DAVID WOIWOD: Los Angeles is burning on the back of presidential provocation 

Los Angelenos live with the quiet understanding of their city’s potential to rupture at any moment.

That’s what happens when you build a sprawling megalopolis on top of Earth’s longest tectonic fault line.

‘The Big One’ — as the predicted earthquake is referred to — promises to soon reshape LA and the lives of the 10 million people who call it home.

But as witnessed over the past four days, it is not only the San Andreas fault that threatens to transform the city. It’s the political tremors out of Washington that have residents bracing.

Donald Trump has long viewed California not as a powerful partner in the Union, but rather as a problem to be fixed, raided, and punished.

Its liberal leadership, migrant communities, and progressive politics have long been the target of Republican scorn.

In Trump’s own words, California was a “once great state”.

It’s now a “liberal hellhole”.

As a ‘sanctuary city’, LA is one of the few places that limits coordination between local law enforcement and Federal immigration agents.

It’s the reason for the city’s large undocumented workforce.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants work low-paid jobs in factories and other work sites across LA.

Others congregate in hardware store car parks - groups of men quick with an offer to help build a deck or assemble your kitchen cabinets.

These workers don’t have visa papers to secure anything more than temporary, cash work.

Still, they have done it for decades, with many raising their own families in America, contributing in their way to the success of the country’s largest and wealthiest state.

Undocumented, yes.

Hardened criminals, no.

But that is a nuance lost on ruby red MAGA acolytes who have been trading on Donald Trump’s claims that cities such as LA give safe harbour to violent criminals.

And it’s created an easy domestic villain within Trump’s broader culture wars.

It feeds the President’s narrative that sanctuary cities are fundamentally mismanaged and morally corrupt places where unpatriotic leaders put ‘America last’.

And it culminated in the raids we saw over the weekend.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents sprang from unmarked vehicles to arrest dozens of undocumented workers.

Pinning them to the ground on sidewalks and carparks, many for the grand crime of having the wrong visa documents, or none at all.

It was terrifying on two fronts: for the workers detained, now facing an uncertain future. And for the slide into authoritarianism it symbolised.

What quickly became clear in these highly publicised raids was that this was less about law enforcement and more about political point-scoring.

Trump doesn’t just oppose sanctuary cities, he uses them.

LA, San Francisco and New York.

They are the political stages on which Trump casts local Democratic Party mayors, district attorneys and governors as scapegoats and symbols of America’s demise.

It’s a familiar theme for anyone with a passing interest in Trump politics — a base contrast of chaos and order, collapse and control, red and blue.

By conflating undocumented workers with violent criminals, the President justifies his heavy-handed response.

And his calculations guarantee a forceful and often violent pushback from cities fearful of what his federal overreach could mean.

It encourages Trump to press even harder.

Send in the National Guard.

Send in the Marines.

Go harder.

Let it burn.

“De-escalation” is not a word America’s commander-In-chief possesses when there’s a political fight to win.

California’s Governor sees it for what it is — “political bullying”.

Gavin Newsom has accused Federal authorities of stoking tensions in Los Angeles under the loose-fitting guise of immigration enforcement.

It’s landed the Governor firmly in the increasingly authoritarian crosshairs of Trump, who today agreed with suggestions that the country’s most high-profile Democrat should be arrested.

It’s a fate that could await LA’s mayor, too.

Karen Bass describes her city as a test case for Donald Trump.

In her view, the President is experimenting with how hard he can push a community with a Federal power grab.

She understands the fear and anger gripping her city.

“These are not the people that we were told were going to be detained”, she said.

“I don’t know how you go from a drug dealer to a Home Depot … where they’re just trying to make a living.”

The difficulty for Newsom, Bass, and others is how their city has responded.

Torched cars, rock throwing, and violent clashes with Federal enforcement.

It’s the chaos and violence Mr Trump has been warning us of.

From this side of the Pacific, it is clear to see that Los Angeles is burning on the back of presidential provocation.

But what makes this situation worse is Trump doesn’t see the unrest as something to be solved or soothed.

He views it as campaign footage. A chance to forcibly widen the divide in the community, and while he’s at it, extend the reach of his own powers.

It’s a shameful position America has found itself in. And caught in the middle is an undocumented workforce, which the city and country have long relied on.

Many now fear the greatest threat to their safety in Los Angeles comes not from the streets or even that looming earthquake.

But from the Federal Government of the country, many call home.

David Woiwod, Weekend Sunrise Co-Host and former 7NEWS US bureau chief