The Cycle Monday Memo

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Folks,

Shit has hit the fan in LA and other Blue cities as the realities of rounding up millions of people, many of whom have lived in the U.S. for years or came as children and have grown up American begin to take root.

For those of us who’ve spent the last 6 months discussing how Trump would use mass deportations to create chaos is the Blue states and then use that chaos as an excuse to declare a national emergency and seize total power, things are right on schedule.

Although MAGA seems to think Democrats created the illegal immigration problem, the issues with illegal immigration dates back decades and is a byproduct of decisions made by the last 8 or 9 presidents combined.

Here’s the truth they don’t teach in high school civics or scream about on Fox News: America didn’t always have a “border crisis.”

For decades—especially through the 1940s and 1950s—the U.S.-Mexico border was open in a practical sense. Workers flowed in from Mexico to pick crops, build railroads, do the hard labor Americans didn’t want, then flowed right back home at the end of the day or the season.

It was fluid. Informal. Human. We didn’t care—until we did. What changed?

America decided to close the border. No, not to “protect jobs” or “secure the nation.” We did it because the politics changed. We shut the door on circular migration, criminalized the same movement that had once been encouraged, and froze a system that had worked, not perfectly, but functionally. That’s how you end up with 11 million undocumented immigrants—because once you can’t go home and come back, you just stay.

So now it’s the 1980s, and surprise—Reagan looks around and sees the logical result of that closure: a massive undocumented population that’s woven into the American economy. What’s he supposed to do? Deport 11 million people at gunpoint? Turn Los Angeles and Chicago into war zones? Even the Gipper knew better.

So he did the thing that today’s Republicans would call treason: he gave them amnesty. Legal status. A path to citizenship. Because deep down, everyone knew the alternative was chaos—and here we are in 2025, watching ICE raids light up immigrant neighborhoods in Los Angeles and across blue states, watching protests erupt, watching the country act shocked that people don’t want their families ripped apart over a broken system we created.

We built the crisis. We pulled the rug out on circular migration, then scapegoated the people who were caught in the middle. And now we’re still paying the price—for our fear, our politics, and our own historical amnesia.

And worse, we may see mass deportations and the blow back to mass deportations exploited in Trump’s stated efforts to create a one party autocracy.

Nothing provides cover better than civil unrest and as much as MAGA will call the protestors and especially the rioters Democrats, the truth is that many of the people who are citizens on the streets are not political. They are responding to a political event but they are not “the resistance.” They are regular people, some of who likely voted for Trump.

And although liberals like to pretend otherwise, we are not going to see protests in the style of the Women’s Marches with funny signs and pink pussy hats. Instead we are going to see rioting similar that of the late 60s after the assassinations of MLK Jr and Malcom X.

Rioting that affirms Trump’s message that America is facing an “invasion.”

Violence in the streets means we’re hitting a critical juncture we knew was coming months ago. Trump has been quick to seize on the violence in LA by nationalizing the CA National Guard and sending them in to the city with Governor Newsom’s permission.

As much as WE know Trump is the one that kicked the hornet’s nest how will the tuned out masses of America see it?

We’ll find out.

Things are dark, but here’s a little light.

Rachel