Streetwise Professor

(Political) life comes at you fast these days. Last week the onrushing story was the Musk-Trump blow-up. Now the doppler effect has kicked in, and the frequency is lengthening rapidly, largely replaced by the roar of onrushing news about LA.

With respect to the breakup, proximately virtually all the fault lies with Musk. To put it mildly, he is not a team player, and completely misunderstood his place. He is used to being the sun around which all things orbit, and not used at all to be one of the planets, and not even the most important planet at that. He also utterly failed to grasp that the US political system does not operate like one of his companies, where he dictates what happens.

I share his reservations about the “Big Beautiful Bill” (ugh), but especially given the Republicans’ narrow majorities, and the fact that a good chunk of Republicans are swampers, it is likely the best that can be achieved now.

Ultimately, Musk failed to understand that his popularity–and unpopularity–derived from his association with Trump, and that Trump’s popularity–and unpopularity–has fuck all to do with his association with Elon. Typical of someone on the spectrum, he thought (and probably thinks) it’s all about him, and can’t read the room.

Musk also apparently believed that he could skate past his extreme propensity to overpromise and underdeliver in government as he has time and again in business. He promised trillions in savings, and delivered orders of magnitude less. This apparently resulted in a confrontation with Scott Bessent which led to Musk physically assaulting the Secretary of the Treasury. Again something he could probably overcome in his fiefdoms, but not DC.

We only see the surface ripples of what was going on deep in the administration, but it is pretty evident that his erratic behavior–likely fueled by drugs–also wore out his welcome.

A couple of thoughts regarding his drug use. First, I would not be surprised if the NYT story about it came from within the administration. Second, Musk has security clearances–though not high enough for him to be privy to some SpaceX defense work. If it was you or me, we would have a snowball’s chance in hell at getting a security clearance–even at the lowest level–with such drug use.

For his part, no doubt through gritted teeth, Musk is sort of apologizing.

I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 11, 2025

Some?

No doubt the loss of tens of billions in Tesla and the evident risk to SpaceX during the blowup, rather than true contrition, are the primary forces at work here.

Although Musk was the proximate cause of all this, the first mover was Trump. He embraced Musk, and probably benefited from it in the short run. Although he does not emerge from this completely unscathed, its impact on him is limited–certainly far more limited than the effect on Elon. I doubt it shifted anybody’s opinion of him one way or the other. The good thing and the bad thing about being so intensely polarizing is that it takes a helluva lot to change anybody’s mind about you.

But as I said at the outset, that story is past its sell-by date. The new big thing is the LA riots.

And yes, they are riots. Despite the gaslight media’s intense efforts to portray them as “mostly peaceful,” they are not completely so. The fact that some (and even most) participants are not violent does not gainsay the fact that many are.

The gaslight media also fails to point out that “peaceful demonstrators” are witting or unwitting Trojan Horses, precisely because their presence camouflages (to the willingly deceived) and rationalizes the actions of the violent.

The purported cause of the disturbance (and those occurring in San Francisco, etc., and ones threatened for Saturday) is largely pretextual, and ironically politically disadvantageous to the instigators and those running political cover, notably the Democratic Party generally, and LA mayor Karen Bass and CA governor Gavin Newsom specifically.

The “ICE raid” that was supposedly the trigger was hardly directed at run of the mill illegals (like that mounted against meatpackers in Omaha). Instead, it targeted a criminal operation, and netted a collection of hardened criminals.

Not that ICE raids directed at run of the mill illegals are a bad thing! Indeed, the main reservation I have about the ICE strategy of targeting those whose criminality is not limited to their residence here is that it conveys the impression that being a rapist, murderer, money launderer, human trafficker, etc. is a necessary condition for deportation.

But the raid served as a convenient pretext. “Resistance” in LA (and other places) was already teed up, just waiting for an excuse. The ruling class in California has made it abundantly clear that it is hell-bent on defending illegal immigration and illegal immigrants, and battling the Trump administration on this tooth and nail. Any “raid” or series of arrests would have resulted in an outburst, sooner or later. The cells were just waiting for a pretext to activate.

The rhetoric of Newsom and Bass makes it plain that these acts are permissioned. They first denied that anything beyond legitimate protests had occurred, and only when those farcical claims melted in the face of fulsome video evidence did they pivot to the equally farcical “it only occurred because of Trump.”

Yeah, they only occurred because Trump is enforcing laws that the nullificationists in California don’t want enforced.

Bass is just a commie idiot. (Literally the former–more on this below–and self-evidently the latter). Newsom is a more insidious figure not least because of his intense presidential ambitions.

It cracked me up (a sardonic laugh, but a laugh nonetheless) that Newsom has appealed to the right winger’s standby–the 10th Amendment–in California’s lawsuit to stop Trump’s nationalizing the California National Guard to support ICE and defend federal property. This is something the left has tried to read out of the Constitution since, well forever.

I also wonder who Newsom is referring to when he says “ALL of our people”:

?NEW — Amid violent riots in his state, Governor @GavinNewsom promises that "California will keep fighting on behalf of our people — ALL of our people."

Is he encouraging "fighting" on behalf of illegal aliens? pic.twitter.com/GUK9mxgGFB

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 11, 2025

In context, “our people” must include Mexican flag-waving illegal immigrants. Like I say–Gavin the Nullifier! States Rights Gavin (not to be confused with States Rights Gist). A proud inheritor of the mantle of Orval Faubus and George Wallace (but with better hair!).

I also find it amusing that in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s NG order, leftist idiots started bleating about the Posse Comitatus Act.

(McFaul is a complete tool whom Putin fucked with mercilessly, BTW: an example of what happens when giving an academic a real job). I find it amusing because the Posse Comitatus Act was pushed by ex-Confederates who wanted to prevent the use of the Army to protect the civil rights of blacks in the South, as it had tried to do during Reconstruction. Many of the same people who are wrapping themselves in the PCA are the same people who think that the Constitution is illegitimate because of various six degrees of separation from slavery apparently embrace the direct product of dead-ender slave-o-crats. Good to know!

The underreported aspect of all this is that like all other major urban disturbances of recent decades–dating back at least to the WTO riots in Seattle in 1999–is that the hardcore rioters–the ones carrying out the most violent acts–consist largely of a cadre of leftist revolutionaries abetted by lumpenproletarians looking to loot and experience the frisson of violence.

The very professional signs carried by the non-violent types who provide cover for the kinetic action squads were provided by communist organizations. The provision of masks, shields, etc., betrays pre-planning and organization (you don’t get that stuff in that quantity next day delivery on Amazon) characteristic of Antifa and similar organizations. (Hey, Chris Wray: still think that Antifa is “more of an ideology than an organization”, you putz?) Much of the rhetoric is not about something so mundane as ICE enforcement, but is instead maximalist calls for social revolution along communist/anarchist lines.

These types are the street muscle for the left, and the Democratic Party. DOJ, FBI, and DHS have stated that they are investigating the organizational links. The rioters are the left’s equivalent of KKK night riders doing the dirty work of the political oligarchy. One can only hope that a massive RICO prosecution is in the offing–and that it goes beyond the cutouts on the streets to the ultimate funders. (Yeah, I’m looking at you, George Soros, et al). And political enablers.

As I noted earlier, LA’s mayor is a communist of longstanding, going back to her days as the SoCal cell leader of the Cuban Venceremos Brigade, and the winner of twice-a-year all expenses paid trips to Castro’s paradise (back when such travel was illegal). And as The Federalist states, she revealed (inadvertently, not surprising given her stupidity) that the street muscle did not coalesce spontaneously, but was on call for when needed:

She actually let the cat out of the bag on CNN recently, admitting that Los Angeles has a “rapid response network” of agitators, adding, “if they see ICE, they go out and they protest.”

Here’s an example of one of her latter day brigades:

BREAKING – The man seen distributing tens of thousands of dollars worth of face shields in Los Angeles to rioters has been identified as Alejandro Orellana, a known member of the Brown Berets, a radical Latino paramilitary group that are currently embedded in cities across the… https://t.co/504D4tWXMI pic.twitter.com/NWGaswAzcx

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) June 11, 2025

This guy cracked me up. “We need communism! Not the fake communism like Cuba [did Karen approve???] or Venezuela. But real honest-to-God Leninism. You know, when communism worked! Where’s the CHEKA when you need it?”

At the Los Angeles protests, a man who entered the United States illegally was out protesting ICE. He said he’s anti-capitalist and wants the U.S. to become a socialist country similar to the Soviet Union pic.twitter.com/AylAgGSX7r

— Willie Nelson (@WillieNelsonTV) June 9, 2025

A friend suggests that this guy (and others who have cropped up on X and Instagram) are paid actors. Could be! I hope they are making scale! And hey, maybe that guy is just following family tradition. Maybe this is one of his ancestors:

Or maybe this guy:

Same hats, anyways.

Kidding aside, the real energy behind the insurrection in LA and elsewhere is fundamentally revolutionary and anti-American. Something that Newsom and Bass and the gaslight media have to know, but conveniently obscure, focusing instead on Trump and the efforts of the US government to enforce US laws.

I remember back in the Reagan days when (in the aftermath of the Liberty City riots) leftists were warning of (promising?) a “long hot summer.” (I have distinct memories of John Kerry bloviating about this). The talk of “resistance” ostensibly about immigration enforcement is really a threat of a long hot summer of 2025.

Which is exactly why Trump acted so quickly and aggressively in California. He realizes the true scale of the threat, and is sending a message to other mayors and governors that if they fuck around, they will find out, and won’t like it one bit.