The Intifada Begins

It comes down to a very simple question: is America able to say “no?

Jun 11, 2025

*A patriotic American? No, a patriotic Mexican occupying America.*

It was a hot weekend in Los Angeles. Violent protests occurred over immigration enforcement operations in the city and surrounding areas. It’s the worst case of civil unrest in Los Angeles, probably the whole country, since the George Floyd riots of 2020. As of this writing, they’re still ongoing, with no end in sight, at least for the time being.

In addition to triggering a massive local, state, and federal law enforcement response, over 4,000 California National Guard troops and 700 United States Marines are deployed to Los Angeles to protect government facilities, federal agents, and provide relief for local and state police. The city is living up to its reputation as a hotbed of disorder.

There’s been no shortage of dramatic images that have emerged from the riots. If not for the Mexican flag, I would’ve thought this picture was taken in Paris, where riots like these are quite common:

What’s become an all-too familiar sight in recent years:

It wouldn’t be a peaceful protest without looting. What could they possibly want to steal from a sushi restaurant, anyway? Fresh fish?

Marines preparing to deploy to Los Angeles:

The Mexican flag flying atop a burned out car in an American city with the sun setting in the background symbolizes where we’re headed, doesn’t it?

If this doesn’t constitute insurrection, I don’t know what would:

I’ve never been more convinced America is headed for civil war than I was over this weekend. I’m more convinced now than I was in 2020. A lot of that’s because I’m more aware now than I was back then (this Substack wasn’t around back then), but it’s also because the events in Los Angeles over the weekend confirmed many suspicions I’ve had about both the city and the country.

Let’s talk about them.

Immigrants Are A Fifth Column

I regard Hispanics as similar to what Arabs are like to France. Though our historical relationship is far less contentious - Hispanics were never colonized by Americans like Arabs were by France - and Hispanics are far better assimilated than the Arabs are in France, there still exists a substantial percentage of Hispanics - I’d say about 30 to 40 percent - who never did meaningfully assimilate. They see themselves first and foremost as members of their blood tribe, only to suddenly call themselves Americans when it benefits them to do so. They’re what I like to call “Fair Weather Americans.” Of course, many of them are also illegals. But even the ones who aren’t, even the ones who are citizens, aren’t American in any real sense. They say so themselves.

Los Angeles has a high concentration of these kinds of people. One of the things which stood out most to those observing the riots was how the Mexican flag, along with those of other foreign countries, was featured most prominently, including in the photograph heading this essay. Even many liberals picked up on this, noting what a terrible look it was for a movement supposedly fighting for the “right” to be Americans. Of course, no such right exists, but these liberals are correct that showing pride in a foreign country is about the worst way to show your commitment to this country.

Many went on to suggest these protestors leave the foreign flags at home and fly the American flag instead. Surely, the deportations will stop then, won’t they? As always, whether its immigrants, Blacks, or Hispanics, liberals know nothing about their most favored groups, the people they invest so much of their emotional bandwidth in. The reason why they flew foreign flags is because those are the countries they’re loyal to. Even if the flags are merely cultural signifiers, as others suggested, all that means is that American culture isn’t what they identify with, not most closely. Mentally, they’re foreigners, regardless of legal status.

Hispanics aren’t alone in driving the increasing cultural balkanization of the country. The problem is that they’re the biggest racial group in America besides Whites and constitute critical mass in a way no other racial group, not even Blacks, do. What they lack in cultural and political power, they make up for with sheer numbers. Blacks are also more segregated from the rest of American society, but Hispanics have a presence in most areas of the country, even as they live primarily among themselves, like most people.

Over 20 years ago, Dr. Samuel Huntington warned that Hispanics weren’t assimilating and threatened the unity of the country:

He expanded on his thoughts in his book Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity, writing:

The persistence of Mexican immigration and the large and increasing absolute numbers of Mexicans reduce the incentives for cultural assimilation. Mexican-Americans no longer think of themselves as members of a small minority who must accommodate the dominant group and adopt its culture. As their numbers increase, they become more committed to their own ethnic identity and culture. Sustained numerical expansion promotes cultural consolidation, and leads them not to minimize but to glory in the difference between their culture and American culture.

Huntington singled out Mexican immigration, but I think this can be applied to Hispanic immigration overall. The ethnic differences don’t matter to Hispanics themselves and they view themselves as unified in their struggle.

As their numbers increase, Mexican-Americans feel increasingly comfortable with their own culture and often contemptuous of American culture. They demand recognition of their culture and the historic Mexican identity of the American southwest. They increasingly call attention to and celebrate their Hispanic and Mexican past.

And:

The continuation of high levels of Mexican and Hispanic immigration plus the low rates of assimilation of these immigrants into American society and culture could eventually change America into a country of two languages, two cultures, and two peoples. This will not only transform America. It will also have deep consequences for Hispanics, who will be in America but not of it.

For a time, it seemed as though this was the one thesis of Huntington which wouldn’t stand the test of time. The rightward shift of Hispanics in recent elections, most notably in last year’s presidential election, suggested they were assimilating better than Huntington and others thought they would. The events in Los Angeles don’t vindicate Huntington, not entirely. But it does suggest that he was at least partially correct, that even as many Hispanics would assimilate, there would inevitably be a significant percentage who wouldn’t. And those who wouldn’t would eventually become a problem.

In warfare, the concept of a “fifth column” refers to a group of people who do damage to a country from within. They don’t need to be members of the military; they can simply be a problematic demographic. With foreign support, they can not only be even more dangerous, but can sustain the fight for a long time. I think events in Los Angeles exposed the existence of this fifth column once and for all. Though many will be loathe to admit it, the right-wing narrative on at least these specific immigrants has proven to be correct.

Even if most immigrants in general come here legally and don’t want to cause trouble, there are a large number who do. This isn’t about generalizing immigrants, either. But even many of those who do come here legally feel entitled to this country and feel empowered to involve themselves in our politics, despite not being citizens themselves. I mention this because behind every fifth column is a domestic support base. The danger in bringing in large number of immigrants, legal or not, is that it leads to permanent, irreversible changes, and it becomes harder and harder to say “no,” which a country has to absolutely be able to do.

As X account “wanye” explains:

And what we see very clearly from a lot of people in the pro-immigration movement are references to, “our people,” to “our race,” to “people like us.” We see arguments that amount to, “I was given this opportunity, so I am obligated to give that same opportunity to new immigrants.”
I don’t think it’s at all surprising that immigrants are as a group supportive of immigration, but, again, that’s why this issue is different from all others. Voting “yes” gets you more people who feel even more strongly that the vote should be “yes.”

As long as foreigners, immigrants, and non-Whites throw their support behind their illegal comrades and against immigration enforcement efforts, they’re only making the case for greater enforcement measures. It’s not enough to wave the American flag, either. The argument, the case they’re making matters so much more. Them waving the American flag doesn’t make them any more American than me waving a Mexican flag makes me Mexican.

Brewing Urban Guerrilla Insurgency

I always regarded Los Angeles as the Marseilles and Rio de Janeiro of America. Though the City of Angels isn’t quite as violent as the other two cities, it not only used to be more dangerous, but it has a similar reputation: vast foreign population constituting much of the crime in the city like Marseilles, ridden with gangs and drug trafficking like Rio de Janeiro.

If anyone thinks this is going to just blow over, they’re tragically mistaken. As Angela McArdle warned:

The people rioting in LA are not virtue signaling. They are dead serious about protecting illegal immigrants, especially Mexicans. It's difficult to understand if you've never lived in LA. It is a progressive stronghold. They will die for the cause.

Protests are the first form of resistance. When protest fails, they become riots. When riots are met with state reaction, as we are seeing now, sometimes, the resistance retreats, reforming into a less overt form of violent rebellion: insurgency. I’ve been warning for some time now that the capacity for insurgency exists among the immigrant population and among their sympathizers. Consider the building blocs of insurgency: first, you need a cause. They definitely have one. Second, you need bodies - young males, especially. Los Angeles has plenty of them.

Looks like prime insurgent material, don’t they?

When migrants were flooding into the country during the Biden administration, much was made of the fact that most of them were young males of “fighting age.” I don’t know what the actual age and gender breakdown was, but there’s no disputing the fact millions of young men did enter the country at the time. I often make the point that a civil war requires a disproportionate amount of young men; if that many young men are now in the country, they can cause a whole lot of trouble if organized into a collective.

Something else which popped up in the wake of the Los Angeles unrest is the extent to which how many people here think Southern California, the whole Southwest, no, half the damn country, rightfully belongs to Mexico, even though it hasn’t since 1848.

Whether their claims are legitimate or not, we can debate some other time. For now, it suffices to say this land is our land, not theirs. It’s also worth noting that Mexico only came into possession of half the U.S. because it was colonized by Spain, who the Mexicans fought and won independence from, just as Americans fought and won independence from Britain. If this is stolen land, then the Mexicans themselves were once thieves themselves.

Unfortunately, irredentism has been a source of many armed conflicts throughout history. Will Reconquista lead to the same in the U.S.? America once had a prominent nationalist-separatist movement driven by Hispanics of Mexican descent, centered on a purported Chicano identity. The movement has gone dormant, but it features prominently in Southern Californian Hispanic culture, specifically. We’re seeing a resurgence of it now.

An insurgency may or may not emerge out of this. But the ingredients for one based on migrant grievance, Chicano and Mexican nationalism, and irredentism, are all there. Writer Matt Bracken once even authored a novel about a low-intensity conflict occurring in the U.S. due to mass illegal immigration from south of the border. The threat exists. It’s just a question of whether it’ll fully manifest or not.

What do we do about it? If the situation continues to worsen, the military will have to get involved. The active-duty military, in fact. Even if an insurgency doesn’t emerge from this, unrest on a large scale, historically, has triggered the deployment of active-duty military forces. This happened during the 1967 Detroit riots and the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Unlikely as it may seem, if a total breakdown of law and order occurs, the military definitely needs to get involved because they’re the only force capable of creating order out of anarchy. The police, even our supposedly “militarized” agencies, don’t possess this capability.

We’re not done talking about this. But until the threat does fully manifest, we’re in a wait-and-see mode. What I do know for certain is this: the coming civil war will primarily be leftists killing and destroying what they don’t like. In places like Los Angeles, however, the conflict will feature urban guerrilla warfare. It’s crazy to imagine, but everyone saw this coming when we decided to allow millions of young men from disorderly, more violent societies all over the world enter our country.

Mexico Is Our Enemy

Not surprisingly, President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum had something to say:

Arne aus den Ruthen goes on to note that Mexico’s foreign policy has traditionally been non-interventionist, staying out of the affairs of other countries. This is, of course, not the whole truth - Mexico has always meddled in American internal politics and society, though quietly so. Sheinbaum, however, along with her predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, have been far more vocal in injecting themselves in their northern neighbor’s affairs.

This, by Sheinbaum, is going way too far. Mobilize? What’s that supposed to mean? Is she confirming that yes, Mexican immigrants inside the U.S. form a fifth column to be weaponized against our country? Is she going to sow civil unrest in the U.S.? And what does she mean by “our fellow countrymen?” Is she saying no, Mexican immigrants aren’t Americans, despite the Left’s rhetoric saying so?

What we have here in the president of a neighboring country blatantly calling for interference, possibly even violence, in our country. In simpler times, this was known as an act of war. Mexico, a country itself embroiled in civil war, whose government is heavily influenced by the drug cartels, is neither a friend nor a reliable partner. They’re an adversary, probably more so than even China or Russia.

A feature of civil wars, what often sustains them, is foreign involvement. It often proves decisive in terms of who the winning side ends up being. During the Revolutionary War, French intervention helped secure independence from Britain, for example. Should a Hispanic insurgency blossom in the U.S., Mexican support may not lead it to victory, but it can sure keep it going for a very, very, long time.

What we have is a threat similar to that which Lebanon poses to Israel. The drug cartels are becoming ever-more powerful, akin to that of Hezbollah. Along with the prospect of insurgency, the U.S. will have its hands full in the years to come courtesy of its southern neighbor, a country whose existence depends on a parasitic relationship with America built on inferiority complex and spite. With other Mexican politicians parroting the line about how half of America used to be theirs, it’s past time to consider the possibility we may be headed for armed conflict with Mexico.

Are We Closer To Civil War Than We Realize?

Reader

John of the West

had this to say in response to my last essay:

I don’t think civil war is going to take the low level form everyone thinks it is. Immigration to our time is what slavery was to the antebellum south. The reason that slavery was such a critical issue to the South was because the entire economy was basically built around it. By the 1850s, there were plenty of slave owners whose wealth was tied up in their slaves, but they could not convert those slaves to other assets. In other words, they were stuck with their slaves even though they wanted to get out of the slave owning business and invest their money elsewhere. Other people in the south still embraced slavery because they saw it as a means of status, economic and political mobility, etc.
The anti-slavery side was highly ideological in nature, but also had their own economic reasons for wanting to abolish slavery.
Immigration is sort of in the same shape right now. You have too many people who have too much of a stake in it to be able to drop their support for it. It’s political, economic, and ideological. Like slavery, many people benefit far too much from it right now to fix it even if they could. Politicians see it as a source of votes and a political weapon. Businesses see it as a source of cheap labor - and I mean legal immigration from India as well. Ideologues see it as core to their thinking of wishing to destroy the country as we know it and reshape it into something else.
On the other side, you have people on the anti-immigration side who have a mirror image of those points. Right wing politicians see it as changing the voting makeup. The average person see it as driving them out of decent jobs and taking away opportunities for their children. And then there is the “great replacement” which speaks for itself.
So, like slavery, it is an impasse. Too many people have too much invested in it to reach a compromise now. Now, none of that matters until it becomes an issue of sovereignty. Sanctuary cities have long flirted with the idea of telling the federal government to go to hell, but those were never really challenged with a direct show of force. If the current administration efforts ARE met with a show of force by calling out the national guard or police forces (some of which are very well armed), citizen “volunteers,” etc, then we have a whole different ball game. It then comes down to who is willing the fire a first shot and does so.
Fort Sumter was a basic argument over sovereignty. If a federal installation was sitting in the harbor of a seceding state, it meant that the state was not really sovereign. It would be like China setting up a military base in Alcatraz. Whether or not federal troops can enforce federal law is going to be a turning point in immigration as well. People have spoken of secession in left leaning states for a long time, is this going to be the thing that finally pushes them towards it?
I hadn’t looked at the news in the last day or so, but when I woke up and saw the news about LA, it was an oh shit moment. I think we may be a lot closer than anyone thinks to civil war.

I’m blessed with such intelligent readers. Everyone’s comments are insightful and help move the discussion along (except for the guy who called me a Jew and threatened to deglove me). That said, what John of the West said above is one of the more profound comments anyone has posted here since I started this Substack.

There are issues with comparing immigration to slavery, of course. Immigrants came here by choice, slaves didn’t. The question now isn’t about whether to “free” immigrants; they’re already free. The question instead is whether Americans are permitted to have a country of their own and whether or not immigrants stay at the pleasure of Americans, not of their own. These are questions so fundamental, the political system was never meant to answer them.

Still, John is correct in saying that the reason why immigration has become such a flashpoint is because both sides have become so invested in it. Since Trump came to power 10 years ago, however, the Left has become the far more invested of the two sides. There are some lingering business interests connected to the Republican Party who benefit from illegal immigration, but the Democratic Party benefits from cheap labor, too, as evidenced by their recent rhetoric in response to Trump’s economic policies. The urban professional class comprises the party’s base and their comfortable, lavish lifestyles are affordable thanks in large part to cheap labor. Whatever the case may be, it’s too late to turn back now, especially as the Left has staked its future on demographic transformation.

Immigration has always been a hot-button issue. But there was a time when we might’ve been able to make a course-correction without triggering a mass uprising like we’re seeing now in Los Angeles. Just because an issue triggers strong emotions doesn’t mean it becomes an impetus for civil war. It’s become a potential ignition point for armed conflict today because there’s not only too many foreigners here now, but they’ve also been here for so long, you can’t tell them to leave and expect them to comply.

Watch the video coming out of LA closely. This is the direct result of decades of mass immigration, increasingly ineffective government/leftist ideology. This could happen to any state, the entire country. So it has to be stopped, put down, reversed - to set an example.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think it can be stopped, put down, and reversed, not without serious action. Military action. It’s just too far gone at this point and the Left won’t just concede because of that aforementioned investment in immigration. That highlights another difference with slavery; we’re not stuck with immigrants as we were with slaves so much as immigrants are stuck with us and they want access to everything we have, or at least what they perceive to be “their cut.”

Going back to John the West’s remarks, I also agree that a civil war probably won’t happen unless the impasse becomes an issue of sovereignty. State and local authorities don’t need to assist federal authorities in enforcing immigration law, but they cannot impede such efforts. If, say, Governor Newsom or Mayor Bass order their police officers or even state National Guard to square off with federal authorities, we’ve got a serious problem. I don’t think they’ll go that far, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if that happened.

In fact, the Biden administration had a showdown with Texas at the beginning of 2024 over the state’s attempts to secure the border. Thankfully, Biden blinked. But now we have another potential crisis brewing, this time over California not only refusing to enforce immigration law, but maybe even obstructing attempts at doing so. We’re not quite there yet, nor are Newsom and Bass stupid people; they know that obstruction would absolutely trigger a major political crisis they may not be able to win. Americans may be sympathetic to immigrants, but they not only don’t want open borders, they also don’t want their cities and states turning into war zones over it.

In that sense, we may not be that close to civil war. But reaching a resolution on immigration is impossible at this point. Even if the Left, on some level, understands that what’s happening in Los Angeles is unacceptable, they can’t support the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts, either, because you cannot allow the other side to win, ever, even on issues where they might be right.

Without suggesting this would lead to war, we’re already seeing these clashes of sovereignty unfold. California is filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration for the deployment of the National Guard without the governor’s say-so. It doesn’t appear the Trump administration ever invoked the Insurrection Act, which could be problematic, though, contrary to popular opinion, the Insurrection Act isn’t the only law permitting the deployment of troops within the U.S. We don’t know under what authority the president federalized the National Guard, but the point is that there are circumstances beyond just the Insurrection Act which would allow him to do so.

If there’s any issue that will draw that line in the sand which irreparably divides this country, it’s immigration. It comes down to a very simple question: is America able to say “no?” If it cannot say no, then do we even have a country? This is at the heart of the ideological conflict in America. To waver on the position would be to completely renege on an entire worldview. To compromise, which you can do only once, is to surrender.

Let’s Not Kid Ourselves

Some thoughts as we close out.

First, I think we can say that assimilation has failed. At least, it’s failed with a significant percentage of the population. Los Angeles proves it. So has civic and cultural nationalism. None of the people protesting, including the citizens, are American in any meaningful sense of the term. It’s even a stretch to say assimilation is even an expectation at this point. What would they assimilate into, anyway? America has no culture, our elites and liberal Americans often lecture us.

“FischerKing” says:

Assimilation of waves of European immigrants to the USA from say 1865-1924 (when Coolidge cut it off) happened through state coercion. People were forcibly integrated into the English language, generally Anglo-American traditions. And it worked. People anglicized their names even. It took decades - and people coming together through two world wars. It was very hard.
What we have been doing since 1965 is inviting the entire world into the country and then just letting them do their thing and balkanize the place. It's a total disaster, historical mistake - and it's time to undo it through deportations and very aggressive assimilation.

Second, liberals, who are most sympathetic to immigration, are lying to themselves about why people move to the U.S. They come here not because of our “values,” but because of our prosperity and quality of life. There’s nothing wrong with that, but we shouldn’t confuse that with immigrants being loyal, proud Americans because of it. In fact, immigrants harbor a tremendous sense of entitlement and resentment towards America, whether they come here legally or not. A Mexican immigrant, along with their citizen offspring, flies the flag of Mexico because that’s who they are. That’s who they’re proud to be. Not American. Expecting them to become Americans is a destructive form of self-deception.

Third, to tie this all together, no matter your opinion on immigration in general, mass immigration does a country no good. Anyone who supports mass immigration doesn’t have the country’s best interests in mind. Whatever benefits it might bring reaches the point of dimishing returns quickly and creates more problems that outweigh those benefits.

We're Not At the End, But You Can See It From Here

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