Mayor Lana Negrete began the City Council meeting last week by acknowledging the unrest in Los Angeles. She affirmed the Council’s support for anyone frightened by federal actions, and she clarified that Santa Monica is in no way responsible for those actions.
But that’s not exactly true.
To Santa Monica’s credit, the Council has been steadfast in its support of immigrants, and Councilmembers past and present have devoted effort to making the city more equitable as well as sustainable. Santa Monica is in many ways a bastion of liberal principles, resulting in Donald Trump receiving only 18% of the votes last November, significantly less than he received even in the cities of Los Angeles (27%) or New York (30%).
Yet the President’s Homeland Security Advisor and the primary architect of the administration’s crackdown on immigrant rights is a Santa Monica native, Stephen Miller, and I don’t believe that’s entirely a coincidence.
Those liberal principles, which have resulted in rent control, bike paths, and water conservation among many other praiseworthy objectives, don’t represent intrinsic human values but political values. In a city with one-party rule, it’s easy to consider the two concepts interchangeable. But they’re not.
I actually agree with many of the objectives of the city’s leadership. What I object to is the hubris—and the antagonism it incites. According to Newton’s third law of motion, for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction, meaning that when you exert force on an object, that object will exert an equal force back in the opposite direction. What’s true for physics is also true for politics, because when people are pushed, they push back.
Which brings me back to Miller. All accounts suggest that he started pushing back against the liberal Santa Monica establishment at an early age, and it seems to be the foundation of his political identity. Why the great-grandson of refugees is determined to prevent other refugees from reaching this country’s shores, is a question for his conscience, if he has one. But it’s not entirely surprising that someone whose ancestors faced life-threatening persecution would be susceptible to feeling victimized, and unfortunately it’s not unusual for someone who identifies as a victim to become a victimizer.
He has now set his sights far beyond Santa Monica as he implements his plan for mass deportations. At the No Kings rallies on Sunday, the outrage was directed at the President, but it was Miller’s policies that speaker after speaker denounced. At the Santa Monica event, Mayor Negrete delivered heartfelt words about the value of immigrants, and each of the Councilmembers echoed her sentiments, speaking passionately and (much to their credit) pithily. Only Councilmember Dan Hall stuck to the original topic of the protest, riling up the crowd with bellicose brio in an impassioned and impressive speech lambasting the monarchical impulses of the President: “Don’t you dare wrap yourself in the flag while wiping your ass with the rights it stands for.”
But as the crowd roared its approval, I found myself wondering if we resort to fighting fire with fire, will we end up with anything more than scorched earth? It’s much easier to point fingers than to look in the mirror—or a Samohi yearbook. Miller was still a student there when he attempted to shock people with quasi-racist statements like “Am I the only one who is sick and tired of being told to pick up my trash when we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do this?” His juvenile, misanthropic remarks may have seemed almost humorous at the time, but who’s laughing now?
“The Daily Show” often ridicules Miller, making jokes at his expense while depicting him as a vampire or some other demonic entity. But if he’s a monster, then he’s our monster. He was created in a laboratory of progressive idealism, with a city that prides itself on its empathy becoming the crucible of his cruelty. Surely, there were many factors in his evolution as a partisan warrior, and perhaps some people are born angry. But as a city and as individuals, we need to always remember that actions have reactions.
Devan Sipher can be reached at Unmuted.SMDP@gmail.com