North Carolina’s leaders need to ratchet down the language on protests | Opinion

Los Angeles has been roaring with protest since last Friday. The demonstrations began amid an increase in immigration raids in the area and have been mostly peaceful, but some have gotten out of hand. Even that small number was enough to make President Donald Trump deploy the National Guard and hundreds of Marines to crack down on the protests, against the wishes of California leaders.

Some Republicans suggested the protests are an expression of hate towards our country and encouraged a militarized response to suppress them, adding fuel to the ideological fire. Meanwhile, Democrats haven’t denounced the destruction seen in LA.

All of which matters because No Kings protests are coming to our state on Saturday, with potentially large gatherings in Raleigh and Charlotte. It is time for North Carolina’s politicians to be leaders.

The U.S. was built on free speech; using state violence should be a last resort. Police in Los Angeles have shot rubber bullets at reporters, people trying to walk home, and at protesters for distracting them. These are inflammatory actions, and they’re not helped by the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that North Carolina politicians are spouting.

U.S. Rep. Mark Harris shared a photo on X of a group of protesters in front of a burning car. Along with the photo, he wrote, “Deport them all.” Why should all of the protesters be deported? The majority of the protesters are peaceful, and there’s no way of knowing just from a picture whether they are U.S. citizens. Should we deport U.S. citizens for protesting?

“LA is being burned by lawless mobs who support foreign criminals. House Republicans and the Trump Administration are working together to ensure this chaos doesn’t become America’s future,” U.S. Rep. Tim Moore wrote on X.

From U.S. Rep. Addison McDowell: “California’s largest city is on fire—overrun by cartel thugs waving Mexican and Argentinian flags. American Flags are being burned in the streets.”

Focusing on the nature of the protest is a convenient way to avoid discussing why they are happening in the first place. Americans are feeling genuine fear about their communities. The Trump administration apparently has given orders to indiscriminately arrests migrants in shared spaces like Home Depot and gas stations, regardless of whether they have a criminal record, according to a recent article by the Wall Street Journal.

Some Republicans are coloring the demonstrations as an insurrection of foreign violence. But the majority of the protesters are peaceful, and there is no acknowledgment of how these types of protests are the historical backbone of our country. At the same time, very few Democrats in North Carolina have actively condemned the more violent protesters and encouraged peaceful demonstration.

President Trump called on the Marines and the National Guard to police the protests. This disproportionate response threatens to turn containment into combat. What once was a peace protest could become a struggle of force.

Our leaders should instead work to keep protests peaceful. Inflammatory and misleading tweets from NC Republicans only make a tense environment more volatile. When protests begin on the streets of Raleigh and Charlotte, NC politicians should have the safety of their residents in mind instead of devotion to the party line.

At least some North Carolina Republicans don’t seem to understand that protests are part of the fabric of this country. There is something unique about America’s right to dissent. Our leaders should celebrate it instead of provoking something worse. It will start to burn.