Promises Kept? The protest movement of 2020 and the riots that sometimes accompanied it were a key part of the MAGA campaign message last year. Donald Trump’s argument was that the unrest was due to Democratic leadership refusing to confront a threat for fear of political ramifications.
This weekend, top Republican leaders unified behind Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in Los Angeles, characterizing it as making good on the promise to do things differently. “One of our core principles is maintaining peace through strength,” Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday. “We do that on foreign affairs and domestic affairs as well.”
Gavin Newsom called the deployment “purposely inflammatory.” Democratic governors backed him up in a statement calling it “an alarming abuse of power.”