SATURDAY: What has been happening out in L.A.?

SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 2025

Campos-Duffy "explains:" What has been happening out in Los Angeles over the course of the past nine days?

In this June 11 report, we told you that it isn't easy to answer a question like that. In today's print editions of the New York Times, Fausset and Dwyer give it a try.

It isn't all one thing or the other! Or at least, so the two journalists claim:

In L.A., the Divide Between Peace and Violence Is in the Eye of the Beholder

[...]

In Los Angeles this week, many protesters have marched peacefully. Others have thrown objects at the police, set cars ablaze and looted stores and restaurants. Police have responded aggressively, intimidating protesters with earsplitting explosives and mounted patrols, hitting them with batons, deploying tear gas and firing foam projectiles and rubber bullets into crowds.

The question of which side is justified, and which side is not, seems to have divided the country as much as the immigration issue. And Los Angeles has been transformed into a stage for a debate over the nature and meaning of American protest.

This week, the line separating peaceful protest from violent protest differed in the eyes of the beholder. Was Los Angeles a city in chaos, when many in the sprawling metropolis went about their day untouched by drama that was confined to scattered blocks? What was the appropriate language to accurately describe nights in which many protesters...have been lawful, but others, who have often shown up after sundown, have decided to loot, smash and burn?

So went their overview. But do these jokers actually know what they're talking about? 

According to the Times, Fausset and Dwyer "spent hours in Los Angeles interviewing protesters and documenting the police response." When they penned their overview, they included this challenging passage:

Some protesters said that the recent vandalism and property damage did not bother them, because it brought attention to the crisis affecting their friends and family. “They’re terrorizing our community,” [Alfonso] Santoyo said of the immigration officers. “A couple of cars on fire means nothing to me.”

Aylan Francesco Mello, 33, a tech worker and Southern California native, watched from Gloria Molina Grand Park, a block-wide green space that extends northwest from City Hall and that had also begun to fill with protesters. He said his mother came to the U.S. illegally from Guatemala, and his father came legally from Brazil.

“This feels like a very personal thing to me,” Mr. Francesco Mello said. “I see myself in a lot of the people who are being persecuted.”

But he did not identify with the non-peaceful street crowds, which have often caused trouble after the peaceful protesters have gone home. “There’s very little overlap between the looters, the opportunists, and the protesters,” he said. “I feel like we’re almost talking about two different subjects.”

Why do we say that report is "challenging?" We say that for this reason:

It challenges us to understand that the many people in a large crowd almost surely aren't all the same person! It challenges us to stop creating simplified fairy tales which are tribally pleasing—the kinds of assault on the American discourse at which one "cable news" star excels.

Early this morning, she was at it again, as she co-hosted the gruesome Fox & Friends Weekend "cable news" TV show. 

As we've noted in the past, Rachel Campos-Duffy is remarkably genial—among her own. She's also a born propagandist, as our despondent, extremely young analysts learned for the ten millionth time today at 6:32 a.m.

It was 6:32 a.m. Emerging from a commercial break, Campos-Duffy—true to form—started things off with this:

CAMPOS-DUFFY (6/14/25): Well, immigration is in the spotlight as Democrats continue to support anti-ICE rioters in Los Angeles and other Blue cities.

Really? Have "Democrats" really been "supporting anti-ICE rioters?" 

Have all "Democrats" been doing that? Would Campos-Duffy go on to name even one?

Those questions went unaddressed as the latest gruesome segment unspooled on the propaganda channel in question. But that's what the genial cable star said as she started her program's new segment.

That's what the genial star said! Below her, on the screen, a Fox News chyron said this:

DEMS CONTINUE TO STAND BY RIOTERS AS L.A. BURNS

Instantly, it occurred to us that this program's account of recent events might not be fully nuanced.

Campos-Duffy is a genial presence—when speaking with her own. When she speaks about the others, it emerges that she's also a born propagandist.

She works for a propaganda-driven corporation on one of its "cable news" programs. As with MSNBC, so too here:

You aren't allowed to know how much she's paid for providing her services. But just like that, Campos-Duffy was speaking to Katie Zacharia, who seems to be one of her own. 

Stating the obvious, people have every right to their religious beliefs and to their religious views. That said, Campos-Duffy has long struck us as a religionist. It seems that Zacharia holds a similar (unstated) view of the world, as is her perfect right.

Zacharia got busy! She quickly said that Governor Newsom "is unwilling to put the police force, the National Guard, on the streets to help with the riots. It's really a disgrace."

"The police force, the National Guard?" Yes, that's what Zacharia said, as you can see right here.

We don't know what that conflation was supposed to mean—but Campos-Duffy knew where to go next. For what it's worth, her description of events in L.A. seems to be a bit less nuanced than that in the New York Times:

CAMPOS-DUFFY: You know, Katie, it's a disgrace, but it's also very elitist. Because the violence is happening in working-class neighborhoods. He would never allow this to happen in Brentwood or Beverly Hills. But it's OK to burn down and ruin the neighborhoods of the working class.

Really? Which neighborhoods of the working class have been "burned down and ruined?" Campos-Duffy forgot to say. In this morning's report, the New York Times isn't reporting destruction on any such scale as that.

Before the pair of messengers were done, Campos-Duffy noted a flicker of hope. This is what she said:

CAMPOS-DUFFY: So you also talked to me, off-camera, about the possibility of—because there are some normal people like you in California—about California turning red. Talk to me about that.

There are some normal people in California, the born propagandist said. Was Campos-Duffy speaking ironically? You'll have to inspect the tape yourself. We'd say it's not clear that she was.

Campos-Duffy is extremely genial—but only among the people who are normal. The others all support the riots, which have burned neighborhoods down.

This goes on all day and all night on the Fox News Channel. As it does, Blue America's elites avert their gaze. 

Nothing to look at, they seem to say. There's nothing to report or discuss!

At any rate, working-class neighborhoods have been ruined. Democrats support the riots which have produced that effect.

By the way: Mayor Bass is a Communist. Campos-Duffy told us that on last Sunday's Fox & Friends Weekend, as we noted in this report.

Can a very large modern nation expect to survive a regime like this? We'd say the answer is far from clear.

Nothing to look at—keep moving along! our Blue orgs seem to say.