The streets are the lifeblood of any community—linking people to each other, to commerce, to the world. But here in Los Angeles, they’ve become something more: The last guardrail against tyranny, the final refuge of democracy.
Yesterday, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a Homeland Security briefing—for daring to question the administration. This is an outrage, no doubt, but an expected one from a Trump administration bent on silencing its critics and forcing its narrative down our throats. At the moment of Padilla’s arrest, he was no longer a sitting senator, or citizen of this country, he became just another Mexican.
In choosing to pick a fight with Los Angeles, Trump has underestimated the city entirely. He unleashed ICE raids thinking Angelenos would scatter. It didn’t go his way.
Caught off guard, Trump chose to double down.