To many here in the Pacific Northwest, both California and Washington, D.C. can seem like foreign countries. This separation from us — both in miles and attitudes — has been a false comfort, a feeling that whatever happens, we will be able to go on living how we choose.
Events centered in Los Angeles the past few days have ripped away this complacency. Living along the Pacific Coast is not a safe and effective vaccine against either destructive turmoil or a toxic, politically motivated overreaction.
Scenes of civil unrest in an LA neighborhood remind some of Black Lives Matter protests or of the outcry over the Vietnam War. Turning attention to the truth of persistent racism was largely a valid exercise of constitutional rights, as were the mass demonstrations that played a major part in forcing an end to our national nightmare in Southeast Asia.

No comparison

What LA’s pro-migrant movement does not resemble are the large-scale 1965 Watts riots or the wanton destruction in 1992 surrounding the verdict in the Rodney King police-beating case.
Much more localized and largely peaceful, the events of recent days require a careful balancing act by LA police and local civic authorities. Lawful — though impassioned — speech and freedom of assembly have been facilitated, while authorities simultaneously kept a rein on unlawful actions that might spiral out of control. Are some police tactics like shooting teargas projectiles toward crowds too aggressive? Maybe in some instances. But we’ve all seen the damage that can be done when protests ascend into anarchy — not so long ago close to home in parts of Portland and Seattle. Well-managed policing can be both humane and effective.
Absolutely offensive and unacceptable is the injection into LA of innocent U.S. Marines and National Guard troops over the objections of local authorities. Grandstanding by President Trump, who has descended into the grumpiest of demented granduncles, is obviously going too far. It is a premeditated tantrum instead of a rational policy. It builds on the wasteful and symbolic deployment of the Army along the U.S.-Mexico border, helping guard a gateway that is already shut.

Threats become real

Encouraging his minions to arrest California’s governor — basically on a charge of not enthusiastically embracing Trump’s anti-immigrant actions — is the sort of threat that would be unsurprising in Putin’s Russia. But it is far beyond the bounds of American traditions of respect for differing political views. Some may dismiss this threat as just another of Trump’s throw-away lines. But demagogues aren’t always just bluffing and Trump is increasingly untethered from normal constraints. Is there anything this ultimate narcissist won’t do?
LA is an unparalleled media market, providing a stage for political theater on a grand scale. This makes it an unsurprising venue for Trump and his fellow travelers to attempt a shock-and-awe campaign designed to intimidate Americans from opposing workplace immigration raids or other future dictates. But is it so hard to imagine this administration sending in the Marines when earnest activists in Astoria or Ilwaco try to impede the detention of valued Spanish-speaking neighbors?
Should the U.S. long ago have developed a better path for legal immigration to meet our very real needs for labor? Absolutely. In effect, generations of national leaders in both major political parties turned a blind eye to our porous southern border because it served vital economic interests.
But Trump’s campaign promising to eject millions of otherwise law-abiding residents is resulting in injustice. It is an abnormal and arbitrary response to a situation of our own making. Mass arrests unrelated to serious crimes will be a stain on our national conscience.
Sending warriors to suppress civilian protests is also abhorrent.

A wise general

What retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, a Washington state native and no “liberal snowflake,” wrote about the first Trump administration in 2020 is equally valid today:
“We must reject any thinking of our cities as a ‘battlespace’ that our uniformed military is called upon to ‘dominate.’ At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response … sets up a conflict — a false conflict — between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
“James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that ‘America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.’ We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.
“Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that ‘The Nazi slogan for destroying us … was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’’ We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis — confident that we are better than our politics. …
“We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s ‘better angels,’ and listen to them, as we work to unite.