Los Angeles - the land where dreams come true, the ‘liberal heart of America’ - is burning once again.
What started out as peaceful protests against US President Donald Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers turned violent over the weekend with several reports of rioting, arson and looting.
But instead of letting local or even state authorities handle it, Trump decided to take matters into his own hands. Not only did Trump take the unprecedented steps of calling up thousands of National Guard troops to LA, he has also deployed a battalion of hundreds of marines to “assist” law enforcement in LA.
Trump decried that what’s happening in “California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order, and national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country”. He took the rhetoric a step further and pledged to “liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean, and safe again”.
Is there more to this than meets the eye?
Dig deeper and you get the sense that the fight with LA, and by extension - California, is one that Trump is eager to have.
Many have accused Trump of needlessly and deliberately ratcheting up violence in LA, especially Californian Governor Gavin Newsom. Newsom, a Democrat and prominent critic of the President, wrote on X that the troop deployment was a "deranged fantasy of a dictatorial President".
Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta have since sued Trump on the grounds that the President acted unlawfully by deploying the troops — typically under joint state and federal control — without the Governor’s approval.
And this isn’t the first time. According to CalMatters, a nonprofit news organization covering California state politics and policies, this is already the 24th lawsuit against Trump’s second administration. During his first term, California state sued the federal government over 120 times with Trump losing about two-thirds of the cases.
The clash between Trump and Newsom is symptomatic of the fractious relationship between the US President and long-time ‘blue State’.
For context - in American political discourse, States are often labeled “red” for leaning towards Republican politics or “blue” for leaning Democratic.
California, America’s third largest state by area and largest by population, is generally considered the de facto leader of the blue-state resistance against right-wing or conservative ideology. That has resulted in the Trump administration repeatedly clashing with California over its progressive stances.
When California allowed transgender athletes to compete in women's sports, Trump threatened to cut funding to the State. After California tried to improve its air quality by introducing stringent auto emissions standards, Trump has chosen to sign a trio of resolutions on Thursday to revoke them. Whilst LA was fighting wildfires in Jan 2025, Trump clashed with Newsom over the state's response and threatened to withhold federal aid if the state didn't agree to his demands.
Even more recently, Trump’s moves to halt student visa interviews and deport the ones already there seriously jeopardizes California universities, which have more international students than any other state.
Daniel Villaseñor, a spokesperson for Governor Newsom famously declared that “if it’s a day ending in Y, it’s another day of Trump’s war on California”.
Will the ‘California Dream’ prevail or will Trump? Who knows but these California demonstrations may just be the start of greater civil unrest in the days ahead.
