Culture War Violence in Liberal Cities

It’s not really coincidental that so much of the actual violence over the so-called culture wars has taken place in the very liberal cities of the West Coast. As I see it, the recipe is perfect for it. The rural areas of the West are extremely reactionary and combine bitterness of economic changes with outrage over social changes. The urban areas have cultures of actual resistance to oppression, whether in Black/Latino/Native communities around civil rights organization or in younger white communities attracted to anarchism and armed self-defense. So you end up with situations like you had a couple of years ago in Portland when, during a clash, a leftist actually killed a fascist and then was murdered himself by the cops with the Trump administration’s approval. Kind of amazed how quickly that whole incident has been flushed down the memory hole.

Anyway, here is an other perspective on the issue, based around Los Angeles:

In the last year, culture warriors and extremists, bolstered by mainstream GOP policy and rhetoric, have gone all in on false narratives that claim educators are “grooming” kids by teaching them about Pride and the LGBTQ community. Christian nationalists, neo-Nazis, Proud Boys, and other extremists have menaced school board meetings, called in bomb threats to Drag Queen Story Hours, and faced off with counter-protesters across the country—all with the goal of making the LGBTQ community and their allies feel less safe. 

Though disturbing, those protests have seldom escalated into the kinds of brawls that transpired in the LA area last month. 

In southern California, the conditions are especially ripe for political violence. The far-right has deep roots there, dating back to at least the 1920s, when the Ku Klux Klan had a strong presence in the region and one member even secured a spot on LA’s city council. 

California’s reputation as a bastion of liberal politics and progressive culture has often made it a target by right-wing pundits, and growing polarization in the region has left the conservative minority increasingly isolated and bound together in their echo chamber of shared grievances. That echo chamber became turbocharged in 2020, when COVID-19 hit the U.S., galvanizing the far-right to take advantage of the intensified divisions and recruit more people to their cause. 

Hate crimes targeting the trans community were higher in LA than any other major city last year, an increase of nearly 70% compared to 2021, according to data collected by Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. 

Local activists and journalists say the far-right is becoming increasingly emboldened in southern California, as thought-leaders of the movement reach and radicalize new recruits, including parents. 

“The parents were so violent,” said Kelly Stuart, a local photographer who’s been documenting the far-right around LA for the last few years, about the protest outside Saticoy Elementary. She followed and photographed some of the protesters that day as they marched around the perimeter of the school—out of sight from local law enforcement. 

“They told me, ‘there’s no cops here now, we could just smash your head in,’” recalled Stuart, who is 62.

And given that, the only reason answer is to be prepared to smash their heads in, strictly in self-defense of course, yes. But still. No one wants violence unless you are an idiot, but you have to be prepared to defend yourself. California especially plays such an outsized role in the right-wing hate machine. Seattle and Portland can do that at times and the latter certainly did during the protests during the BLM movement that in Rip City were hijacked by white anarchists. But Washington and Oregon simply don’t have the role in the American imagination that California does. So you have to be extra prepared to fight back there because the crazies are coming.