Phelim McAleer: Why Trump is taking decisive action over the riots in Los Angeles

The violence is nasty up close. These are bad people who want to cause real damage and harm to real people. But for the moment it is relatively isolated.

But as we saw during the 2020 riots over the drug addict criminal turned progressive martyr, St George of Floyd, the urge to destroy can be contagious and very destructive. At least 20 people died and billions of dollars of property was looted and destroyed in those mad days of destruction in the summer of 2020.

On the face of it Trump's rapid, some might say hasty, decision to bring in the National Guard and regular army, is about the ongoing unrest but it's also about the summer of 2020 and the presidential election of 2028.

The images of burning storefronts, clashing protestors, and – most strikingly – federal immigration agents left vulnerable for hours without police support evoke memories of the 2020 George Floyd riots. Back then, cities burned, and President Donald Trump’s inaction became a fatal misstep, costing him the working-class voters who propelled him to victory in 2016. Whisper it quietly: Trump doesn’t like to hear it, but the 2020 election probably wasn’t stolen. Trump narrowly lost because he failed to embody the law-and-order ethos his base craved, allowing Joe Biden to squeak through by a handful of votes. In 2025, Trump 2.0 isn’t repeating that mistake.

The working-class Americans who gave Trump a chance in 2016 expected a Republican who would stand firm against chaos. When Minneapolis, Portland, Los Angeles and other cities erupted in 2020, they saw a president who tweeted furiously but did little to quell the violence. Back then the violence in Los Angeles did come to our doorstep. And Trump did nothing as the Democrats who run America’s cities also stood idly by. If a Republican isn’t a law-and-order candidate, what’s the point?

Disillusioned, many voters stayed home, and Biden capitalised on their absence. Trump, now back in the White House, has learned this lesson the hard way. The swift deployment of the National Guard – and, controversially, active-duty military – to Los Angeles signals a deliberate pivot.

He’s betting that projecting strength will solidify his base and deter future unrest, even if it risks alienating moderates wary of soldiers on American streets.

However the situation in Los Angeles isn't just Trump’s to exploit. The city’s two-hour delay in responding to attacks on federal immigration agents, which sparked Trump's decision to intervene, also reeks of political manoeuvring. Mayor Karen Bass, grappling with dismal approval ratings after letting a significant part of her city burn down through incompetence and whilst she partied abroad, perhaps calculated that withholding police support would curry favour with her progressive base, who view immigration enforcement as evil. By leaving federal agents to fend for themselves, Bass probably gambled that she could score “brownie points” with activists while deflecting blame onto the feds. It was a cynical move, prioritizing optics over public safety, and it backfired spectacularly when Trump seized the opportunity to flex federal muscle. No one expected Trump to take such a radical and perhaps legally dubious decision.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, or “Newscum” as Trump gleefully dubs him, is playing a similar game. With his eyes on the 2028 Democratic presidential primary, Newsom knows he has to pander to the party’s radical wing, who dominate primary voting. By failing to mobilise state resources swiftly, he signalled solidarity with the anti-immigration crowd, perhaps hoping to burnish his progressive credentials. But like Bass, Newsom misjudged Trump’s resolve. The governor and mayor likely assumed they could sacrifice federal agents to appease their base without consequences. They didn’t anticipate a president who, chastened by 2020, would respond with overwhelming force.

The sight of troops patrolling Los Angeles is jarring and, as we discovered in Northern Ireland, is very often not the solution to a problem of civil disorder. The use of the army is a very blunt instrument but if the riots die down it will be seen as a wise decision by a decisive president. The 2020 riots taught Trump that inaction breeds defeat. In 2025, he’s ensuring that the narrative of burning cities belongs to his Democratic opponents – not him.

l Phelim McAleer is a Co Tyrone-born journalist/producer working in Los Angeles. You can find him on the social media platform X: @PhelimMcAleer