Is there a way for me to cross post this so it goes out in an email to my subscribers because I want everyone on the planet to read this.
I know you’re exhausted and sad and angry, and I know some of that originated in a relationship that should’ve held you and kept you safe. The way you keep your heart open —despite all of it—is just so beautiful.
Thank you for writing this, for being by our eyes and ears on the ground, and thank you always for being our heart monitor. Your mom is proud and smiling somewhere, I’m fucking sure of it.
You can always cross-post. Thank you for every word you wrote. I don’t think I’ve ever had a harder time wrangling an essay, I have like 7 versions of it or something. It kept getting away from me.
Thank you for always making me feel safe and seen, Kate. I’m the luckiest to call you friend. I will text when I’m home. My kid is driving right now and I’m too tired to be terrified. So there’s that.
I'm so glad you stuck with it Ally. This is important, and this is good writing.
This POV is missing all across the country in all this manufactured bullshit from tRump and the maga team. These are small isolated events being prosecuted by a few well armed but frightened and cowardly men. A dozen equally armed, trained and coordinated folks can take these clowns out.
I hope you get some rewards, whatever rewards you're hoping for, from this very well considered and written work Ally.
Thank you so much. The only reward I’m hoping for at the moment is a better world for all our kids and for my neighbors who are being terrorized. Another book deal would be great, but I have to finish the book first ;) I saw this weekend in Camarillo, CA a protestor allegedly shot a pistol at masked men attempting to kidnap people. I don’t believe anyone was injured. I can’t say that I think this is a good turn of events. My guess is this disgusting administration will use anything as an excuse for Martial Law out here, we are thisclose to it already, though people don’t seem to realize. Also I suspect if guns start going off, innocent people will be killed. It is all such a mess. Having said that, I am pretty sure these 2nd Amendment people are alllllllll about needing these rights to organize against a police state/fascist government. So it’s unfortunate they’re on the side of the police state. Everything feels upside down. Anyway, that was some off-the-cuff thought spiraling. I really appreciate your comments and I’m very glad you’re here.
This nonsense has been going on for some time now. And get, when we see it or rather percisve it for what it is we can't believe it. We are afraid and not confident to name it for what it is.
I like your word smithing, your direct way of naming things for what they are. I hope enough of us find each other that we can put the individualized craziness behind and support the awareness of this fascist authoritarian net depending on us.
Sad broken people only see what supports their version of reality, the narrative that everyone else is to blame for their suffering. They get infuriated when you refuse to be gaslighted by whatever carefully curated news they cherry pick to justify their misery.
Thank you for the look through your eyes. I know Fox News has all their lemmings believe that I narrowly miss being murdered here in Chicago day and night. Stay safe, Ally ♥️
I keep thinking eventually it will get exhausting to hold onto all the anger and smug assertions about how things are in places they don’t live. It’s so odd to me. If I watched a show that said things were a certain way where you lived, but you told me different, I’d believe you. Anyway. Stay safe on the murderous streets where you live and I’ll see if I can survive this sunny, 75 degree dystopian nightmare I’m in! Good luck to us both 🤣😳 Love you xx
Thank you for writing this powerful essay. I‘m in the UK so I’ve seen what our media have chosen to share about the situation in LA. Your words are important.
And for the first part of your essay. You‘ve broken that cycle. That takes incredible,hard work to do.
Thank you so much, Sarah. And thank you for caring about what’s happening over here. There are people in our own country who are not even paying attention. Hard to fathom.
And thank you for your kind words about the first part ❤️🩹 I’m glad you’re here x
This is beautiful. Thank you for confirming what many of us knew. Please stay safe. I can’t write the tear this brought, but it sits on my cheek. Thank you and Wendy.
Thank you so much, Danny. I spilled some tears writing this one, some from frustration, some rage, some heartbreak. But I went to a No Kings protest this morning and there was a musician who opened with “This Little Light of Mine” and she asked everyone to sing. So today I cried the other kind of tears. Thank you for being here. We just need each other so much right now, and we need to remember they can never beat us if we fight with our whole hearts. I’m all in ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
Thanks for writing this - and publishing it. So important. BTW, Ally, I read that whole thread you had last time with that guy, and I couldn't escape the idea that you were arguing with AI. Maybe not, but there was something massively out of sync.
My husband calls it the 3000 mile rule for sanity: move across country from toxic relatives. But the toxicity now surrounds us because it’s trickled down from the monster In Chief. I also moved to LA from NYC more than half my life ago. I also have been posting shots of the NONsurrection here. Trump has invaded us. We need to reverse this invasion and reclaim our city, our country, our sanity, and especially our MORAL COMPASS. Thank you for this post, Ally.
Absolutely this. It’s the same insistence we accept a version of reality that isn’t real, the same gaslighting and the same hypocrisy. I’m very grateful to say I managed to do (almost) a lifetime of healing with my mother during the last 3 weeks of her life, but all of this is wildly reminiscent of the decades I spent banging my head against the wall. It’s so painful. Thank you for your comments, we really do need to take our city back, our country back and some kind of sense that we are in this together. The veil is thick though 😣 I’m so glad you’re here, Aimee ❤️🩹
Magnificent. Thank you for taking the time to write this essay. I read and felt every word before even having coffee this morning. Please stay safe, and keep dancing if the spirit takes you there. We need your voice.
Thank you so much, Harry. I both sang and danced at the protest I went to this morning. I also had coffee - a Honey Bee Oat Milk Latte because I am in crunchy Santa Cruz right now. The Flower Power energy was strong and glorious. I’m so glad this resonated, and I’m very grateful you’re here ❤️🩹
So glad you did all the things, Ally! I went to our local protest in suburban Chicago (10,000 of us) and yelled and chanted and met like-minded others and it gave my soul a little boost along with some hope.
While I appreciate the general gist of the article and of course also your reporting in general - please stay safe as well - it feels necessary to say a word for riots. I don't know how rioty the things are in LA, from what I am hearing it ACTUALLY isn't that much of a riot, but I still feel it's necessary to say a word for riots: they have long been a crucial part of the repertoire of protest movements and have been instrumental in bringing about social change.
Though Joshua has died recently, his legacy remains and considering what has been happening in LA, his publisher has been as gracious as to make his book available for free:
I totally understand the sentiment here, Ged. I do. I am aware of the long history of protests and riots. I know we have had civil rights leaders who believed in non-violent protest, and those whose beliefs evolved over time.
At this particular juncture with this particular administration, and given this particular city’s history with the word “riots” I can tell you that is a word that is being weaponized against us. I feel with my entire heart that burning and looting this city would 100% result in Martial Law. And I can tell you first hand these people will not hesitate to kill us. They will just shoot people dead in the street. They are already shooting peaceful protesters with rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades. That’s without provocation, if they happen to feel like it. Not all law enforcement, but enough of them for me to feel this way without a doubt.
And the reality is as I have said, it has been mostly peaceful. Personally, I believe that is the smart and correct move, because these people are just looking for a reason to bring down the wrath of this wannabe dictator and his white nationalist friends. I don’t see how anyone wins that way. Except the white nationalists, and I would very much like for them to fuck off for all eternity.
Right?! I mean, we’d share her with everyone if we could, but she’d be very tired!! Nice to meet you, Tina, I’ve heard so many good things about you ❤️❤️❤️
I think of all the things, that question really just made my head implode. Why are there so many Mexican flags? Where do I begin? Thank you for being here, Michelle ❤️🩹
Right? How do you teach others to care for others because we actually fucking BELONG to each other? Like we're connected. I am not sure. I don't know how. I just keep on hiking, praying and fighting. And sometimes I dance like a fool.
A really beautiful weaving of personal and political here. Bravo. I think, however, that you are missing one of the fundamental truths about political messaging and human nature, and that is the negativity bias. It is not just the tried and true “if it bleeds it leads“ of news opportunists. It is that it takes many many multiples of positive imagery and positive experience to turn around an impression of negativity.
Democrats will continue to pay for a very long time for how they justified and denied and mercilessly reframed what really were riots in 2020. When you have a party establishment that says again and again that “property violence is not violence?” That equates people complaining about the destruction of their neighborhoods to those people not caring about social justice? That ignores what happens when there are no shops and small businesses left standing in a neighborhood of primarily poor and brown people? That ignores that most of the people shouting “burn it down“ are privileged, pale skinned, and will never miss those stores because they don’t live anywhere near that neighborhood? That is how you lose the working class, the small businesses, and the actual immigrant voters who, in fact voted for Trump this time around.
I have witnessed in my own city, Seattle, the virtual demolition of our International District, which began with riots in the wake of George Floyd. The way the city government ignored and justified the riots unleashed a permissive anti-police culture that just will not go away. Parts of our downtown city center and Chinatown are either still boarded up or burned to the ground five years later.
After a phenomenal, beautiful, No Kings protest that was 100% peaceful in Seattle, with 70,000 protesters, at 11 o’clock at night vandals felt compelled to go downtown, set fires and deface the federal building with graffiti that will take thousands and thousands of dollars to remove. Those thousands of dollars could actually go to helping people instead of repairing the damage.
What you (apparently) did not see, or choose to report was the looting in Los Angeles’s Japan Town and to the museum there founded to commemorate Japanese internment during World War II. Acknowledging the looting does not take away from the power of the positive demonstrations. Acknowledging that property damage destroys the dreams and livelihood of people who in many cases came to America to follow the “American dream” is essential to the Left’s credibility.
Thank you for your comments, Iskra. This essay was very hard for me to write. I think it might have been the hardest one for me to publish since I began this 'stack, because I really wanted to get it right. The stakes feel so high, and while I know I'm only one voice in a sea of voices, mine is the only voice I have control over. I wanted to make sure I'd managed to collect my thoughts and present an accurate picture of how things are here, during a week when I didn't sleep much, and am, of course, devastated for so many people in my community. I wrote this essay with a particular person in mind, someone close to me, someone I love who is undocumented, though not for lack of trying to "do things the right way" for years. It's not as easy as so many (uneducated) people seem to believe.
I also want to say I'm a small business owner, and up until 2018, I had a brick-and-mortar yoga studio on 2nd Street in downtown Santa Monica. I opened the studio in 2009. I know firsthand what it means to sink every penny you have into a place, to put your future and your children's future on the line, to work your ass off until you have nothing left in the tank, and then to work some more. I still own the business, but I went fully online in 2018, which was a lucky thing, because we also had protests here in 2020.
My studio was right in the heart of all the destruction that occurred. Over 150 businesses were vandalized and looted in Santa Monica, and over 400 people were arrested. These were not peaceful protesters, these were people who drove into Santa Monica in cars, poured out of them, and broke windows with crowbars as they loaded up backpacks, pulled items by the armfuls off of racks, loaded up their cars with boxes of sneakers, and left broken glass and graffiti everywhere. I have no doubt my studio would have been targeted had it been open. I was there helping friends board up their windows and sweep up broken glass, I was there as they cried in shock and horror at the destruction and wondered how in the hell they would be okay, whether they'd be able to sustain, whether insurance would come through. It was devastating. The timing with covid closures on top of that is something Santa Monica is still recovering from, and it has in no way fully bounced back. Anyone who's been to the 3rd Street Promenade recently would tell you the same.
All of that is to say I am very sensitive to the small business-owners in Japan Town, and all around DTLA. So many of those stores are owned by immigrants, the very community these protests are meant to support. I was speaking to another commenter in the thread who was talking about rioting, looting, and sometimes violence as a legitimate part of civil unrest, and I am not of that mind. I do not think that serves anyone, I think aggression begets more aggression. I am not going to lose sleep over vandalized Waymos (nor am condoning it), but I would very much lose sleep over it if family-owned businesses in DTLA pay the price for the cruel and shitty polices of our unhinged president and the awful people he has around him. It is my belief that the LAPD and the LASD along with the curfew imposed by the mayor - all worked together to put an end to the vandalizing and looting very quickly. And that the community has come out to support these businesses right away: https://abc7.com/post/peaceful-protesters-help-clean-japanese-american-national-museum-damaged-during-ice-protest/16717547/
I'm planning on heading back down to the protests in DTLA this week, and will be sure to walk around the local neighborhoods and see what I can see for myself, too. I am certainly not trying to misrepresent anything. Having said that, of course I have not been everywhere in the area, I have not been there after curfew, and I don't know about every instance of looting or vandalizing. I did see a lot of graffiti, that is the worst of what I saw, and that alone is no fun for a business owner to deal with. I don't want to see anyone suffer. But I feel very strongly that the way things have been presented in the media is not accurate. I can tell you this is nothing like what we saw in 2020, full stop. Not even close. And I can say with my whole chest that the military presence here is ratcheting up the tension, not de-escalating things.
I hope what I've written here is clear. I am exhausted, I have not been sleeping well so my thoughts are a little scrambled, but I am agreeing and disagreeing with you I guess? I agree that the destruction of property and pain caused to family-owned businesses is never okay and does not help anyone or the "cause" - the cause being the wellbeing of our neighbors - all of them. I agree that neighborhoods need their local stores. I'm not some pale-faced person screaming "burn it all down." And I'm disagreeing if you have the feeling that what is occurring in DTLA is anything like what happened in 2020.
Also, I am not sure what to do about the messaging. I won't try to speak to what happened in Seattle in 2020 because I wasn't there. But I was here. The people who came and looted the stores and caused an unbelievable amount of property damage to downtown Santa Monica were not protesters. So what are Dems supposed to say? Or, forget about Dems and messaging for a minute, what am I supposed to say about what happened in 2020? There were peaceful protests, and there were also groups of people who took advantage of those protests to do harm. That's what happened here. How can I frame that in some other way?
Last thing - as for anti-police sentiment, I'm going to tell you that it does not help when the LAPD kettles peaceful protesters for no reason, does not allow them to leave, and then arrests them for failure to disperse. It does not help when the LAPD is in full riot gear, on horseback, beating peaceful protesters with batons - and protesters are doing nothing but trying to get away. And with a more "birds-eye" view, it doesn't help with anti-police sentiment when it's a huge danger for a young Black man to be pulled over for a traffic stop, or to wear a hoodie walking down the street, or to go for a run, or for a Black woman to call the police, or be sleeping in her own bed. I am not anti-police, but we have a problem. I wrote a whole new essay for you.
You did! And I appreciate the essay hugely. Beautifully put, every word. Thank you. Communication reverberates, I think, with a physical echo through history. Communication of the “news” has half life upon half life, a plurality that cannot be controlled or predicted as much as we may try.
I keep trying anyway. And in this case, as I watch the competing narratives of the No Kings Day and immigration protests, trying to avoid a replay of what I feel are the profound damages brought on by the liberal press in collusion with the Democratic response to 2020. You are doing terrific work here on Substack and I will continue to read your work👌
It’s so hard to have nuanced conversation about anything these days, isn’t it? I’m so appreciative when someone expresses a different view or an adjacent one, in a reasonable, respectful way. It’s become so rare it’s almost shocking when it happens. How can we fix anything if we can’t even talk? That alone is worthy of an essay ☺️ I look forward to more conversation.
Thanks for this. Witnessing is powerful. In the several years I've lived in DC I try to illustrate reality for my cohort of friends 'round the country. Here's my shorthand for Saturday night's Small Crawl on the Mall, sent as soon as I could get to a device:
"I went down there to see the layout of the scene (did not enter because they required registration up front and I take a hard pass on that). Lotsa people there but nowhere near what they’d planned/hoped for. Clearly the air “show” and marching was dull dull dull. I’ve seen better air shows at small-town airports.
So the pres closed off a few blocks of DC and the rest of the city had a nice summer Saturday evening in clubs, cafes and the food truck streets. As if there was no spectacle on the Mall at all."
Since then I've viewed a few photos and videos of the scene from the inside. Some of them I do not fully believe, others look legit. All of it looks sad and a little creepy. But the REAL creepiness is the Commander-in Thief disrespecting and dishonoring federal employees – public servants (in this case military personnel) – by deliberately debasing their remit, their oath and their commitment. The dude is vibrating with sickness and deserves all the pity we can muster (Bonus: he HATES pity).
It's funny, not in a haha way of course, but the pictures and videos I saw struck me as pitiful and embarrassing. Like he is just dying to project this dictator front. How odd to revere people like Putin, and the kind of military parade you'd see in North Korea - only there, soldiers would not dare to march out-of-step. From what I've read from hundreds of former Army, Navy, retired vets, marching out-of-step like that has to be intentional. He just looked like a tired, weak old man trying to be something he isn't, and wasting $45 million taxpayer dollars that could have been spent of Veterans' benefits. Or feeding children, or both. Smh. Thanks for your reporting, Bern.
I had been hearing much the same from LA folks in a FB group I’m in. Sure, there were small pockets of aggressive behavior (much of it not by original protesters, but by fringes who got in on the action, so to speak). They all said the large majority of LA looked the same as it does on any other day - with the exception of the police and NG presence. Thank you for sharing the city from your point of view.
Yes, exactly this. I know so many of us are trying to post pictures and videos so people see what's really happening here, and that gives me hope. Some people won't believe it no matter what you do, but I think it does help with the people who have been checked out and are now starting to realize things are serious, and those who are disillusioned with a certain fan of uber-expensive and very lame military parades!
Is there a way for me to cross post this so it goes out in an email to my subscribers because I want everyone on the planet to read this.
I know you’re exhausted and sad and angry, and I know some of that originated in a relationship that should’ve held you and kept you safe. The way you keep your heart open —despite all of it—is just so beautiful.
Thank you for writing this, for being by our eyes and ears on the ground, and thank you always for being our heart monitor. Your mom is proud and smiling somewhere, I’m fucking sure of it.
Be safe. Text when you’re home. 🤍
You can always cross-post. Thank you for every word you wrote. I don’t think I’ve ever had a harder time wrangling an essay, I have like 7 versions of it or something. It kept getting away from me.
Thank you for always making me feel safe and seen, Kate. I’m the luckiest to call you friend. I will text when I’m home. My kid is driving right now and I’m too tired to be terrified. So there’s that.
I'm so glad you stuck with it Ally. This is important, and this is good writing.
This POV is missing all across the country in all this manufactured bullshit from tRump and the maga team. These are small isolated events being prosecuted by a few well armed but frightened and cowardly men. A dozen equally armed, trained and coordinated folks can take these clowns out.
I hope you get some rewards, whatever rewards you're hoping for, from this very well considered and written work Ally.
Thank you so much. The only reward I’m hoping for at the moment is a better world for all our kids and for my neighbors who are being terrorized. Another book deal would be great, but I have to finish the book first ;) I saw this weekend in Camarillo, CA a protestor allegedly shot a pistol at masked men attempting to kidnap people. I don’t believe anyone was injured. I can’t say that I think this is a good turn of events. My guess is this disgusting administration will use anything as an excuse for Martial Law out here, we are thisclose to it already, though people don’t seem to realize. Also I suspect if guns start going off, innocent people will be killed. It is all such a mess. Having said that, I am pretty sure these 2nd Amendment people are alllllllll about needing these rights to organize against a police state/fascist government. So it’s unfortunate they’re on the side of the police state. Everything feels upside down. Anyway, that was some off-the-cuff thought spiraling. I really appreciate your comments and I’m very glad you’re here.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-11/fbi-investigating-shooting-camarillo-immigration-operation
Thank you Ally, for the kind words.
This nonsense has been going on for some time now. And get, when we see it or rather percisve it for what it is we can't believe it. We are afraid and not confident to name it for what it is.
I like your word smithing, your direct way of naming things for what they are. I hope enough of us find each other that we can put the individualized craziness behind and support the awareness of this fascist authoritarian net depending on us.
First awareness, then action.
Sad broken people only see what supports their version of reality, the narrative that everyone else is to blame for their suffering. They get infuriated when you refuse to be gaslighted by whatever carefully curated news they cherry pick to justify their misery.
Thank you for the look through your eyes. I know Fox News has all their lemmings believe that I narrowly miss being murdered here in Chicago day and night. Stay safe, Ally ♥️
I keep thinking eventually it will get exhausting to hold onto all the anger and smug assertions about how things are in places they don’t live. It’s so odd to me. If I watched a show that said things were a certain way where you lived, but you told me different, I’d believe you. Anyway. Stay safe on the murderous streets where you live and I’ll see if I can survive this sunny, 75 degree dystopian nightmare I’m in! Good luck to us both 🤣😳 Love you xx
Thank you for writing this powerful essay. I‘m in the UK so I’ve seen what our media have chosen to share about the situation in LA. Your words are important.
And for the first part of your essay. You‘ve broken that cycle. That takes incredible,hard work to do.
Stay safe
Thank you so much, Sarah. And thank you for caring about what’s happening over here. There are people in our own country who are not even paying attention. Hard to fathom.
And thank you for your kind words about the first part ❤️🩹 I’m glad you’re here x
This is beautiful. Thank you for confirming what many of us knew. Please stay safe. I can’t write the tear this brought, but it sits on my cheek. Thank you and Wendy.
Thank you so much, Danny. I spilled some tears writing this one, some from frustration, some rage, some heartbreak. But I went to a No Kings protest this morning and there was a musician who opened with “This Little Light of Mine” and she asked everyone to sing. So today I cried the other kind of tears. Thank you for being here. We just need each other so much right now, and we need to remember they can never beat us if we fight with our whole hearts. I’m all in ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
Thanks for writing this - and publishing it. So important. BTW, Ally, I read that whole thread you had last time with that guy, and I couldn't escape the idea that you were arguing with AI. Maybe not, but there was something massively out of sync.
Yeah I ended up blocking because life is too short!
Glad to hear that.
I got a MAGAT response also that I thought was a bot.
This landed — from Alanon to protests being misrepresented as chaos. Thank you for sharing your voice
Thank you for being here, for the kind words, and for the solidarity - though I imagine it was hard-won. Hugs and love ❤️🩹
My husband calls it the 3000 mile rule for sanity: move across country from toxic relatives. But the toxicity now surrounds us because it’s trickled down from the monster In Chief. I also moved to LA from NYC more than half my life ago. I also have been posting shots of the NONsurrection here. Trump has invaded us. We need to reverse this invasion and reclaim our city, our country, our sanity, and especially our MORAL COMPASS. Thank you for this post, Ally.
Absolutely this. It’s the same insistence we accept a version of reality that isn’t real, the same gaslighting and the same hypocrisy. I’m very grateful to say I managed to do (almost) a lifetime of healing with my mother during the last 3 weeks of her life, but all of this is wildly reminiscent of the decades I spent banging my head against the wall. It’s so painful. Thank you for your comments, we really do need to take our city back, our country back and some kind of sense that we are in this together. The veil is thick though 😣 I’m so glad you’re here, Aimee ❤️🩹
Magnificent. Thank you for taking the time to write this essay. I read and felt every word before even having coffee this morning. Please stay safe, and keep dancing if the spirit takes you there. We need your voice.
Thank you so much, Harry. I both sang and danced at the protest I went to this morning. I also had coffee - a Honey Bee Oat Milk Latte because I am in crunchy Santa Cruz right now. The Flower Power energy was strong and glorious. I’m so glad this resonated, and I’m very grateful you’re here ❤️🩹
So glad you did all the things, Ally! I went to our local protest in suburban Chicago (10,000 of us) and yelled and chanted and met like-minded others and it gave my soul a little boost along with some hope.
The pictures and videos of millions of people out in the streets yesterday gave me so much hope 🥹❤️🩹
While I appreciate the general gist of the article and of course also your reporting in general - please stay safe as well - it feels necessary to say a word for riots. I don't know how rioty the things are in LA, from what I am hearing it ACTUALLY isn't that much of a riot, but I still feel it's necessary to say a word for riots: they have long been a crucial part of the repertoire of protest movements and have been instrumental in bringing about social change.
Though Joshua has died recently, his legacy remains and considering what has been happening in LA, his publisher has been as gracious as to make his book available for free:
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/115-riot-strike-riot?srsltid=AfmBOopf9T0TFoWtzQKfPbe2fOKQskxLfDvL46YSX3-gy7NMZ_hy3DK4
He wrote this little poem.
https://poetrysociety.org/poems-essays/in-their-own-words/joshua-clover-on-haecceity
Haecceity
If what you want is calm
to be restored you are still the enemy
you have not thought thru clearly
what that means
if what you want is a national
moment of silence the indictment
of a single police officer
or two or three you are still
the enemy you have chosen the reverie
of law for you and your friends if you want
another review panel a Justice Dept
study a return to democracy rather than
for riot and looting to leap beyond
itself from county to county
rift to rift until it becomes general
you have not understood
what a revolution is it's just this
it's coming out again night after night more of us
than there are of them it's saying no
to every deal remember nothing
belongs to you because nothing
belongs to anyone
I totally understand the sentiment here, Ged. I do. I am aware of the long history of protests and riots. I know we have had civil rights leaders who believed in non-violent protest, and those whose beliefs evolved over time.
At this particular juncture with this particular administration, and given this particular city’s history with the word “riots” I can tell you that is a word that is being weaponized against us. I feel with my entire heart that burning and looting this city would 100% result in Martial Law. And I can tell you first hand these people will not hesitate to kill us. They will just shoot people dead in the street. They are already shooting peaceful protesters with rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades. That’s without provocation, if they happen to feel like it. Not all law enforcement, but enough of them for me to feel this way without a doubt.
And the reality is as I have said, it has been mostly peaceful. Personally, I believe that is the smart and correct move, because these people are just looking for a reason to bring down the wrath of this wannabe dictator and his white nationalist friends. I don’t see how anyone wins that way. Except the white nationalists, and I would very much like for them to fuck off for all eternity.
💗
I’m a friend of Wendy’s too!! You are so right. Everyone needs a friend like Wendy in their lives. 💗 her!
Right?! I mean, we’d share her with everyone if we could, but she’d be very tired!! Nice to meet you, Tina, I’ve heard so many good things about you ❤️❤️❤️
One of the best signs I saw on Saturday read: "How do you say San Rafael in Spanish?"
"People of Mexican origin make up 30% of our state’s population. California used to belong to Mexico. Los Angeles means “City of Angels” in Spanish."
BOOM. There it is. So well written - thank you friend.
I think of all the things, that question really just made my head implode. Why are there so many Mexican flags? Where do I begin? Thank you for being here, Michelle ❤️🩹
Right? How do you teach others to care for others because we actually fucking BELONG to each other? Like we're connected. I am not sure. I don't know how. I just keep on hiking, praying and fighting. And sometimes I dance like a fool.
A really beautiful weaving of personal and political here. Bravo. I think, however, that you are missing one of the fundamental truths about political messaging and human nature, and that is the negativity bias. It is not just the tried and true “if it bleeds it leads“ of news opportunists. It is that it takes many many multiples of positive imagery and positive experience to turn around an impression of negativity.
Democrats will continue to pay for a very long time for how they justified and denied and mercilessly reframed what really were riots in 2020. When you have a party establishment that says again and again that “property violence is not violence?” That equates people complaining about the destruction of their neighborhoods to those people not caring about social justice? That ignores what happens when there are no shops and small businesses left standing in a neighborhood of primarily poor and brown people? That ignores that most of the people shouting “burn it down“ are privileged, pale skinned, and will never miss those stores because they don’t live anywhere near that neighborhood? That is how you lose the working class, the small businesses, and the actual immigrant voters who, in fact voted for Trump this time around.
I have witnessed in my own city, Seattle, the virtual demolition of our International District, which began with riots in the wake of George Floyd. The way the city government ignored and justified the riots unleashed a permissive anti-police culture that just will not go away. Parts of our downtown city center and Chinatown are either still boarded up or burned to the ground five years later.
After a phenomenal, beautiful, No Kings protest that was 100% peaceful in Seattle, with 70,000 protesters, at 11 o’clock at night vandals felt compelled to go downtown, set fires and deface the federal building with graffiti that will take thousands and thousands of dollars to remove. Those thousands of dollars could actually go to helping people instead of repairing the damage.
What you (apparently) did not see, or choose to report was the looting in Los Angeles’s Japan Town and to the museum there founded to commemorate Japanese internment during World War II. Acknowledging the looting does not take away from the power of the positive demonstrations. Acknowledging that property damage destroys the dreams and livelihood of people who in many cases came to America to follow the “American dream” is essential to the Left’s credibility.
Thank you for your comments, Iskra. This essay was very hard for me to write. I think it might have been the hardest one for me to publish since I began this 'stack, because I really wanted to get it right. The stakes feel so high, and while I know I'm only one voice in a sea of voices, mine is the only voice I have control over. I wanted to make sure I'd managed to collect my thoughts and present an accurate picture of how things are here, during a week when I didn't sleep much, and am, of course, devastated for so many people in my community. I wrote this essay with a particular person in mind, someone close to me, someone I love who is undocumented, though not for lack of trying to "do things the right way" for years. It's not as easy as so many (uneducated) people seem to believe.
I also want to say I'm a small business owner, and up until 2018, I had a brick-and-mortar yoga studio on 2nd Street in downtown Santa Monica. I opened the studio in 2009. I know firsthand what it means to sink every penny you have into a place, to put your future and your children's future on the line, to work your ass off until you have nothing left in the tank, and then to work some more. I still own the business, but I went fully online in 2018, which was a lucky thing, because we also had protests here in 2020.
My studio was right in the heart of all the destruction that occurred. Over 150 businesses were vandalized and looted in Santa Monica, and over 400 people were arrested. These were not peaceful protesters, these were people who drove into Santa Monica in cars, poured out of them, and broke windows with crowbars as they loaded up backpacks, pulled items by the armfuls off of racks, loaded up their cars with boxes of sneakers, and left broken glass and graffiti everywhere. I have no doubt my studio would have been targeted had it been open. I was there helping friends board up their windows and sweep up broken glass, I was there as they cried in shock and horror at the destruction and wondered how in the hell they would be okay, whether they'd be able to sustain, whether insurance would come through. It was devastating. The timing with covid closures on top of that is something Santa Monica is still recovering from, and it has in no way fully bounced back. Anyone who's been to the 3rd Street Promenade recently would tell you the same.
All of that is to say I am very sensitive to the small business-owners in Japan Town, and all around DTLA. So many of those stores are owned by immigrants, the very community these protests are meant to support. I was speaking to another commenter in the thread who was talking about rioting, looting, and sometimes violence as a legitimate part of civil unrest, and I am not of that mind. I do not think that serves anyone, I think aggression begets more aggression. I am not going to lose sleep over vandalized Waymos (nor am condoning it), but I would very much lose sleep over it if family-owned businesses in DTLA pay the price for the cruel and shitty polices of our unhinged president and the awful people he has around him. It is my belief that the LAPD and the LASD along with the curfew imposed by the mayor - all worked together to put an end to the vandalizing and looting very quickly. And that the community has come out to support these businesses right away: https://abc7.com/post/peaceful-protesters-help-clean-japanese-american-national-museum-damaged-during-ice-protest/16717547/
I'm planning on heading back down to the protests in DTLA this week, and will be sure to walk around the local neighborhoods and see what I can see for myself, too. I am certainly not trying to misrepresent anything. Having said that, of course I have not been everywhere in the area, I have not been there after curfew, and I don't know about every instance of looting or vandalizing. I did see a lot of graffiti, that is the worst of what I saw, and that alone is no fun for a business owner to deal with. I don't want to see anyone suffer. But I feel very strongly that the way things have been presented in the media is not accurate. I can tell you this is nothing like what we saw in 2020, full stop. Not even close. And I can say with my whole chest that the military presence here is ratcheting up the tension, not de-escalating things.
I hope what I've written here is clear. I am exhausted, I have not been sleeping well so my thoughts are a little scrambled, but I am agreeing and disagreeing with you I guess? I agree that the destruction of property and pain caused to family-owned businesses is never okay and does not help anyone or the "cause" - the cause being the wellbeing of our neighbors - all of them. I agree that neighborhoods need their local stores. I'm not some pale-faced person screaming "burn it all down." And I'm disagreeing if you have the feeling that what is occurring in DTLA is anything like what happened in 2020.
Also, I am not sure what to do about the messaging. I won't try to speak to what happened in Seattle in 2020 because I wasn't there. But I was here. The people who came and looted the stores and caused an unbelievable amount of property damage to downtown Santa Monica were not protesters. So what are Dems supposed to say? Or, forget about Dems and messaging for a minute, what am I supposed to say about what happened in 2020? There were peaceful protests, and there were also groups of people who took advantage of those protests to do harm. That's what happened here. How can I frame that in some other way?
Last thing - as for anti-police sentiment, I'm going to tell you that it does not help when the LAPD kettles peaceful protesters for no reason, does not allow them to leave, and then arrests them for failure to disperse. It does not help when the LAPD is in full riot gear, on horseback, beating peaceful protesters with batons - and protesters are doing nothing but trying to get away. And with a more "birds-eye" view, it doesn't help with anti-police sentiment when it's a huge danger for a young Black man to be pulled over for a traffic stop, or to wear a hoodie walking down the street, or to go for a run, or for a Black woman to call the police, or be sleeping in her own bed. I am not anti-police, but we have a problem. I wrote a whole new essay for you.
You did! And I appreciate the essay hugely. Beautifully put, every word. Thank you. Communication reverberates, I think, with a physical echo through history. Communication of the “news” has half life upon half life, a plurality that cannot be controlled or predicted as much as we may try.
I keep trying anyway. And in this case, as I watch the competing narratives of the No Kings Day and immigration protests, trying to avoid a replay of what I feel are the profound damages brought on by the liberal press in collusion with the Democratic response to 2020. You are doing terrific work here on Substack and I will continue to read your work👌
It’s so hard to have nuanced conversation about anything these days, isn’t it? I’m so appreciative when someone expresses a different view or an adjacent one, in a reasonable, respectful way. It’s become so rare it’s almost shocking when it happens. How can we fix anything if we can’t even talk? That alone is worthy of an essay ☺️ I look forward to more conversation.
Thanks for this. Witnessing is powerful. In the several years I've lived in DC I try to illustrate reality for my cohort of friends 'round the country. Here's my shorthand for Saturday night's Small Crawl on the Mall, sent as soon as I could get to a device:
"I went down there to see the layout of the scene (did not enter because they required registration up front and I take a hard pass on that). Lotsa people there but nowhere near what they’d planned/hoped for. Clearly the air “show” and marching was dull dull dull. I’ve seen better air shows at small-town airports.
So the pres closed off a few blocks of DC and the rest of the city had a nice summer Saturday evening in clubs, cafes and the food truck streets. As if there was no spectacle on the Mall at all."
Since then I've viewed a few photos and videos of the scene from the inside. Some of them I do not fully believe, others look legit. All of it looks sad and a little creepy. But the REAL creepiness is the Commander-in Thief disrespecting and dishonoring federal employees – public servants (in this case military personnel) – by deliberately debasing their remit, their oath and their commitment. The dude is vibrating with sickness and deserves all the pity we can muster (Bonus: he HATES pity).
It's funny, not in a haha way of course, but the pictures and videos I saw struck me as pitiful and embarrassing. Like he is just dying to project this dictator front. How odd to revere people like Putin, and the kind of military parade you'd see in North Korea - only there, soldiers would not dare to march out-of-step. From what I've read from hundreds of former Army, Navy, retired vets, marching out-of-step like that has to be intentional. He just looked like a tired, weak old man trying to be something he isn't, and wasting $45 million taxpayer dollars that could have been spent of Veterans' benefits. Or feeding children, or both. Smh. Thanks for your reporting, Bern.
I had been hearing much the same from LA folks in a FB group I’m in. Sure, there were small pockets of aggressive behavior (much of it not by original protesters, but by fringes who got in on the action, so to speak). They all said the large majority of LA looked the same as it does on any other day - with the exception of the police and NG presence. Thank you for sharing the city from your point of view.
Yes, exactly this. I know so many of us are trying to post pictures and videos so people see what's really happening here, and that gives me hope. Some people won't believe it no matter what you do, but I think it does help with the people who have been checked out and are now starting to realize things are serious, and those who are disillusioned with a certain fan of uber-expensive and very lame military parades!
Love this! 💕
Thank you, Deirdre, and thank you for being here <3