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When David Huerta, an SEIU union boss, was arrested at a pro-illegal alien rally and charged with a felony for shoving law enforcement personnel, Gov. Gavin Newsom fumed that his political ally was “a respected leader, a patriot, and an advocate for working people” and reposted a message from SEIU urging the mobs to “resist”.

SEIU, which took part in the No Kings rallies against Trump, is a key part of Newsom’s political machine, endorsing the governor and directing $6.6 million to protecting him during the recall election, even while benefiting vastly from Newsom’s actions, such as the FAST Act, which set a fast food minimum wage of as much as $22 an hour and created a Fast Food Council to control the industry despite lacking an actual functional union for fast food employees.

But having spent $82 million on lobbying and millions on keeping Gov. Newsom in power, union bosses like Huerta could get whatever they wanted. And so could Newsom. Including the riots.

There is no way to understand the sudden violent riots in Los Angeles which required the dispatch of the National Guard, without also understanding how California is actually run. The state is not, as its leaders insist, a democracy, it’s an oligarchy run by a small group of powerful political interests, merging elected officials, unions and nonprofits, who move money looted from taxpayers, customers and business back and forth into each other’s pockets.

That corrupt system, which accounts for everything from high gas prices, the catastrophic wildfires and missing billions in homeless spending, exploded into calculated political violence meant to put Newsom in the White House. The riots entangled much of the political network around Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state’s powerful Democratic Party power brokers.

Whether it’s SEIU or the Coalition for Human Immigrant’ Rights (CHIRLA), one of the groups at the center of the Los Angeles riots, which spent nearly half a million dollars opposing the recall campaign against Newsom and benefited from $35 million in government funding, the consistent pattern involves government and donor money going into groups involved in the rallies and riots, and money to Newsom coming out of those same donors and organizations.

Indivisible, whose No Kings protests targeted Trump, received millions from Soros groups, Newsom had met with Alexander Soros, the heir to the Soros political machine and George Soros donated a quarter of a million to save Newsom during the recall campaign. A number of Indivisible partner groups in the No Kings rallies also got funding from the Soros networks.

Indivisible picked up millions from Tides organizations and, under Newsom, $18 million in government money went to Tides organizations.

Indivisible had been strongly backed by Newsom’s Big Tech ally Reid Hoffman and the organization received $500,000 from Big Tech divorcee Karla Jurvetson who was listed as one of Newsom’s top 100 donors. Indivisible’s partners on the ‘No Kings’ campaign include the American Federation of Teachers, which had put in $250,000 to oppose the Newsom recall.

Beyond the organizational layer, the most prominent political figure involved in direct confrontations with Trump officials was Sen. Alex Padilla: a Newsom political appointee. Padilla, previously an obscure corrupt figure in California’s local political machine, was chosen to replace Kamala even though the Secretary of State had no obvious qualifications for the job.

Padilla staged a confrontation right ahead of the wave of ‘No Kings’ rallies by Indivisible and its partners. And Newsom, who had protected Padilla during his $35 million political operative scandal, quickly linked the senator’s confrontation to the theme of the anti-Trump rallies.

Newsom’s political operatives, like Padilla and Attorney General Rob Bonta, connected to a massive corruption investigation, led the way in confrontations with the Trump administration while allowing the governor to hang back and then issue condemnations. The same tactics were used in the street riots with Newsom condemning the violence and then maximally exploiting it.

The riots were not accidental or an organic response to ICE raids. A network of organizations with ties to Newsom and to his donors mobilized and turned out mobs to not only disrupt immigration enforcement, but to provide Gov. Newsom with a path to the White House.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose term ends in 2026, has a limited window in which to make an impact on national politics. He launched a podcast meant to give him a platform after he leaves office, but the illegal alien riots put him on every news channel and news network in the country.

The California governor became a national figure once again while avoiding any consequences for the Los Angeles riots. While mobs of activists, union members and political allies like Padilla acted as cannon fodder, Newsom delivered speeches, was spread out all over social media and news shows in a way that his Democratic rivals for the nomination could only envy.

While Gov. Tim Walz struggled to attract attention to his prospective 2028 campaign, Gov. Newsom positioned himself as Trump’s rival. And now he’s talking about a presidential run. After falsely claiming that he had “sub-zero interest” in running for president, Newsom used the platform of the riots to suggest coyly, “I’m not thinking about running, but it’s a path that I could see unfold,” The New York Times more clearly laid out “the 2028 Subtext of Newsom’s Speech.”

But the subtext to the subtext is that the riots and rallies were the work of key players in Newsom’s political machine and Gavin’s political moment came at a high cost to California.

Businesses have been looted, law enforcement injured and the riots have already cost over $100 million. None of that price was paid by Gov. Gavin Newsom or those actually responsible.

Gov. Newsom is being promoted as a front-runner for the 2028 nomination. And all he had to do was set parts of Los Angeles on fire.