Consider what the average American is seeing on their phones/TV screens/computers out of Los Angeles over the past 48 hours:
- Cars being lit on fire (see below)
- Masked protesters waving Mexican flags standing in front of the burning cars
- Fireworks and rocks (and scooters!) being thrown at police vehicles
- Buildings being spray-painted with anti-law enforcement slogans
To be clear: I am not saying that that is the whole story. As virtually every news story I have read is careful to note, these protests are very limited in scope—with much of Los Angeles not even noticing that they are happening. Trump’s decision to call up the National Guard could well have been an accelerant to the violence as opposed to the solution for it.
But, as I say over and over again: The average person is not seeking out every single nuance of a story like this. They are focused on their daily lives. They catch this sort of news only in passing.
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And, when you see a quick gloss of this story, it’s one that clearly favors Donald Trump.
Remember that Trump ran—expressly—in 2024 on getting MUCH tougher on illegal immigrants.
The consensus—especially among loose partisans and swing voters—was that the Biden administration had been ineffectual at the Southern border, largely because of its unwillingness to put in place real and biting policies that would curtail the flow of illegals into the U.S.
Even as Trump’s numbers have faded on virtually every issue during his first five months in office, his polling on the border and immigration more broadly has stayed strong.
Ask yourself this. If you are Trump would you rather have the big national story be:
- Your fight with Elon Musk?
- The ongoing struggles to pass the “One Big Beautiful Bill” through Congress (and all the stuff that’s actually IN the “OBBB”)?
- An immigration fight where the dominant images are protesters lighting cars on fire and clashing with the police?
It’s a TOTAL no-brainer. Don’t believe me? Check out the full-court press Trump has put on to draw as much attention to the issue as possible over the last 24 hours, via his Truth Social feed. Here’s just one(of many) examples:
Trust me, this is 100% a fight he wants. And he will egg it on in all possible ways over the coming days—as a way to keep it in the news. (I’d argue the decision to call up the California National Guard without even consulting California Gov. Gavin Newsom is an example of how Trump is working to turn up the heat.)
And it appears as though Democratic elected officials are willing to play along.
Newsom’s weird come-arrest-me threat on MSNBC on Sunday night felt tone-deaf. And speaking of tone-deaf, California Rep. Maxine Waters’ comments—“I don’t know why we have guns. What are those guns for? Are they to shoot protesters?”—feel decidedly out of step with the images we are seeing of the protests on TV.
Politics, as I have said many times before, is about picking your battles. It’s about fighting on ground that is favorable for you—and unfavorable for your opponent.
Like him or hate him, Trump gets that. He knows a fight about deportations defined by burning cars and anti-police graffiti is a winner for him.
Democrats need to think this way if they want to beat Trump and the broader Republican party. Fighting Trump on ground where the public is clearly on his side makes ZERO sense.
