Barrels of ink (and their digital equivalents) have already been spilled over the ongoing L.A. riots. As TWS’s Sam McCarthy expertly detailed in manageable bytes, left-wing radicals, outraged that federal authorities would dare to enforce their own immigration laws, attacked federal officers — along with all their usual criminality, such as blocking traffic, looting stores, and generally staging their own Allstate Mayhem commercial.

The rampant lawlessness on display has become sadly commonplace, but the intense disagreements among public officials over how to handle the crisis are a fresh twist. After Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were attacked and besieged in a federal building, President Donald Trump activated the California National Guard, without the approval of California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) — the first time since 1965 that any president has done so. On Monday night, Trump mobilized 2,000 more National Guard troops, as well as 700 U.S. Marines.

In response, Newsom excoriated the president’s “provocation,” announcing a lawsuit against Trump for his swift action to protect federal officers and property. “This is a manufactured crisis,” Newsom complained. “He is creating fear and terror to take over a state militia and violate the U.S. [C]onstitution.”

Of all possible explanations for this fantastic assertion, the most charitable are the least realistic: perhaps the California governor’s mansion exists in its own pocket universe where Trump really did incite the rioters. Perhaps Newsom knows that Trump secretly possesses a time machine, whereby he ordered California National Guardsmen to travel back to Friday and provoke a leftist rabble to attack federal law enforcement officers. Or perhaps Newsom wants to run for president as a Democrat, and he believes the only way to satisfy his ambition is to publicly spar with his party’s Number One Enemy.

For his part, Trump responded with his typical decorum. “We made a great decision in sending the National Guard to deal with the violent, instigated riots in California. If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated,” he shot back via Truth Social. “The very incompetent ‘Governor,’ Gavin Newscum, and ‘Mayor,’ Karen Bass, should be saying, ‘THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP, YOU ARE SO WONDERFUL. WE WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT YOU, SIR.’”

(Yes, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D), last seen partying in Africa while her city burned, also criticized Trump. But the hapless mayor has been largely overshadowed by Newsom and other higher-profile California Democrats who chose to become foils for Trump. Most people are unaware of any significant act the mayor has taken in response to her city’s current crisis.)

In any sane political order, state and local officials — especially those entrusted with executive power — would treat the maintenance of public safety and order as their primary duty. No agent but government can provide these goods, which are prerequisites to citizens leading peaceful and quiet lives (1 Timothy 2:2) and concentrating on productive pursuits (Ecclesiastes 5:9). In fact, Paul writes that governmental officials are tasked by God himself with punishing lawbreakers (Romans 13:4).

But California officials seem to have other priorities. “The city’s modus operandi seems to be just let people burn the city to the ground at the expense of the taxpayer and millions and millions of dollars of damage, not to mention violence and injuries, et cetera,” said Josiah O’Neil, former Los Angeles County deputy sheriff and federal agent, on “Washington Watch.” “Clearly, politics runs the city of Los Angeles.”

At the root of the controversy is the self-declared “sanctuary” status of both Los Angeles and California, which have chosen to unilaterally nullify federal immigration law by refusing to cooperate with its enforcement (something the Supreme Court long ago determined states have no authority to do). When the feds decided to enforce the law on their own, thousands of violent activists met their efforts with more lawlessness, at which California officials merely shrugged. By tolerating, even encouraging lawlessness, they got more of it.

One danger is that the rioting, if left unchecked, will spiral ever greater in a fiery reprise of the 2020 BLM riots in the summer of 2020. Anti-immigration protests have already broken out as far away as San Francisco and San Antonio — although, in a refreshing reversal from the city’s recent past, the San Francisco police arrests about 150 miscreants on the first night.

Thus, the Trump administration’s crackdown in Los Angeles is motivated not only over concern for L.A., but for cities across the nation. “Los Angeles burns every other year. I mean, they’ve always got something they’re rioting about out there,” reflected FRC President Tony Perkins. “I would think that the Trump administration is making this decision informed from what they experienced going back to George Floyd and what happened when the country was stormed by these Marxists who just wanted to burn cities down.” By deterring and punishing lawlessness right away, President Trump hopes to have less of it.

For lawlessness is what the rioters want. “If I were to ask some of these organizations on the Left that are encouraging these riots … ‘Do you believe it is right or wrong to enforce the law?’ — that simple question can answer the rest of the story,” observed O’Neil. “Simply arresting people — they’re claiming that that is violence in and of itself.”

“Unless you are a true revolutionary, rioting only makes even the most primal sort of sense if you think the law can be scoffed at with impunity,” reflected National Review’s Dan McLaughlin. “It’s a way of demonstrating the impotence of authority in the face of the raw power of the street — the eternal enemy of public order and small-c conservatism. Long experience has taught the inhabitants of California to think this way.”

Instead of enforcing the law, California’s top politicians are rhetorically siding with the rioters. “Karen Bass … is actually encouraging violence by calling law enforcement domestic terrorists. Of course, your on-the-ground LAPD guy does not agree with that,” O’Neil added. “If you listen to Karen Bass and Newsom, their statements are extremely inflammatory.”

But, despite their partisan cheerleaders, the rioters may find themselves repulsed by a hardened White House response. “Trump has no downside here. He knows he was elected to restore some basic, commonsense ideas that are overwhelmingly popular — like public order in the streets, and that Newsom, Bass, and Kamala Harris are about the least sympathetic adversaries possible,” McLaughlin continued. “Trump very obviously views disorder in the streets of Los Angeles, against federal authority, and under foreign flags, as a gift.”

“This administration, to put it simply, is not playing around,” narrated O’Neil. “This administration made a promise to the American people, and they’re really just carrying out the mandate they’ve been given. This is what America wanted. They were tired of left-wing chaos, emotionalism, the hype that causes violence and destruction. And he is just delivering on what he promised.”

There remains the question of whether President Trump has the authority to intervene to restore order in an uncooperative city and state. The National Review editors argue that, despite the unusual circumstances, Trump does have the authority under 10 U.S.C. 12406, which allows him to call up the National Guard when “the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

The international overtones of the rioters bolster the case for federal involvement. Many of the rioters flew Mexican flags (and Palestinian, Soviet, and other foreign flags) as they burned American property and threw cinder blocks at federal officers. The riots were also well organized and funded, attested O’Neil. “These protests are definitely very organized,” confirmed independent reporter Anthony Cabassa on “Washington Watch.” When well-organized, well-funded mobs fly foreign flags in American cities as they violently attack the U.S. government, it seems that the state officials sitting on their hands are the ones who missed a beat.

But that doesn’t stop them from blustering about it. “Let me be clear: There is no invasion. There is no rebellion. The President is trying to manufacture chaos and crisis on the ground for his own political ends,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) bellowed. “Federalizing the California National Guard is an abuse of the President’s authority under the law — and not one we take lightly. We’re asking a court to put a stop to the unlawful, unprecedented order.”

Not only does it appear that California officials are wrong on the facts and the law, but they are now suing Trump for shouldering the very public safety duties they should have been doing anyway.