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Even Rick Caruso Slams Trump's Deployment of National Guard [1]

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Date: 2025-06-11

Those of you outside Los Angeles may not be super familiar with Rick Caruso, the elitist developer and “former” Republican who ran against Mayor Bass in the last nonpartisan local election (and of course lost after many years of testing the waters). At heart, he’s a pretty typical blue state Republican, but he’s changed his party affiliation over the years in order to give himself a chance to run for office. He’s no friend of liberals or Democrats, but Trump’s fascist tantrum is evidently too much even for him. Or maybe he’s just preening for the next mayoral (or gubernatorial) election in a way that’s similar to how he’s used the LA fires to attack Democrats (after helping to deplete the water supply available to publicly funded firefighters with his own vast private fire-fighting force tasked to protect only his properties). And of course Caruso is frankly no stranger to stoking the myth of non-existent crime emergencies in Los Angeles for political purposes, so it’s interesting to see what his brand of American is making of all of this, at least rhetorically - interesting to see which way the more local political winds are blowing on the latest fascist moves by Republicans.

On X Sunday, Los Angeles businessman and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso wrote regarding the protests in L.A. over the weekend that there was “absolutely no danger that justifies deployment of the National Guard, military, or other federal force to the streets.” Caruso told L.A.’s Morning News on Monday he stood by his statement.

However, in typical conservative fashion, he went on to use the situation to denigrate both Bass and Newsom and call for even more absurd police spending:

Caruso argued the LAPD needs to be bigger and better funded to prevent more protests and riots.

It just goes to show that when it comes to authoritarians and the gaslighters like Caruso who buttress them while trying to preen for future elections, it can be a no-win situation for democracy and for decent Americans and Democratic party leaders.

Heads, California becomes a militarized war zone. Tails, California become an even bigger police state where local police departments and conservative leaders successfully pressure communities to further erode the rights of vulnerable citizens, both housed and unhoused, immigrants and longtime citizens.

When will a Democratic leader emerge who can successfully navigate these issues, win top office, and then have the wisdom and guts to downscale the authoritarian presence of the police, ICE, and other similar conservative-aligned agencies in our daily lives?

Or will gaslighters like Rick Caruso win out in all of this and take us down an even darker path?

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