In June, following raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the largely peaceful protests that formed in response, President Donald Trump loosed the National Guard on Los Angeles. Images of public demonstrations, mostly concentrated in the photogenic density of downtown, spread far and wide, broadcasting LA as the city of dissent. Federal forces soon engineered their own spectacle, however, turning public spaces like MacArthur Park into theaters of martial display.
The dead of summer brought more conflicting messages: The week that undercover ICE agents raided Home Depot parking lots, a thousand-plus troops in the National Guard prepared to exit the city. (The same force was summarily invited by the president to enter the District of Columbia in August.)
The momentum favors retreat over revolt—for now. Trump’s rapacious id is intent on subduing the country’s liberal cities. ICE is feeling both flush and fash after the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill and September’s SCOTUS ruling, an ignoble rubber stamp on the persecution of an exploited i…