I'm sitting here in my home, working on a script with one eye on the Tony Awards. I'm many miles from where any protests are taking place or where any of the 2,000 National Guardsmen dispatched here on the orders of Donald Trump are doing whatever it is they were sent here to do. So far, it seems like they were sent here as part of a lie. That lie is that my city is overrun by violent immigrants who must be rounded up or punished or deported…or something.
How do I know it's a lie? Well, I've seen no evidence supporting it either in the news or on the streets. Last time I looked at the local news, the protests seemed pretty small — we have more destructive mobs when an L.A. sports team wins a championship — and isolated incidents. If it gets worse, it'll probably be the presence of the National Guard that makes it worse. The governor, the mayor of L.A. and the local police officials would be welcoming them if that was not the case.