What's Behind the LA Riots?

Progressives have no god. Or at least one they believe in. So their quest for meaning takes them strange places. Defending trans men in sports or fighting for environmental goals that can never be achieved. It’s all part of the Progressive religion—a religion that has come into existence because of the abandonment of the true God of the Bible.

I met a friend at Starbucks and as we were leaving we were approached by a young man. He said, “I heard you talking inside. Are you guys Christians?” We told him we were and asked him what he was doing. He said, “I have been a Christian for two years. I came from California with a group that is starting a church that focuses on discipleship.” We rejoiced with him and he reminded me of what happens when someone meets Jesus Christ. They don’t burn cars and throw rocks at police. They go about building up the most blessed Kingdom that has ever existed.

America has been engulfed in protests and riots during the past week. The press tells us the mob is angry about this or that grievance but I don’t think so. I think they are marching for a different reason.

First, Who are they? Glenn Reynolds observed: “The core of anti-Trump activism, as many of Saturday’s “No Kings” crowds demonstrated, is geezers — people old enough to still get most of their news from a television set.” In City Journal Christopher Rufo said much the same thing: “The crowd was populated mostly by Baby Boomers, who appeared to be living out a political fantasy, in which they could “stop fascism” by reenacting the protest movements of their youth.”

Others observed that there weren’t that many immigrants in the crowds. The bulk of the rioters were older white people.

Many of the rioters are hired by professional riot providers. Yes, there are organizations that fund protests and organize marchers. The American Civil Liberties Union, the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, Black Lives Matter, and others have a rolodex of ready-made protestors they fund and send out to a riot site.

The Federalist reported that, “Saturday’s protests were organized by close to 200 groups, “all of which are aligned with the Democratic Party and many of which claim tax-exempt ‘nonpartisan’ non-profit status,” with over $2 billion in annual revenue.” The Federalist argued that this was hardly a spontaneous outpouring of political emotion, but rather an organized partisan event to score political points.

Second, the bigger question, Why do they riot?

They accomplish nothing. In the Wall Street Journal Kim Strassel writes: “Americans this Saturday will be treated to “No Kings Day.” Organizers brand it a “nationwide day of defiance” featuring protests in more than 2,000 cities against President Trump’s “authoritarianism.”” Kim then argues that a more honest tag line would be, Join our latest futile gesture, one even more likely to benefit Mr. Trump than those in the past.

So if the protests accomplish nothing or even help the enemy, why do people join them? 

Mary Eberstadt, the demographer, gives one very good explanation. The rioters are looking for family. Writing in 2020 about the George Floyd riots she says, “The explosive events of 2020 are but the latest eruption along a fault line running through our already unstable lives. That eruption exposes the…crisis of filial attachment that has beset the Western world for more than half a century. Deprived of fathers…a critical mass of humanity has become socially dysfunctional on a scale not seen before.” She adds, “Six decades of social science have established that the most efficient way to increase dysfunction is to increase fatherlessness.” Joining a protest group is a form of father substitute.

But ultimately we do not have to look far for the explanation of the protests. They meet a deep religious need. They give purpose to life. Progressivism is a works religion—you are saving your own soul through political activity. Even if it fails it gives you a sense of self-righteousness; Joseph Bottum said Progressives save their souls by the way they vote. You could add to that, they save their souls by joining a protest. And of course marching with others provides sense of community. You feel a kinship with your fellow protestors.

Back in the early 1950s the great A.W. Tozer preached a sermon on Ecclesiastes 3:11, “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart…”. God has put the desire for meaning into our hearts. Tozer argued that Joseph Stalin—then in the process of killing 30 million of his own citizens, was motivated by religious desire; to somehow fill that void that atheism had created in his heart. He still had a desire to find meaning in life and he did it by trying to create heaven on earth. A goal that required mass murder.

Whatever the reason, joining a protest will not meet the deepest needs of your heart. Only Christ will do that. We need to invite people to join His forever family. That’s something worth marching about.

Kim Strassel:

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/diminishing-protest-returns-los-angeles-no-kings-day-newsom-trump-immigration-deport-98c9888c?mod=opinion_lead_pos10&mod=djemMER_h

A brief walk down protest lane: In the opening months of Mr. Trump’s first presidency, the “resistance” staged the Women’s March, airport protests against his travel ban, demonstrations against pipeline projects, a Day Without Latinos, a Day Without Immigrants, Not My President’s Day, Resist Trump Tuesday, protests for transgender rights, a Day Without a Woman, a Tax March (April 15), a March for Science and May Day protests. Aside from a few images of ladies in funny pink hats howling at the sky, do you remember any of it? [All they succeeded in doing was winning Donald Trump a second term.]

Who funds the rioters? 

https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/california-funds-736m-to-anti-deportation-groups-sparking-gop-audit-demand-human-rights-immigration-raids-protests-los-angeles-trump-administration

Government transparency group Open The Books reported the state of California provided anti-deportation groups with $73.6 million in 2023 and 2024, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, which received $35 million.

Lefty non-profits:

https://nypost.com/2025/06/10/us-news/lefty-nonprofits-are-openly-fueling-la-riots-by-handing-out-f-k-ice-protective-gear/

Mary Eberstadt:

https://firstthings.com/the-fury-of-the-fatherless/

But what about the “supply” side—the ready and apparently inexhaustible ranks of demonstrators themselves? What explains them?

Fatherlessness leads to a search for father substitutes. And some of these daddy placeholders turn out to be toxic.

Before it was removed in late September, one section of the BLM website declared: “We disrupt the Western-­prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”

https://babylonbee.com/news/illegals-help-film-republican-presidential-campaign-commercial

https://thefederalist.com/2025/06/18/financial-data-reveals-no-kings-protests-are-hypocritical-astroturfing/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=financial-data-reveals-no-kings-protests-are-hypocritical-astroturfing&utm_term=2025-06-18

“These are the kings and queens of the Democratic political machine summoning their minions to take to the streets to feign a fake people’s revolution.”

After all, if the definition of kingship in this context is executive branch overreach, then where were they all between 2021 and 2024? They meekly bent the knee when the Biden White House imposed unscientific mask and vaccine mandates and allowed the educational establishment to damage an entire generation of students. They looked the other way when Biden’s DOJ targeted parents who complained at school board meetings, traditional Catholics, and the peaceful pro-life movement. And they applauded Democrats’ efforts to use bizarre interpretations of the law in an attempt to throw Biden’s chief political rival in prison.

Christopher Rufo in City Journal:

https://www.city-journal.org/article/no-kings-protest-anti-trump?utm_source=virtuous&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cjdaily&vcrmeid=MmSfvCxuWECOD3DyaTwfsw&vcrmiid=86QfeMrW2Eyl8NB4Nx4M3A

It’s a religious cause: https://wng.org/opinions/protest-against-what-1750355700?mkt_tok=NzEwLVFSUi0yMDkAAAGbK44qRkzj5HEwL8yiip1I2F2Uinz59X8a89ITfDHvsk_QaLwgvMtuEOR4Z7BAl1rJDBLmNZGGwk4wWPpPeWNYXm3Op7ni4FduoZqHjLQ46Ho1bg

There is a large irony to the protests. Donald Trump is an elected and term-limited president. Despite the political left’s insistence that Trump is a would-be dictator, tyrant, or king, he has only about one thousand three hundred days left in his presidential term. Concurrently, he is being regularly stymied and slowed by unelected judges who possess life tenure. Who is more kingly there?