Today’s show breaks down the recent events in LA, from the growing impunity of ICE and the National Guard to the increasing authoritarianism of the Trump administration. Host Allen Ruff is joined by Schuyler Mitchell to talk about her recent piece in Truthout. 

Mitchell describes witnessing 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in LA following the murder of George Floyd. At the time, the Governor and Mayor authorized the deployment of National Guard troops, and  these troops, along with local law enforcement, responded to peaceful protesters with force. Since then, the city has paid out more than $12 million in compensation for LAPD abuses, and there are tens of millions of dollars in liability claims still pending. Mitchell compares this moment to the recent deployment of federal troops to LA , and how law enforcement has violently responded to peaceful anti-ICE protests. 

She says that the media spectacle and the police’s militarized, aggressive force are only making violence against protesters worse. She’s noticed how mainstream media makes a spectacle out of the protests despite the fact that protest have been peaceful. She refuses to accept the Right’s framing of property damage as violence. They also discuss the showdown between Governor Newsom and Trump, the attacks on the press, the problem of phrases like “less legal,” and the language of Project Esther. 

Schuyler Mitchell is a Brooklyn-based journalist, originally from North Carolina. Her freelance reporting has appeared in The Intercept, The Baffler, Labor Notes, and she is currently a political columnist at Truthout.

Featured image of Black Lives Matter protest in Oakland in 2020 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0). 

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