There are two disastrously wrong ways to read the news from Los Angeles right now, and the rest of America over the next few days. The first is to believe that there is actually anything resembling an insurrection underway. The second is to believe that the Trump administration’s response to the nonexistent insurrection is simply cynical politics, an attempt to gain Donald Trump a few points in the polls.What we’re actually seeing is much worse: An attempt to end politics as we know it, to deploy force to suppress dissent. Not eventually, but right now.On the first point: No, LA isn’t a city in chaos, wracked by devastating riots requiring military intervention.LA knows what real chaos looks like. The Rodney King riots in 1992 killed 63 people, injured thousands, and involved widespread looting and arson. Nothing like that is happening now. When heavily armed ICE agents arrested workers who may
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