My guess is that most Nebraskans associate Los Angeles with the Hollywood sign, Disneyland, movie stars, mud slides, fads, freeways, Rodney King, Valley girls (and boys), the beach, earthquakes, horrific fires and a Southern California vibe that far too many disparage as being the home office of the “Left Coast.” Indeed, a recent sloganeering barb from the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce aimed at the entire Golden State (and others) bragged, “We don’t coast!”

But here’s the deal: You do. Sure, you can’t “coast” as in driving to the ocean to see the Pacific. But if my ten years of living in Los Angeles are any indication, life there and here is remarkably the same. That is not to say differences between the Southland and Nebraska aren’t considerable, be they political, topographical or climatic.

Normal People

While it may be a shock to some that all except a tiny fraction of the nearly 20 million people in the Southland do what we do here in Nebraska: live, love, work, play, pray, hope, dream and raise our families, aiming for our kids and grandkids to have it better than we did in a world that’s better than ours was.

Still not convinced? I get it. But as the television cameras, talking heads and the chattering class go on about Los Angeles as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducts immigration raids with the National Guard and Marines on scene, remember this about the city of movie magic and make believe: The White House is telling us a lie … a wide screen, double feature, surround sound, technicolor, iMaximum whopper.

The administration insists “insurrectionists” were laying siege to LA, something not a single credible news service on the ground reported. Nor, according to polling, was the public buying it. Perhaps that is because Americans now know an insurrection when they see one.

The hyperbole persists: To help justify the president’s unwarranted, exacerbating and constitutionally-suspect deployment of troops to assist the Los Angeles Police Department and LA County Sheriff’s Department keep the peace during anti-ICE protests, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstie Noem called LA a “city of criminals.” Based on what?

Others jumped in to criticize. At least one should have considered math. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckebee Sanders insisted in an online post that such discord would never occur in the Natural State because “we value order over chaos” only to be reminded by others that the homicide rate in her beloved Arkansas is twice that of California.

Noem’s calculus leaves one wondering, too. While railing against the protests and California political leaders, she said “… we had over 400 to 500 targets we were going after …” That’s 400-500 out of Greater Los Angeles’s 18.3 million.

Violence And Lies

Yes, some violence and looting occurred. Anyone participating in such was committing a crime and should have been arrested. Full stop. Such acts diffuse the issue that sparked the protests, which dampens the message and the muscle of those peacefully taking to the streets, an American right since before we were a country. Indeed the first casualties in the American Revolution were in a crowd of protestors in Boston, shot when the Redcoats opened fire.

Amplifying the lie, some of the national media’s coverage was breathless. Others, thankfully, presented a bigger, more accurate picture, reporting that aside from protests in downtown LA and in the city of Paramount, 30 minutes south of LA City Hall, the whole of the city was going about its normal day-to-day business.

LA is 500 square miles. The protests garnering attention and footage were in about five blocks of downtown. That perspective flies in the face of tall tales of an insurrection and a city on fire, hoping to convince the public with disinformation that bringing in federal troops was not what it appeared: a serious stretch, legally and morally.

We need immigration solutions. What has transpired to date appears to solve little and a capitulating, complicit Congress is of virtually no help. We were told that federal agents were going after violent criminals in the country illegally. We now seem to be someplace altogether different.

Nebraskans share another thing in common with Angelenos. We both live where our neighbors, co-workers, classmates, families and friends come from a well of diversity, enriching our communities and a shared culture. Nor are we and our California cousins unique. Over 14% of America is foreign-born. That’s closing in on 50 million people.

If immigrants and diversity make Los Angeles a “trash city,” what the president called the City of Angels last week, one might wonder if some believe that is true for the rest of our immigrant-rich nation.

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/06/16/finding-the-truth-in-the-land-of-movie-magic/

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