Part 177: The Battle for Los Angeles – Resisting Donald Trump in the Golden State

Published June 18, 2025.

Jun 18, 2025

Photo of anti-Trump/ICE demonstrators dancing in front of the “Forever Marilyn” statute in Palm Springs, California at sunset by author (GoPro Hero 11 Black).

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

It’s been hard to ignore. The ongoing showdown in Los Angeles and with the State of California broadly is captivating the world. Some of this battle is remarkably normal; protests in Los Angeles have quite often in recent decades been marred by violence and destruction. Yet this time, for so many it feels somewhat different in that the precipitating factor is not a racial flashpoint so much as the overreach of the federal government under Donald Trump in all but going to war to rid the nation through deportation of allegedly illegal, criminal immigrants. I no longer live in Los Angeles, having left following the disastrous wildfires for the Coachella Valley, some 100 miles east of the downtown area that’s been at the center of the public conflict.

Things further afield in California are somewhat more mellow. The fear factor is there, but the Coachella Valley as of yet hasn’t seen the lightning raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), much less Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Locals, though, are wary in a region that in many areas is heavily Hispanic, watching closely for signs that here too normal people are about to be targeted. On Saturday, larger rallies occurred in Palm Springs (PS), Rancho Mirage, and Cathedral City following a few smaller, more scattered showings of people power despite triple-digit temperatures. The PS “No Kings” rally, attended by 3,500 to 5,000 people, depending on who you ask, was followed by an impromptu march through the desert tourist city in what could more aptly be described as an “Abolish ICE” procession.

In what was likely the hottest place to be out anywhere, the mood was slightly different but also similar to other locations nationwide. For starters, the City of Palm Springs itself is most certainly one of the highest LGBTQ per capita cities in America. So as the evening went on, you were met with the sight of an anti-ICE demonstration passing gay bars, but the question of whose tolerance matters and when could be subtly felt as the marchers made their way under blessedly cooling water misters down Palm Canyon Drive several times and over to Indian Canyon Drive. Restaurant workers watched with smiles on their faces, and some diners applauded, and others cast wary gazes given the destruction that had occurred in Los Angeles.

Starting beneath the “Forever Marilyn” statue of Marilyn Monroe after line dancing and sign waving occurred as many others dispersed, the procession was almost entirely peaceful through what one resident told National Geographic Magazine is a place akin to “Gay Disneyland.” Some followed in the classic Chevy Tahoe, waving Mexican flags, as others carried American flags and even hybrid Mexico-America flags. One bystander who appeared utterly tourist must have said something in favor of Donald Trump or the draconian policies being enacted by Secretary of Homeland Defense Kristi Noem, who has been cosplaying the role of an ICE agent to gasps. It was Noem’s presser that Senator Alex Padilla interrupted, now infamously being recently tackled to the ground and handcuffed by federal law enforcement.

Ironically, Trump’s 2024 swing through the Coachella Valley (CV) occurred within the CV city that’s most heavily Latino. Hosted at the Calhoun Ranch in the namesake southern City of Coachella, the visit was a disaster, with many being stranded. The locale is 90% Spanish speaking and officially bilingual. Unlike its last occurrence, the “No Kings” event in Palm Springs was met with no pro-MAGA (Make America Great Again) protestors. As the battle in Los Angeles was unfolding, one of my Latino neighbors had emerged wearing a Dodger Blue hat to see me watching news coverage on my phone heading to the pool, readily agreeing with my suggestion that it had been a “crazy day.” The Dodgers might not readily let singer Vanessa Hernández croon the Star-Spangled Banner in the official Spanish version, but even the Palm Springs Unified School District offers dual-language immersion programs. It’s a beautiful world.

As Los Angeles Times journalist Gustavo Arellano recently wrote about the conflict, “So why pursue mass deportations at all if there’s mucho evidence that they negatively effect American-born workers, a group Trump claims he wants to restore to greatness?” Arellano added that the point seemed to be “terror.” As noted by both Arellano organizer Palm Springs and “No Kings” organizer Joy Silver, in a place so near to the agricultural bonanza of California down towards the Imperial Valley, the presumptive would-be-king Trump had already chickened out. TACO, as many have taken to saying, “Trump always chickens out” in reversing his order to deport everyone in favor of not disrupting restaurants, food production, and hotels. This reprieve wouldn’t last, with Trump soon rescinding even that industry-pressured hesitation recantation.

You don’t have to be the young Latino waiter in a yellow bikini with dollar bills stuffed in his waistband to know that Trumpism as rendered in this form is bad for business. So why does Donald Trump seem so determined to hamstring the economy, as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass recently complained? Techno music blared from the dance party, but the smile on the young gentleman’s face had been striking watching kindred spirits do something that I’m not quite sure has ever happened in Palm Springs before, a place that one Los Angeles Times story on a Palm Springs nightclub recently compared historically to being “like God’s waiting room.”

In forcing a constitutional crisis with California Governor Gavin Newsom along with much of the Golden State, the supposed leader in the White House may have finally underestimated the power of the American spirit and, most assuredly, the allure of the almighty dollar. Trump has angered the Canadian snowbirds that infuse the Coachella Valley’s economy. He’s infuriated the Latino population that much, debatably re-propelling him into office over Kamala Harris herself, a Californian. If the appeal of Trumpism is a resurgence of harsh law and order mentality even absent the clear overtones of racism, he’s at least maintained one supporter in the Los Angeles County Chair of the Board of Supervisors, Kathryn Barger, who recently voiced support for the policy even as Altadenans in her district struggle with the costs of rebuilding following a wildfire.

In Barger’s version of the tale, it’s criminals who are being targeted and not normal citizens, and most interestingly, the problem is being fueled by the fact that ICE, la migra, can no longer deport people from LA County Jail following the policy of former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who defeated current Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell in 2018. Barger, who hails from one of the wealthiest suburbs, perhaps in all of California, the City of San Marino, which has gone as far as to lock up its parks, charging for access. Barger knows her views are unpopular, to say the least, but in a ruby-slipper world, who can blame her for dreaming? Perhaps she missed the objections of Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who declared that he “would be a hypocrite if I did not fight for those who today are facing conditions that over 40 years, I've faced as an undocumented migrant to this country.” Trump has permitted deportations from even schools, churches, and hospitals.

The only Republican among the five queens who lead the LA County Board of Supervisors, Barger had appealed to Trump to visit Altadena following the wildfires, and yet he hadn’t visited, preferring instead to sulk next to Karen Bass in the Pacific Palisades. Signs at the Palm Springs rally had read, “I.C.E. is Domestic Terrorism,” but also “NO KINDS BUT YASS QUEENS,” and also my favorite: “If you can read this sign thank public school & PBS.” Perfect unity is difficult, and as opposition to Trump has blossomed, the prior divisions, such as those over Palestine that festered during the election campaign, have seemingly been subsumed into opposition.

As elected officials in Los Angeles have sought to quell combative resistance, they’ve separated off “agitators,” to the chagrin of some who demand more radicalized resistance than just against Donald Trump. Moreover, what’s happened isn’t so much a unification of the Latino community with the Los Angeles left or a fragile allyship with the African-American community that has now seemingly survived the putative division that has followed in Los Angeles over the LA Fed Tapes scandal. Perhaps the Los Angeles Police Department and Sheriff’s Department, along with assorted federal law enforcement, have just been so obsequiously brutal, but clearly the fight is on again. This hasn’t been as widespread or destructive as the protests over the murder of George Floyd were, even as Trump has tried to fan the flames, but it’s typical Los Angeles.

The anarchist movement may have had some role in this, but they’re hardly the exclusive driver. Protests now are seemingly diminishing even as immigration-enforcement operations are continuing. It’s important to distinguish that the masked federal agents who have descended on Southern California are different from local law enforcement in having to identify themselves.

Recently, in Cathedral City in the Coachella Valley, a man was detained by presumptively federal law enforcement agents despite the pleas of attorney Rosa Elena Sahagun for them to identify themselves, which met with the simple response, “We’re not locals.” Trump has mobilized not just immigration agents but others from federal law enforcement to meet the reported goal of 3,000 detentions per day dictated by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, one of the most odious figures in American leadership anywhere today.

In an extreme policy reminiscent of the roundups of Muslim-Americans after 9/11 or the internment of Japanese-Americans after the outbreak of World War II, the extremism of Donald Trump towards Latino-Americans has now caught numerous American citizens in its wide net.

There has always been racism in the United States, but Trump’s political weaponization of racism is something new: race-baiting at an outlandish level. Trump has even withdrawn into his own social media network, even getting into fights with his own now former advisor Elon Musk that are quickly settled. Trump’s America is an internet flame war that is without any end.

For some traditional conservatives, as LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger recently explained, the problem isn’t so much the idea of a massive immigration sweep as it is that the wrong people could somehow be caught up in its dragnet by “bad players” impersonating authorities. Democratic legislators in California are already moving to prohibit masked, unidentifiable policing in the state. State Sens. Scott Wiener (D–San Francisco) and Jesse Arreguín (D–Berkeley) argue that “it is critically important that people know who they’re interacting with and that they’re interacting with actual law enforcement officers.” The No Secret Police Act is likely to end up in court as federal officials seek to assert near unlimited security powers.

Arguments already occurring over Governor Newsom’s challenge to Trump’s federalized deployment of the California National Guard center around this question grounded not in the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution but rather in Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services, which authorizes the use of military force in response to "rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.” Donald Trump as commander-in-chief poses not a new legal question but an old test of where the authority of the government ends and the power of the people begins.

The patriot Samuel Adams wrote in 1748 that “It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.” Trump hasn’t even publicly chafed at the idea of being king.

Rather, his response was more demure, remarking, “I don’t feel like a king. I have to go through hell to get things approved.” Trump, who famously led what was inarguably the most alarming insurrection against the government of the United States on January 6, 2021, against the election of President Joe Biden, managed to defeat all suggestions that he was anything less than democratic. Despite many claims being made that his re-election was illegitimate, no sound evidence has emerged that Elon Musk or any other bad actor was the decisive force at the ballot box. In acquiescing to this election, Kamala Harris and Biden sought to suggest that they were acting in the interest of democracy even as they feared the impacts of Trumpism.

Trump may, in the end, be acting lawfully according to even the courts, even as morally he passes fears into the hearts and minds of a population of otherwise loyal Americans. His representation of himself as a personal emissary of what it means to be a successful American is perhaps his most powerful potion for the masses. Trump’s return to greatness promises the idea of wealth and of a strong economy, even as he slowly ages as a 79-year-old who managed to successfully mock his predecessor out of office on the grounds of being “sleepy.” Donald Trump might not be the president that America deserves or even represent all Americans, much less really think of their interests, but he’s the president America has in office, like it or not.

If what happened in Los Angeles was the first battle of an insurrection, it’s impressive that the amount of time for semi-organized resistance to emerge to his strongman rule took roughly six months, given what he clearly represents. The question we should all be asking is whether this first act of resistance to his rule will be the last and where it goes next, because one thing is for sure: even undignified rulers such as Donald Trump have managed to hang on to power.

Trump, when necessary, portrays himself as faithful, such as when he survived assassination at the hands of a near teenager, yet even as he approaches being termed out, should he make it through his full second term, it seems unlikely that he’ll accept relegation to the history books.

Link: Palm Springs 'No Kings' rally draws a crowd amid triple-digit heat

Link: Is this America's greatest LGBTQ+ city break?

Link: Trump makes blue-state detour with Coachella rally

Link: Breaking-down Language Barriers in Coachella City Council Meetings

Link: Nezza sings national anthem in Spanish at Dodgers as protest against immigration raids

Link: PSUSD Dual Language Immersion Programs

Link: Trump orders Ice raids on farms and hotels after pausing them days earlier

Link: ‘It reminded me of COVID’: Mayor Bass decries economic effect of immigration raids on L.A.

Link: This Palm Springs venue was a hot spot for music. Then came the pandemic and a bitter legal battle

Link: Los Angeles' sanctuary city policy isn't working, Supervisor says | FOX 11 LA

Link: Wealthy Calif. suburb restricts non-residents who want to visit its park

Link: Superintendent Alberto Carvalho reacts to federal agents coming to two LAUSD elementary schools