Anarchist High Noon in LA

THE SWORD ARM of the hard Left has drawn an arc of incendiary violence across Los Angeles, California. What you’re seeing on the smoking boulevards of the traditionally liberal American city is but a snapshot of the wildfire of recent confronta­tional leftist activism. This isn’t just discontent. It is anarchical mobilisation mas­querading as discontent. Every fiery munition set off by the agitators is part of a deliberate machination to bash Washington DC into moral submission.

It’s true. Trump’s admin­istration has not exactly been above reproach. It has after all been provocatively referring to America’s immigration problem as a “war for the fu­ture of civilization”. Nonethe­less, the effect—a full-fledged leftist Intifada against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents— isn’t doing any favours to the liberal cause either.

Surely, there is little moral justification for prevent­ing the Trump-led Federal administration from doing its primary duty: securing the nation’s borders.

Though a petulant popu­list, sympathy will accrue to President Trump on this one. Americans, cutting across ideological and political lines, see illegal immigrants as striking at the heart of fair­ness. It is easily observed that illegal immigration rewards rule breakers while lawful citizens wait.

No wonder then that an increasing number of Americans, at a time when economic prospects are seen to be receding, are aligned with the commonsense view that a porous border is not compassion but an invitation to “cultural invaders” and “economic parasites”.

Indians are very familiar with the contours of the de­bate on illegal immigration.

In fact, the way the violence, the divisive rhetoric and the resultant political partisanship over the issue is playing out in the US has some obvious parallels with the anti-CAA-NRC agitation in India. Back in late 2019, the In­dian Left arrayed itself against the Modi government’s legal moves to “rectify historical wrongs”. The Modi govern­ment passed an amendment to the Citizenship Act offer­ing a haven to persecuted minorities from neighbour­ing Islamic republics. It also announced that it would keep count of illegal immigrants by maintaining a National Register for Citizens (NRC) .

Then, like now, the Op­position led by Congress vehemently opposed the Modi government’s policies mischievously casting the CAA-NRC as a divisive strata­gem aimed at othering “Indian Muslims”. Soon urban centres erupted in pro­tests. Shaheen Bagh became a flashpoint, its “organic” resistance amplified by global media echo chambers and curated activist networks around the world.

Just as in America today, border control was equated with xenophobia and legal­ity with Parliament abetted majoritarianism.

The NDA felt compelled to launch a counter-narrative. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath put it simply, remarking that “80 per cent were being held hostage to violence by 20 per cent.”

The polarising impact of Adityanath’s plainspeak cut both ways. The NDA and its ideological adversaries on the Left consolidated their respec­tive electoral bases.

And this is also what the Left in the US, desperate for po­litical rehabilitation, is hoping will happen as it aligns itself to anarchists in Los Angeles.

From Delhi to DC, the Left now views illegal immigration as a pressure point. A demographic lever, a vote bank in gestation. But above and beyond it sees illegal immigration as a moral cudgel to beat down ideo­logical opponents and snatch political turf.

The toolkit is no longer a theory. It is a transnational tactic. There’s no denying that despite their recent differenc­es, Delhi and DC are together at the vanguard of a global contest between advocates for unapologetic sovereignty and the supporters of subversive transnational idealism.

crimeillegal immigrantslawful citizensshooting