The Imperial Boomerang Comes to L.A.
Meanwhile, the empire’s proxy in Israel is gearing up for a war with Iran.
This article is part of a digest series delivered every Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and international current events of the week, along with my own brief commentary.
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A day late and a dollar short, but hey; who’s keeping track? This week’s digest is chock full of increasingly hectic developments, both domestically and globally, so buckle up.
🇺🇸 American News
🏴 Donald Trump Manufactured the Crisis in Los Angeles - Meagan Day/Jacobin
The Los Angeles protests (which have generally been confined to a few intersections across L.A.’s sprawling 4000 square miles) have largely been characterized by mainstream outlets as fiery frenzies setting the city ablaze. Though this characterization is patently exaggerated, even if we grant that the Trump Administration’s expanded ICE abductions have incited some level of justifiable outrage, that outrage has been needlessly enflamed by Trump’s authoritarian crackdown in deploying the Marines and National Guard against American citizens.
Meagan Day at Jacobin compellingly argues that the Trump Administration is stoking a violent response as a means of distracting from his own policy failures, while she deftly recenters the argument around what matters: punitive crackdowns on illegal immigrants as a tool of distraction from and scapegoating for exploitative economic policy.
🐖 A Tale of Two Resolutions: 75 Dems Join GOP in Resolution Praising Trump’s Mass Deportation Regime - Jonathan Cohn
In a resolution ostensibly crafted to target antisemitism, Republicans explicitly called for honoring Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers in their battle against “terrorism”, even after watering down its most absurd elements. Even the liberal Zionist entity J Street struggled to understand what this vapid resolution sought to accomplish beyond scoring rhetorical brownie points for the right.
Still, in spite of this, 75 Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in the House and pushed this resolution through during a moment in which the country is revolting against Trump’s draconian immigration policies. I was surprised to see Congressman Dave Min amongst them, who, at his University of California Irvine town hall the other day, paid shallow lip service to protecting student immigrants, a prominent target of the Trump Administration.
🏃♂️ David Hogg exits DNC - David Weigel/Semafor
David Hogg’s short tenure as DNC Vice Chair came to an abrupt end this week after a spat with party insiders over his plan to put money behind younger candidates challenging older incumbents in nationwide Democratic Primaries culminated in his exit.
While the Democratic Party’s gerontocratic tendencies do present their own set of problems (such as when members, y’know, die, giving Republicans the majorities they need to pass harmful legislation), fixating on this element of their failings as Hogg sought to do is more like contending with a symptom rather than the disease. The Democratic Party is overrepresented by older people because older people are more likely to have a vested interest in preserving the status quo, to adhere to corporate benefactors and the consultancy class, and to be averse to positively transformative popular initiatives (especially those which would upset the economic balance), but these problems are not necessarily exclusive to older politicians. Plenty of younger Republicans and Democrats alike reflect the same degree of incongruity with American voters and working class values; these problems are a function of the political class’ incentive structures.
📈 Mamdani surges in new poll, leading Cuomo for first time in New York mayor’s race - Nick Reisman and Joe Anuta/Politico
Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim socialist, is currently leading Democratic mainstay and credibly accused rapist and negligent ex-governor Andrew Cuomo in the race for mayorship of one of America’s largest cities.
This video Zohran hosted for the (now defunct) Gravel Institute is now over 4 years old, yet remains evergreen both in the context of his campaign and more broadly:
⛓️ Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk shares various clips highlighting ICE’s ruthless campaign against hardworking immigrants and families
🌍 Global News
Surprise: CIA link to sketchy Israeli aid scheme - Kelly Beaucar Vlahos/Responsible Statecraft
The Gaza Humanitarian Organization, which was billed by the U.S. and Israel as a “neutral” arbiter of aid, began falling apart before it could even get off the ground. Many of its most prominent partners began fleeing the project, and once instituted, it became increasingly clear that the purpose was to corral Gazans and bait them southward as part of Israel’s long term plan to expel them out into the Sinai Peninsula. Now, it is becoming increasingly evident that both American and Israeli intelligence agencies are behind the project in meaningful ways.
Gaza is reportedly suffering a total comms blackout. No phones. No internet. Across north, south, and central Gaza - Drop Site News
Did an anonymous Twitter account with a squirrel profile picture accurately predict Israel’s strikes on Iran?
Last night, Israel struck multiple targets inside Iran, killing dozens of civilians and injuring hundreds more in the process. It should go without saying at this point that, after over 30 years of baseless allegations about Iran’s imminent nuclear capabilities and a tried and true track record of dragging Americans into needless war, an Israeli attack on Iran is very obviously being done under the presumption that America will soon come to Israel’s aid.
Never mind all of the reasons that a hot skirmish between the United States and Iran could spiral into a global bloodbath; last month, zei_squirrel on Twitter laid out their analysis of news circulating at that time which alleged that Trump’s relationship with Netanyahu was floundering. They laid out a perspective not seen nearly anywhere else and which turned out to be highly prescient. The full thread is worth a read and is available via the link in the headline above.