The Shadow of Dan Quayle
What we could have learned from the 1992 L.A. Riots--but didn't
I’ve been working on some bigger projects lately, so please excuse my long absence. Exciting news is about to drop, but in the meantime, I have a short essay out today on the origins of the Los Angeles riots for The American Mind. As ever, thank you for your support!
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Protestors waving the Mexican flag in Los Angeles is just about as good a sign as any that whatever one’s views on deportations, what’s at stake here isn’t another fractious debate between Americans over immigration policy. The city’s conflicts are not marked by civic loyalties to the American nation, but by ethnic, tribal divisions that go beyond national boundaries.
Southern California, as well as the country at large, has long been headed in this troubling direction. We could have faced up to this emerging reality after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the first starkly visible sign that ethnic tribalism was getting too powerful. We didn’t, in large part because of a rare moment of cunning on the part of the then-Vice President:
To many Americans, the riots in Los Angeles look like another chapter in the history of the country’s race riots, going from the “long, hot summer of 1967” to the George Floyd riots of 2020. But the 2025 L.A. riots are different. The figure who helps us see that is Vice President Dan Quayle, the man who covered up the true causes of another infamous series of riots in Los Angeles…
Read the rest at The American Mind.
The author is Canadian and he likely would agree that our situation is even worse. The dissolution of Canada is coming.