularity. That strategy may work in some local congressional districts but it hasn’t worked on a national scale. Trump vs. California in the heartland, in the swing states? Trump wins.
Democratic Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who is frequently out of step with his more progressive party colleagues, said it best in a posting on X.
I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration—but this is not that. This is anarchy and true chaos.
My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement.
That is what centrist voters want to hear. By ceding those common sense values to Donald Trump, the Democrats are just digging themselves into a hole deeper than they’re already in. They still haven’t learned the lessons of the last presidential election. They are the ones that are out of step with the American mainstream.
Trump’s strongman moves, even though they are norm-busting and dramatic, make the Democrats look weak. They cry, facist! dictator! autocrat! They speechify and filibuster and denounce the bad, mad man in the White House, but the videos that millions of Americans see of downtown LA burning send one clear message: Democrat run cities and states are out of control and someone has to do something to make course-correct them.
The Dems have to recapture their party from the progressives who claim there is no violence when it is staring them in the face. That there is no lawlessness when police officers are getting attacked. That the anarchists calling for an intifada right here in the United States are simply righteous protestors exercising their First Amendment rights.
The Dems had their chance this past week in LA to show the voters they’ve learned their lessons from 2024, but they blew it once again.
They still haven’t figured out how to stand up to Trump and how not to not stick up for anarchy.
Hey Democrats, start showing us a little MASA…how you’re going to make America sane again.