Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman break down how the authoritarian crackdown erupted in Los Angeles, with Trump now openly escalating his illegal takeover of the National Guard — while sending in the Marines unprovoked. Nick gives his firsthand account of the protest, and they explore the cyclical nature of strongman violence, how the corporate media is laundering it all through a sanitized lens, and what these dangerous trends mean heading into a long, volatile summer.
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Nick, we have a big situation on our hands right now.
I think a lot of our listeners are aware that you live in Los Angeles.
We currently have every single day this thing gets worse.
For those who have maybe not been able to keep up with all of it, on Saturday morning in Paramount, a suburb of Los Angeles, ICE conducted a raid outside of a Home Depot that set off a vigorous protest that included the arrest of David Huerta, the president of the SSH.
We have had an escalation that the Trump administration has carried out, including sending 2,000 National Guard troops to the protest, allegedly Nick,
we're going to dive into all of this, but I want to say again that this is a very, very serious escalation in the authoritarian push that we've been covering.
You yourself, you live in Los Angeles.
I believe you attended protests on Sunday.
Can you go ahead and tell everybody a little bit about what you experienced and what you've been seeing and what it's like in Los Angeles right now?
Yeah, sure, sure.
Well, you know, we're no strangers.
I am no stranger to the typical protests we'll see in L.A. that we've had since Trump took office the first time.
And, you know, I got to tell you, on the Sunday at 2 p.m. when we got there, that's when it started, it was very much a normal version of what we had seen.
A lot less attendance.
It was a lot less people than we normally had seen gathered outside of or in front of the City Hall building where they had speakers from one of the local socialist parties.
And that was all kind of fine.
The energy was kind of low.
Looking around, I was trying to remember when we were there a few weeks ago to protest Trump directly, you know, there was whole areas that were completely filled that you couldn't see the ground at all that were wide open on Sunday.
Now, that said, it was, you know, 2.30, 3, like, you know, the first half an hour, hour of the beginning of the protest.
But then at that some point though, you know, they stopped speaking and they led the crowd to around the corner and down towards the federal detention building where ICE would be bringing their detainees into the back loading dock of what is basically a jail.
And when we got there, and I ended up being somehow like in the very, very front of this group, what you did see were all of the police.
like, shame at them over and over again.
So it was really very calm and very much, you know, everyone was there for a purpose to make our voices heard.
So I can tell you now, for the first two hours plus of this protest, it was very much, you know, people, I don't think anyone was necessarily on edge, but there was nobody there who was intentionally trying to cause any kind of melee or any kind of, you know, things that would cause, you know, violence.
So I guess I would start because there's so much to get into.
I would ask, what does it feel like right now to be in a city?
Because I think...
I think it's totally fine for individuals to impede ICE investigations and raids.
This is the kind of thing that you and I have been expecting for a while.
We even predicted that it was going to come in the summer.
By the way, for anyone keeping track, we're in June now.
But this is also, it is not an out-of-control riot.
This looks nothing like the police brutality riots that we've seen.
It isn't even on the scale of what happened with BLM.
but it is being treated now in not just action, but in the words and portrayal from the administration as an insurrection.
So now we have a situation where the only parts of your city are necessarily seeing these protests and seeing these skirmishes, correct?
There is...
It's sort of isolated how it is.
But it's also being used almost as a launching pad and as an example for the rest of the country with what is going to happen to a city if people get involved and fight back against this fascism.
For sure.
I mean, like, Paramount, what happened on Saturday, is as far away from, like, the conventional part of the city as you can be in a way that didn't feel like anything was happening, which is really in the normal part of it.
And then even when you're downtown, again, it's a very isolated area as well, where it's not spilling out into residential areas.
was mainly around the federal buildings.
Now, that said, when we got to the end, And that was when they started firing bullets and they started firing little tear gas and stuff.
And we could kind of sense a little bit of it where it didn't really affect me directly, but, you know, within, you know, 30 or 40 feet of where we were, like, you know, the crowd started to move back very quickly.
I think it was ostensibly to make sure that they could let cars get into the back area.
Carrying, you know, the ICE detainees.
Like, that was what they realized pretty quickly, that as we poured into that street, the cars would not have been able to get through.
So they seemed to be pretty, you know, focused on that.
And everyone was amenable to, like, okay, we'll keep moving, we'll keep moving, we'll stop, we'll look, and then, you know, we'll keep moving again.
And they brought a phalanx of these police cars to push everybody back slowly, but no announcement, no nothing about what their intention was to do.
Right?
They just simply started to do it.
And like, you know, there were things flying through the air and through the crowd that were like these, you know, the remnants of the rubber bullets that were firing on the ground.
But it didn't feel, you know, as you're walking away after a couple of hours, the mood, you know, I've been in situations sometimes where you kind of feel it in the air, where it can turn violence or something, the electricity.
It did not feel that way at all.
Everyone there was sort of, you know, it was still very calm and, you know, orderly with the, you know, with chanting and those kind of things.
It just felt like it was going to be a normal.
Now, as soon as we got in our car and started driving away is when we noticed on the freeway going the other direction, the cops started to swerve back and forth to close off the freeway because that was when the moment they started to spill out onto the freeway to block.
And I think, you know, unfortunately, I wish I would have stayed, at least to experience what that part of it was, because that seemed to be the green light to let a lot of the other, you know, behavior loose.
What we saw with, like, firecrackers and stuff like this.
Let me ask this really quickly, Jared, because firecrackers and fireworks ended up being basically a weapon that was being used.
When you decide to bring fireworks to a protest like that, what is your intention?
I mean, so I think there's something behind this question that I also want to go ahead and comment on.
Because after your protest ended, things sort of went sideways as the police and National Guard were going through the city.
We saw a bunch of Waymo cars that were set on fire.
We, of course, saw there was at one point a police cruiser got set on fire from an overpass.
There were reports of like pieces of rock being thrown and debris being thrown, all of that.
When it comes to that or fireworks, and this is, I think, something that you and I should discuss, I don't...
I tend to look at this as the state is carrying out violence on the populace.
And I think this whole hand-wringing over, you have to stay calm, you can't engage with these people.
One of the things we keep hearing is that, oh, you don't want to provoke the violence.
What we're actually watching here is a cycle of abuse and enabling.
And we'll talk more about that where it's coming from, including from the Democratic Party, from our mainstream media, all of that stuff.
I personally, when I look at this, I don't have a problem with it.
I see this as being an escalation by the state.
And, you know, we've talked, Nick, I've said that we're going to have to start getting a little bit more comfortable with things that we're probably not very comfortable with.
And in this case, I do not have a problem with a community looking at an occupying force and saying, you're not welcome here, you can't do this, you can't disappear our neighbors, our families, our loved ones.
Like, this is unfortunately, and again, it's uncomfortable, this is how anti-fascists work.
I mean, the implication could very well be that some of the people that were lighting cars on fire were, you know, plants, I suppose.
And, like, you know, there's an image of one guy doing it, like, as he dressed a certain way that would have indicated that it was, maybe it was some sort of law enforcement who was trying to get the crowd going.
I don't know.
I mean, it didn't, you know, all I can tell you is the feeling I had from there when observing everybody that was there.
And I also know that as these things drag on, as we get closer to, like, You know, the sun going down.
You know, things, they're there for a purpose.
And so it wouldn't be a stretch in my mind to say that people brought the fireworks because they intended to use them.
Yeah.
Again, whether or not I'm comfortable with that or not is a whole other separate thing because, again, most likely if you do that, you're going to get arrested.
I feel pretty good about a lot of the things that we'll see that are criminal in terms of activity that might be necessary to make the point that they're trying to make will also be punished for however much the punishment is for doing those things.
I think one thing we have to worry about, obviously, is what the rhetoric has come out from the Trump administration about protesters in general and what they intend to do to make examples out of people and then punish them way above and out of bounds.
We even saw the police officers, or the chief of police, kind of describing that his officers were in life threatening situations because of the fireworks, which, you And, you know, it does lead to the other repercussions of how they're going to deal with those kind of people.
So I don't know.
I was just kind of interested in that sense because it does feel like there is a certain subset of the protesters that are looking to get into the trouble, whether you want to call it the good trouble or the bad trouble.
Well, and I want to dive deeper into that in a second, but I want to zoom out for a moment.
And I want to point out because, man, this stuff gets so complicated because this is a chaotic situation.
Right?
We can talk about what's going on in the street.
Let's go ahead and go to the higher viewpoint here, and let's point out some obvious things.
The President of the United States of America circumvented his responsibility and his jurisdiction by taking over the National Guard.
And Gavin Newsom, your governor, has made a big stink out of this, said that he didn't give the approval.
I will note, because I do not trust Gavin Newsom, he still has not filed the lawsuit that he promised to file in that regard.
So I wonder how much of this is on the up and up.
I do not trust that man.
I do not trust the performance that he's giving, which we'll hear from in a little bit.
But if you also now move to this idea that Marines are going to be placed on the street, who are unnecessary, by the way.
I think we both agree on that, that this is not a time for the military to be used against the population, and nor should it ever be, that this has to be an institution.
We've heard Trump now to call them insurrection.
We've now heard that language being used, he doesn't want to necessarily declare it.
Although, I mean, maybe even tonight, by the time we're done recording, he will have declared the Insurrection Act.
We don't know.
This is a situation where an authoritarian president Unfortunately, Nick, Los Angeles is kind of the perfect situation for him.
It's in the state of California where MAGA looks at it, and they see this as a far-left dystopia.
They look at Los Angeles, which I believe – Like millions upon millions of them are immigrants.
On top of that, they like the optics of this.
They like that there are, you know, people who like share culture between the United States and Mexico and may even wave Mexican flags, God forbid.
This is using the city of Los Angeles in Trump's war against California and so-called blue states.
This is an opportunity for him to not just circumvent the Constitution, but to set an example.
And what he's doing in L.A. right now, not only is he inciting this, and not only is he welcoming this in, but as part of the authoritarian playbook, they have to respond to any sort of resistance with overwhelming violence and control.
And so what is happening right now, and unfortunately the conversation that you and I have to have and that other people are having, it is defined by how we react to this.
How we greet it, how we navigate it, how we talk about it, and how we conduct ourselves in response to it.
And what we have right now, unfortunately, is another landmark in this ongoing battle we have against authoritarianism, period.
And Trump has chosen this to be the moment, and he was ready to have it at any given moment, and Los Angeles, unfortunately, has proven the perfect starting point for it.
And I think he's using L.A. because there also is a bit of a legal test to all of this as well as what he can get away with in terms of invoking the National Guard.
Short of having to use the Insurrection Act, he invoked another, you know, sort of code that allows the president to control the National Guard in the case of when there is an invasion.
Clearly, this is not an invasion.
Right?
And so I think what they want to do here is figure out what the pushback could be.
They can get ahead of the game on that way when they go to other places because they're not doing this in Texas.
I don't think I've seen too many of these raids.
And why?
You would think that in Texas there's at least as many people there that they could go after and deport as there are in California.
But I think part of it is that they'll know that this is the strongest pushback they're going to get, and they can get out ahead of it earlier.
And then there's also the intimidation factor, because we have to understand, obviously, either it's intimidation or they're trying to instigate.
And, you know, with things that we've seen happen, like at Kent State, where they had the National Guard come in and they ended up killing people.
And that is an extreme phenomenon.
And when they're lined up and they have their, you know, M16s across their chest with their finger near the trigger, you know, understanding there, that is an intimidation factor that's supposed to be there.
But I almost feel like they'd be more than happy to have one of these violent episodes happen.
And they probably look at Kent State and think, oh, what an idiot those Republicans were for not turning into more of a win for them politically.
Yeah.
And, you know, I think – The clashes that took place then have informed what we're dealing with now.
Kent State, of course, is famous because a few students were killed by the National Guard.
And really, what we're looking at at this moment, Nick, There's a possibility for this to be much worse than that.
And not only because of the political situation, but because we have an administration that is stocked with people who kind of want this.
They want a show of force that is going to, and that's the question, right, is if this thing pops off, if you have a massive tragedy that takes place in Los Angeles, The question then, as we're going down this path and as we're figuring things out, is what will the response be?
Because every time you have a moment like this in an authoritarian power grab, it either incites more unrest, which could lead to more protests and more sort of clashes between the citizens and the government, or it can be an example in which people say, hey, listen.
They are obviously not worried about killing people.
They are obviously not worried about hurting people.
I need to make a choice before I get in the streets, right?
And so these are always branching moments and going into this, like finding out that they have actually mobilized these Marines and that we have an administration.
I mean, listen to what Trump says.
Every time he talks, he lets you know what he actually thinks.
And his entire thing is we're going to hit and we're going to hit hard.
Then you have to wonder, going into this, is this going to be an unprecedented, large-scale type thing?
And that's not to say that we haven't seen moments in American history.
I mean, George Washington led the American army against a so-called insurrection, a populist movement.
On top of that, there have been actual wars between the government and labor unions.
We've seen a lot of blood spilled in this country.
But in this moment, we have a very, very volatile situation and an administration that is acutely desiring of exactly what we're talking about.
And, you know, just to put back on my experience, it was like there was nothing, I think maybe I was a little bit concerned while I was getting ready to go, thinking like, oh, what's going to happen if this is violent?
How are we going to get out of this?
All those different things.
And you get there, and, you know, for our experience, that was completely unfounded, right?
There was no reason to have any kind of fear of any kind of violence going to happen, right?
And it just happens, you know, I wish I was there a little bit longer to kind of maybe have seen directly what started to spark it, because again, You're going to end up seeing some of the police on the mounted police on horses being ultra-aggressive.
Trampling people.
And then also people could also get antsy and be like, well, we're here, nothing's happening, I need to instigate.
I think that there's a there gets to be combustible thing the longer they are out there facing each other.
And at the very least with the LAPD for all of their warts, like they have experience with this stuff, unlike the National Guard or unlike the Marines.
Should we listen to what Trump is saying in terms of what his red line is?
Unfortunately, yeah.
Do you ever see those protests spreading to other cities, Chicago, New York, for example, in the next few days?
-We're going to be watching it very closely.
And when they spit at people, you know, they spit.
That's their new thing.
They spit at words.
You know what they throw at them, right?
And when that happens, I have a little statement.
They say, "They spit.
We hit." I told them.
Nobody's going to spit on our police officers.
Nobody's going to spit on our military, which they do is a common thing.
They get up to them this far away and then they start spitting in their face.
If that happens, they get hit very hard.
We'll see what happens.
If we think there's a serious insurrection or less than that, we're going to have law and order.
So if you couldn't hear that insurrection or less than that, we're going to have quote-unquote law and order, which we know it's really something to have a president who is, what's the word I'm looking for?
Stupid and incurious and brutal and cruel.
It's really something to have in a moment like this.
And again, we've covered this for years, Nick.
He's engaging in a fantasy in his own mind.
It's just like the entirety of the right wing of America.
They just create situations that piss them off, and then they create the scenarios in which they get to abuse people.
And I just want to say real fast, just to return to something that you said, Nick, the idea that people might agitate, I still think rhetorically that we're doing a disservice to people.
The people who are out there in the street are either Angelenos.
Who live in the city and are being invaded by the federal government illegally, unconstitutionally, and brutally, who are trying to help their neighbors and their friends and the people that they love, or they're people from around the country who care about this shit, and they can be called outside agitators.
And Nick, weirdly enough, outside agitators, anarchists, professional protesters, insurgents, what's weird about that is it's the same language that gets used every time there's a social movement, including the civil rights movement.
Every single time they use that in order to legitimize violence against the people.
So I want to be careful with the rhetoric here, the idea that people are agitating for a fight, when in all actuality, you have a state that is not just violent with the people right now.
It's been violent with the people since the founding of the United States of America, with large increases in violence and oppression.
And so then you have to start wondering, because, Nick, we are sort of tiptoeing up into revolutionary territory.
And a lot of the conversations we have about this, unfortunately, are determined by political classes, media classes.
We'll talk more about that in a second.
Like, I want to be careful because somebody standing in their street of the city that they live in and saying, you're not welcome here, you're a fascist, that isn't agitating.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's actually standing your ground against people who do not have a right to be there.
And when we start looking at this, all of a sudden, I think that perspective starts putting the onus on the people.
And I think that's a little bit of a difficult circumstance, and that is a rhetoric that is designed to help the authoritarians.
Fair enough, fair enough.
And by the way, the spitting thing, just to address that, you know, there's no limit to the volume with which you can exercise your First Amendment rights.
I think we can say that.
And by the way, it's a leftover from the they spit on the Vietnam veterans.
That's what that is.
Yeah, right.
And, you know, just, you know, for the full picture, they have the blast visors down.
And so there's this barrier between the police and the people, right?
So that's the other thing, is it's, like, if they're going to use that as a threshold to, like, then start to instigate violence, which they know the second they begin to batter with their shields, right, into the crowd, then it is game on.
I mean, I think sort of approaching what you're talking about as well, where if the cops had a different training.
Or they didn't sort of instigate even with those little things like there.
Again, I told you, there was no announcement.
They just started to fire indiscriminately these rubber bullets like at the ground at the feet, right?
Well, I mean, not just at the feet.
Like, they're shooting like unarmed reporters.
They're just going...
So let me do a quick rhetorical little exercise with you, Nick.
You have police who are trampling protesters with their horses.
You have police who are running over people with their vehicles.
So all of a sudden there, what are we saying?
Oh, it's a couple of bad apples.
Like, we really need to reform that, right?
That's the way that we talk about that.
Well, what happens if a protester hits a police person with a club?
What happens if they trampled them with a horse or ran over them with a car?
All of a sudden now we're having a And I think you agree with me.
The state system is corrupt and it isn't right.
And it is not a legitimate state system that we should respect.
Is that fair?
Yeah.
I would like to think on an individual level, there's good amongst the ranks.
Well, okay.
You can believe that all you want, but I don't see a lot of good when I see someone being trampled by a fucking horse.
Yeah, all right.
Let's log into that a little deeper, and there seems to be some extra reporting on that.
I saw a fucking horse step on a person.
I mean, I saw that.
I mean, listen, the notion, there was an extra notion, like maybe like the guy was, you know, had like a Molotov cocktail in his hand and they were trying to, you know, Well, okay.
I would love to see that in the guidebook.
And spook the horse.
That was a weird one.
And I'll give you that.
It looked terrible.
But there's a lot of stuff happening.
No, there's a lot happening, but that's why we have to be careful.
Right.
And I will also...
One of the reasons we do what we do is because there was a need for people to talk about things like the cable news.
You know what's funny?
I'm not sure I've ever really voiced that, but you're right.
I don't watch it much.
Well, I assumed because you talk to me and you talk to others and you actually follow stuff.
Well, I like as I'm talking to groups on the ground and the people who are in the experience, I like to turn this on because – Nick, it was incredible to me watching every single channel that is, do you know who the guests are?
When stuff like this goes down?
Do you know who they bring on to talk about this?
Like Brennan, like the former CIA chief?
Oh, yeah.
Former agents of the FBI, former police officers, like former security officers, former members of intelligence agencies.
That's who they bring on.
So what is the average cable news viewer or political class getting?
What are they interested in?
And what do they keep talking about, Nick?
And this is the thing that drives me nuts.
Have you noticed how much you're hearing the word property?
Oh, no, but go ahead.
So much damage to property.
So much damage to buildings or cars.
Or think about the poor self-driving cars that were set on fire.
Oh my God, who will think of them?
Okay, wait a minute, time out.
Can you explain why I felt a little bit sad for the Waymos?
Yeah, because you have been taught to believe they're alive.
Like Cars movie, right?
Is that what it is?
Yes.
Because you have been taught to believe that something with AI is actually alive.
Well, either not.
like they're just they're just innocent they're just throwing They're a corporate tool.
They're a car.
And so, like, listen, I didn't lose a wink of sleep last night because Waymos were being set on fire.
But as this is happening...
And what do you hear, Nick?
I just hope one of these protesters doesn't light a match.
Right?
Because that's the entire thing.
We are being set up to accept people being killed and to look at it and say, well, it's unfortunate, but that's what happens whenever these situations take place.
We are literally being sort of drug along to accepting the idea that state-sponsored violence and murder will be carried out on our streets.
I agree.
I mean, that's a really great point.
And that's the problem is that the way it's going to be covered is, yes, it's going to be like what you're seeing from the right wing are the images of someone with a Mexican flag and the cars burning in the background from Paramount.
And they're like, here's your next ad, Republicans.
And it's the same thing that we saw in the 60s, in the early 70s with the Nixon administration, where they were trying to capitalize.
By the way, the irony of that is that they capitalize on, you know, on the silent majority and law.
The white people?
Who?
White people.
Conservatives, liberals, moderates were in the silent majority.
And they always end up in times of discomfort and times of anxiety.
They end up getting behind the person of quote-unquote law and order.
But here's the interesting difference.
As far as I'm concerned, Nixon heard I believe that was what was causing him all this angst.
He was drunk every night and he had the finger on the butt and all that stuff.
This doesn't not only does Trump not hear it, it probably fuels it the opposite direction, right?
That's what's kind of weird about what weird is not a good word, but that's the difference here, is that this is a whole other animal where the protests...
And maybe, in fact, they're having the opposite effect, politically at least, and that's a problem.
Well, I just want to draw a quick little sketch of something, which is we've had lots of protests.
We've seen lots of protests.
We've seen millions of people marching in the streets, and that does help to sort of publicize the disapproval.
Right?
It lets people know that there are other people out there who do not agree with this.
You're not alone in this.
So now all of a sudden we have a question.
And I think this is the big existential question of the moment, which is, what do you do when an authoritarian dictator is trying to seize power?
Like, what is on the table?
Then all of a sudden, are we going to keep protesting in the same way?
Are we going to continue down that road?
And we've seen that that doesn't necessarily work.
And this is an actual question.
And I would love to know your thoughts on this because, Nick, I'm an analyst.
I'm an organizer.
We are being honest with people.
We've been on a journey together.
For years, we've been covering this and talking about this and sort of trying to explain it and warn against this.
At what point does the rule of engagement change?
You know what I mean?
Like, when is it?
Like, right now, I'm hearing from the media.
I'm hearing from Democrats.
Every statement, Nick, I'm sure you've seen this, and we'll talk more about how the Democratic Party is handling this.
Every statement, what does it say?
It's like, these have been mostly peaceful protests.
Right?
I want to protect the rights of the people to peacefully protest.
And you keep hearing this, and again, you hear this during the civil rights movement, you hear it during the gay rights movement, you hear it during all of these movements, that they are always distancing themselves from anybody who engages in this stuff.
When do the rules of engagement change?
When is it you reach the point, because you look back in history, and if you're in Italy and the fascists are taking over, do you just march?
And smile as they beat you with clubs or they go into your houses and disappear you?
Like, when does that change?
And I think we have a problem in living in the moment.
Looking back, we can say, oh, yeah, people fought.
Like, in Warsaw, did they just, like, march and just, you know, smile as they were getting destroyed?
No.
They fought back.
So when does that change?
And this is something that in my work I'm trying to wrap my head around.
I would love to hear from you.
When do you think that changes?
Well, we have to go a little bit farther back before Warsaw and Poland when the Reichstag fire happens because those are the things that we see.
Like in the 60s, it hasn't gotten as bad in the 60s in terms of what the weather underground was planning in terms of blowing up buildings, right?
That was the next level because they weren't satisfied with what they were accomplishing with just protests.
And so many of the protests back then did become violent.
That's the other thing.
It's weird.
It's almost like when there is violence and even skirmishes and a car gets lit on fire, they're trying to blow this up into some sort of crazy thing.
We're under siege and the whole city's burning.
When in reality, this is sort of par for the course.
Unfortunately, there are things that are worth money that get destroyed, unfortunately.
That's what happens.
That's why we have insurance.
But here, what you have a concern about is, yes, either A, the plots become thicker in terms of maybe trying to do more destruction, or B, and this is the one that doesn't sound far-fetched, is that there are false flag operations from the government.
designed to then be able to allow them to clamp down, which is exactly what Hitler did with the Reichstag fire.
So these are the things that they're very concerned about.
And at the very least, the thing that's different now than there was in the 1930s Germany is that everyone's got a camera and there are ways to sort of document stuff that could either exonerate or not exonerate people.
But then had you seen the recent AI developments in video, Jared, have you?
Yes, unfortunately.
So, it's going to take, it's going to be something problematic here, right, where we're going to end up having to make a decision of what we believe that we see and what really happens.
But I wouldn't be surprised, again, and whenever we said, I wouldn't be surprised, dot, dot, dot, in the last eight years we've been doing this, it always comes true.
But, yeah, there will be some sort of incredibly violent thing on the order of a building being attacked or blowing up or something like that.
And perhaps, you know, then being pinned on, you know, the far left.
Well, and again, I think just to stay with it for just a second, when is that acceptable?
Like, you know what I mean?
I'm not even talking about, like, Weather Underground, which was its own thing.
Like, I've read enough on the Weather Underground and researched enough on them that they were a bunch of people who were just, like, playing revolutionary.
They didn't have a plan.
They didn't really, like, they did things.
Right?
But it wasn't like they were part of, like, a broader kind of a movement.
They were actually very isolated in their own shit.
And they isolated themselves.
But, like, at what point, when an authoritarian government is rolling through your streets, and if they do start carrying on, like, we have to say, I expect this to get violent.
You expect this to get violent, correct?
I mean, define violence.
Can you, real quick?
Well, I do think that particularly if the Marines show up, I think you're going to see things escalate even further than where they've been.
Fair enough, right?
Because you could argue violence was happening yesterday.
Violence was happening yesterday.
Yeah, but I'm thinking about death.
Yeah, me too.
Me too.
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, again, I sincerely hope that that doesn't happen, and I'm trying not to get there, but there's a ring of inevitability here with that because of all the heavy artillery that they're sending to these places.
Well, an authoritarian wants to push the issue until people either lay down or they're made to lay down.
That's the entire cycle of this thing.
Nick, he wanted it in 2020.
Like, we know now, based on reports and information that came out later, Trump wanted to go after the BLM protesters.
He just didn't have the people there who were willing to do it.
He has the people there now who are more than willing to do it.
So what happens then?
What happens when this thing reaches that threshold?
Like, where exactly does this thing go?
You know, and I don't think anyone knows at this point.
I was having a conversation.
I can't remember if it was today or yesterday with somebody.
And I was talking about like, you know, one of the things that happened with Israel over in Palestine is Netanyahu and the people around him, they just kept expecting the United States to stop.
You know what I mean?
They just kept expecting the U.S. to eventually say enough is enough and to pull them back.
And like here, the question is, there's no one there to pull this thing back.
Like, Trump isn't going to pull this thing back.
The people around Trump aren't going to pull this thing back.
When does this thing get on the off-ramp?
And I don't know where it does at this point.
And I don't blame Angelenos for being out in the street.
I don't.
I don't blame them for saying this is unacceptable in my town.
So exactly when does it back off?
And this is what happens in these cycles of authoritarian abuse.
and they have the situation that they want, and I don't think that they're going to necessarily back down.
Well, I think that mindset's also important because if the protests Then there isn't any impact, right?
Like, the whole point of the protest sort of fizzles out, and nothing really, really happens.
So in some respects, you need these kind of clashes, right, in order to, because the society we live in, to get the kind of coverage that you want on this subject, right, and make the point heard from across the country.
But that said, then it feeds into the same thing.
It's not a fair playing field, right?
No.
Republicans and Democrats do not get to play in the same field, and that's unfortunate, but it is what it is.
And so, and we had this long talk at lunch about this notion of, like, you know, do the Democrats get down in the mud with the people who are already great at getting down in the mud, you know?
Or is there another way that you can kind of approach this intelligently where you can still score those kind of points?
But at the very least, I totally understand in the mindset of you're there to protest, you're there to make a statement, you're there to make something happen, then it's easier to then follow the next step.
Okay, we're lighting these.
These, what are they called?
The ones that shoot the candle rockets?
Oh, the Roman candles.
Roman candles.
We're lighting those things off.
We're getting behind these barriers.
We're going to not move when they tell us to move and make our stand here.
And if I get arrested, I get arrested.
Oh, well.
The problem we have here with that, which used to be like a night in jail, you know, some sort of a, you know, a court date and then whatever, and you pay a fine.
How much...
Well, or dead.
I mean, that's the thing.
And I will go ahead and say, you know, we talked about January 6th a lot, right?
People who marched on the Capitol tried to overthrow an election.
Those people were cowards.
And what happened immediately after they failed is that they all wanted to get pardoned and they all wanted to talk about how they didn't commit crimes.
There is at least honor in saying, I'm a revolutionary, I'm going to push this issue, right?
It just so happens that, like, the vast majority of Americans are not ready to declare a revolution and do that.
There are some in this country who want that.
And so then you have to start asking, like, okay, as this thing becomes more and more black and white, where do you go from there?
Because you brought up the Democratic Party.
Nick, the Democratic Party, I know this is shocking to everybody.
They're failing to come through.
Almost every single rank-and-file member, Nick, is saying, oh, Trump is trying to incite people.
He's trying to create a trap.
Oh, he's trying to distract from the big, beautiful bill.
That's where we need to focus.
Meanwhile, you can do all those things at once, and if you can't, you don't deserve to be in politics.
If you can't defend the Constitution, we also have a governor, a Democratic governor.
Like, if you keep yelling this as a distraction and you're only going to give people legislative goals that aren't going to be achieved, like, they're not going to stop this bill alone.
There's going to have to be something else that derails it.
Literally, the Democratic Party at this point is not standing up, shocker of shockers, and so as a result, what do the people do?
Like, do you just say, well, the Democrats aren't winning and the authoritarians are in control and no one's stopping them?
Again, do you close your door and just hope no one knocks on it?
Like, where does that go?
You know?
And the more avenues for actual solutions politically and culturally and socially, the more that those things close, the more that more people are going to be willing to do exactly what you just brought up.
Which is to risk death, to save their friends, neighbors, and loved ones, and to stop an authoritarian regime.
Well, here's a question for you.
Do you think the people who were getting a discrimination yesterday with the cops, the thought of them potentially getting arrested entered their mind as they were doing it?
Sure.
Every protest that I've ever been at, I've walked into thinking there was a possibility I would get arrested.
Okay.
Now, do you think the people on January 6th felt that same way?
No, I don't.
I actually think the people of January 6 thought they were going to be successful and greeted as heroes.
Now, the interesting thing about that is at some point it might have started to dawn on them, right?
Although they were not yanked out and they were asked politely to leave.
And I get it at that point after the sacking of the Capitol, the police figured, let's just see if we can quietly get them out versus a violent way of doing it.
But at some point, I think they'd started to dawn on them.
And just to finish that circle, they all got pardoned.
All of them.
Yep.
All of them got pardoned.
All of those, you know, the cowards that you described got pardoned.
And I can tell you right now, ain't nobody gonna get a pardon who got arrested yesterday.
No, and not from a Democratic president either.
Right, okay.
And that is, by the way, one of the differences between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, which is the Democratic Party runs away from this shit as quickly as humanly possible because they are more concerned with how they are perceived than they are power.
Well, speaking of which, should we hear from one of the Democratic people you're talking about?
Yeah, let's hear what Newsom has to say.
I watched this live and got thoughts.
Mom and the Borders are said to me yesterday he did not rule out literally arresting you, nor Mayor Bass, if you interfere in his words.
He said you hadn't yet.
He's a tough guy.
Why doesn't he do that?
He knows where to find me.
But you know what?
Let your hands off four-year-old girls that are trying to get educated.
Let your hands off these poor...
Trying to live their lives, paying their taxes.
Been here 10 years.
The fear.
The horror.
The hell is this guy?
Come after me.
Arrest me.
Let's just get it over with.
Tough guy.
You know?
I don't give a damn.
But I care about my community.
I care about this community.
The hell are they doing?
These guys need to grow up.
They need to stop.
And we need to push back.
And I'm sorry to be so clear, but that kind of bloviating is exhausting.
So, Tom, arrest me.
Let's go.
Hmm.
That's a man who knows how to be on camera.
What's funny, Nick, is the last couple episodes of the Gavin Newsom podcast were with Dr. Phil, who was embedded with ICE as they were carrying out these raids.
Actually, the last episode with Dr. Phil got released three days ago, which is really ironic because as soon as that was released, Dr. Phil was outgoing after seven-year-old girls who were just trying to get an education.
Wait, I'm sorry.
Did you just say Dr. Phil was out on the ice raids with them?
Oh yeah, that's been his new thing recently.
He likes to go out on ice raids.
Like, is he trying to like keep everybody calm and like speak to them in a Dr. Phil is right-wing-pilled at this point.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, and so Gavin Newsom, and that's the thing, is Gavin Newsom knows how to perform for TV.
We've seen it.
He's great at performing.
He gives a wonderful performance there.
I don't trust that man any further than I can throw him.
And like this whole bluster or whatever, and Nick, you'll notice that he was like, Trump, I'd be more than happy to work with you.
Just let me know and we'll actually work together to solve this problem.
It's a wonderful performance.
He's really, really good, but he is completely and utterly untrustworthy, and he has created a society in which those seven-year-old girls, their families are being exploited, in which houseless people are completely vilified, in which he has kowtowed to every Republican he could ever meet, and he's trying to run to be the Democratic-Republican President of the United States of America.
So forgive me if that hits a little bit shallow for me.
I guess.
I'm more Machiavellian, I guess, at this point.
I swear to God.
Because if you're the head of the DNC, you've got to pick who's going to run against whoever in 2028.
Who's going to win?
Now, I think your argument would be that Newsom would never have a chance.
And I'm always like, it's got to be the good-looking white guy.
Who's got the best chance?
I don't give a shit if it's a good-looking white guy.
I literally, I don't want Gavin Newsom anywhere near a ballot.
If I'm voting on a ballot and Gavin Newsom is on it, I'm going to have to resist ripping up the ballot because this guy's a piece of shit.
Well, you know, all I can tell you, and listen, I have nothing to do with what the person looks like when they run, but, you know, there are some facts here, right?
And we've seen, you know, there's a commonality between the two people who couldn't beat Trump Nick, he is palling around with Charlie Kirk.
He criminalized being houseless.
He handed your state over to the tech overlords and oligarchs and has basically gutted your state.
You cannot vote for this person.
I forbid it.
I forbid it.
As your friend, as your partner.
You would forbid me from voting for him if he was in the ballot?
I forbid you.
I forbid you.
And I don't fall for any of this shit.
I watched it, and there's the thing, Nick, as a political analyst, I watched it, and I was like, that's some good piece of business.
Yeah.
Like, he performed really, really well, but he is completely and utterly full of shit, and I don't buy any of this from him.
If it comes out in a couple of days that he authorized the National Guard to work with the federal government, I wouldn't be shocked.
Like, I just, I do not trust this man.
And everybody's like, oh, his stock is rising.
Go fuck yourself.
This guy, this guy needs to go away.
He needs to go join the board of something and make billions of dollars and leave me alone forever.
And by the way, I know this is shocking, too.
Democratic Party is worthless.
Yeah.
The fact that this is happening and they are showing up in the way that they are, they just continue to, oh.
In response to his stock is rising now, there's an old adage in sports that anybody can score in the first half.
Yeah, piece of shit.
Fuck Gavin Newsom.
So I guess this is where we're at with this thing.
You know, I don't even know if by the time this episode comes out, if the Marines will be in Los Angeles.
I think that they are, again, champing at the bit for this thing.
They want to get it going as quickly as humanly possible.
Trump and the people around him do not want to miss out on a crisis that is to their advantage.
I think that regardless of what happens in Los Angeles, the game has changed now.
We've gotten to what you and I and a lot of people have expected that we would get to.
I'm not surprised it's happening.
I wrote an article today.
I said the only thing that's surprising was the when and where.
That's it.
This is exactly what we expected in this whole thing.
And I do think how we react to this, how we talk about this, and what choices we make after this are going to be vitally important.
I mean, does it come down to size a protest?
Is that what we have to deal with here in terms of making enough of a point?
Well, I mean, if something happens, already the things that have happened in Los Angeles are so fetid and so awful that we should be having mass protests.
By the way, I want to see more unions.
The unions, I've told you for years that the unions are going to play a huge role in this stuff.
They have shown up to some things.
They need to get going.
And Trump basically bought them off with this tariffs thing.
That's one of the reasons why the unions have been very quiet, is because they get bought off by nationalistic capitalism.
It's as old as time itself.
I think there should be massive protests already based on what's happening.
But if this thing gets worse, yes, it would turn into a numbers game of exactly how many people show up and whether or not you strain the capability of the state to answer it.
Well, and don't forget that they're going to basically criminalize protesting.
We saw that Trump has been decreeing everything now as if he's a king as it is.
He decreed that nobody could wear a mask at these meetings.
Because when you're talking about Palantir, you're talking about all the different tech that they're involving.
You know, I know that me and my family, everyone was like, we're going to wear masks the entire time so they can't identify us facially.
At that point, I got my phone in my pocket.
Like, I think they're already tracked me from before I even got in my car.
But there's no question that, like, yeah, that's sort of a tell right there where he thinks he can even criminalize that.
But they're going to end up making it where, and we talked about that before, they passed laws where if you drive your car through a protest, you're not necessarily going to be, you know, convicted of manslaughter for that or whatever.
So, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they very slowly or very quickly ramp up any kind of statutes that will somehow prevent it all from happening.
And then either or, you know, wasn't there like a fake coup in Turkey?
Wasn't that?
I don't know if that was ever true or not, but like, you know, you're going to see a fake attempt at all of this, so they're going to gin up themselves, again, to institute the kind of law and control that they've been looking for.
Well, just a couple of pieces of advice from people who have been there.
Keep water around.
Do not use milk.
That isn't true.
Like, if you're going to get gassed, if you're going to get hit by this stuff, have water around.
On top of that, masks are good with facial identification.
I think it would be a good idea for everybody who listens to this show to have a burner phone that isn't their main phone.
If they're going to need a phone at one of these things, keep emergency numbers, lawyers, all of that stuff.
Do not text about it.
Do not post pictures of this stuff if you can.
All of this, and by the way, leaf blowers are fantastic.
Yeah, you blow it back at them.
You blow it right back at them.
But no, this is a terrible situation.
My heart is broken for your city.
But I hope that you have a lot of pride that the people of your city are standing up to this shit.
Because we have to.
We have to draw a line in the sand.
And where it goes from there, that's a different conversation that you and I may or may not agree on.
But I gotta tell you, I'm so proud of your city right now.
Absolutely.
And you knew this was going to happen because, again, the people here don't, you know, everybody we know with one degree of separation is connected directly to this and understands what's at stake here.
And again, they want to claim that they were elected on this.
And I shared, if you go on my...
They didn't care at all.
I mean, and so that's sort of what they are arguing, is that, you know, this wasn't going to be all the bad hombres or whatever that Trump used to say he's going to get out, only the criminals.
They wanted everybody, and that's exactly what's going on now.
And we do know that that's still a tiny minority of what this country is about.
I just want to say one last thing, which is, You know what happened in Britain when the fascists started getting in the street?
They got the shit beat out of them.
That's why Britain didn't have a mass thing.
Like France, is what you're saying.
And France tried as well, like before they were taken over by the Nazis.
I'm just saying it isn't always going to be the way that we're told it's supposed to be.
That being said, I just hope and pray that that is the case.
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