MAGA feasts on red meat as Trump escalates L.A. showdown
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Protesters confront California National Guard soldiers and police outside of a federal building in L.A. on Monday. Photo: David McNew/Getty Images
President Trump's MAGA allies are framing the Los Angeles protests as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rewrite the rules of engagement with "the Resistance" — starting with the use of military force.
Why it matters: As National Guardsmen and Marines descend on L.A., the loudest voices in the MAGA media ecosystem are urging Trump to make an example out of anyone who stands in the way of mass deportations.
- With protests spreading to other cities, the list of demands is growing: Deploy the military. Arrest Democrats. Expel not just undocumented immigrants, but even legal residents who oppose the crackdown.
- For Trump, who said Monday that California Gov. Gavin Newsom should be arrested, the vocal support of the GOP base will only fuel his maximalist instincts.
Driving the news: MAGA activists were calling as early as Friday for Trump to deploy active-duty military personnel to L.A., where federal immigration officers were encountering resistance to their deportation raids.
- Now, many are clamoring for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to authorize the troops to participate in law enforcement activities and immigration raids — a step he hasn't yet taken.
- "The only way to win here is to double and triple down. The media and left-wing apparatus and Deep State that run this country want us to blink, want us to back down," Steve Bannon said on his "War Room" podcast.
Zoom in: MAGA views itself as fighting for nothing short of the survival of Western civilization, and images of protesters waving Mexican and Palestinian flags have exacerbated fears that the right is losing its country.
- Pro-Trump activists Charlie Kirk, Jack Posobiec and Matt Walsh all called, in unison, for a ban on "third world immigration, legal or illegal" — pointing to images from LA as evidence of civilizational decay.
- Other prominent MAGA accounts have called for shooting looters and deporting immigrant members of Congress who have criticized the administration's protest response.
The intrigue: MAGA's army of online sleuths is working diligently to identify violent protesters in videos and flag them to the FBI, whose top two leaders hail from the same ecosystem of pro-Trump activism.
What they're saying: "Almost exactly ten years ago to now, everything that we've been fighting for — every single battle — has all led to this," Posobiec said on his show Tuesday, recalling the moment Trump announced his presidential campaign in June 2015.
- "We have come too far and been through too much," Posobiec continued as he urged Americans to support their local ICE raids.
- "I don't care if it's Newsom, Pelosi, Harris, any of them: You know what, you might be on the next plane too."
The bottom line: The "America First" movement may be hesitant to exercise force abroad — but at home, few things are beyond the pale when it comes to MAGA's perceived enemies.
