I’m not just your columnist. I’m your outlaw.
I’m not telling you this to seem cool. Or to sell a country album.
I am telling you that, very officially, I am a criminal, according to the United States of America.
If you’re a Californian, you might be one, too.
To be sure, my criminality isn’t entirely my fault, and yours likely isn’t, either. I haven’t knocked over any banks or defrauded investors. At least not yet. But I have chosen to make my life in Los Angeles. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently declared that my city is not a “city of immigrants” but “a city of criminals.” She clearly means everybody in L.A., even U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, who was handcuffed for his crime of asking her a question.
Now, when you think of people acting outside the law, Senator Padilla and I — Angeleno fathers of three boys who attended fancy Boston-area colleges — probably don’t come to mind. But we are criminals.
Rebels, too.
Again, not bragging here. My rebel status was officially confirmed by the President of the United States in a June 7 memorandum to Noem, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
In that correspondence, Trump wrote that Californians who protest mass deportation — as many do on the streets and as I do in my commentary — are engaged in “a form of rebellion against the authority of the United States.”
Trump doesn’t make a distinction between us journalists, who cover demonstrations, and the actual protesters (he’s called us all “human scum”). Of course, the people in those protests don’t say they’re rebelling against the U.S. They do express anger that U.S. immigration authorities are grabbing their friends and relatives off the streets, without warrants, identification, or knowing if the arrestees are subject to deportation.
But hey, if interviewing such “protesters” makes me a rebel in the eyes of Uncle Sam, well, I’ll take it!
I’d like to be a cool, James Dean-style rebel. But no, the president also says I, and my fellow Californians who object to his systematic rights violations are “insurrectionists.” That means, according to Britannica, that I’m part of “an organized and usually violent act of revolt or rebellion against an established government or governing authority.”
I don’t remember ever trying to overthrow the government, and as a rule I avoid joining organized enterprises (which is why I work in media). But I’m apparently so dangerous to the American government that Trump has called in the Marines to stop me.
Now, you may think I’m just making fun. But I’m taking these accusations against me seriously. Donald Trump is a convicted criminal (multiple felonies in New York), a rebel (in a racist Confederate way), and an insurrectionist (January 6). When Trump calls me those things, he is speaking from long personal experience.
So, I respect Trump’s judgment, and embrace these labels. Trump labeling me — and other Californians — as rebels is a gift to our side of this little civil war. He is granting us permission to behave badly.
One reason liberals and sunny Californians are so bad at fighting is their overly developed belief in benevolence. They want to be good people, and they devote considerable energy to policing the behavior of their allies
But in a fight with a nasty criminal enterprise — like the Trump administration — we can’t worry about saving our souls or moral purity. We must on saving our communities, and our most vulnerable people from those who deploy soldiers against us, from those who would sacrifice our lives in their pursuit of power.
Facing an American “Dirty War,” we may have to fight dirty. Especially because we are fighting alone. In this L.A. moment, our local leaders have called many of our peaceful assemblies unlawful and blamed us, the targets of federal violence, for protesting too aggressively. Our police attack us (with “less lethal rounds) even as protect the federal agents whose lawless behavior is the real problem. Our politicians, instead of joining us in the streets, criticize the flags that we fly, the graffiti and other words we write, and the tone of our speech.
Without much official support, we the people — we criminals, we rebels, we insurrectionists of California — must defend ourselves. We are left to create self-defense networks for our communities, like California Rapid Response Networks that protect immigrants.
Of course, the U.S. government regime will say that such defense networks are really gangs.
Bring it on. Your columnist can hardly wait to be called a gangster.
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Mathews: We criminals, we rebels, we Californians
Reporting by Joe Mathews / Ventura County Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
