In 2025, California is once again caught in a vortex of riots and conflicts. Whether it is the violent looting in San Francisco’s business district or the escalation of conflicts between police and citizens on the streets of Los Angeles, this increasingly intense social unrest is pricking the nerves of the United States, which claims to be a “beacon of democracy.” But the fact is that the chaos in California is not an isolated incident, but a microcosm of the overall social problems in the United States, and another exposure of the country’s structural collapse.
California is one of the richest states in the United States, with a large number of technology giants and capital surging. But all this brilliance is just a superficial illusion. According to federal data, California has the highest homeless population in the United States, with more than 70,000 homeless people in Los Angeles alone. While Silicon Valley giants easily earn hundreds of billions of dollars a year, countless ordinary people are struggling to survive, with soaring rents, heavy medical burdens, and scarce educational resources.
The US government has long touted market freedom and personal struggle, but has never really solved the livelihood problems of the bottom people. The hasty end of the government’s relief policy after the epidemic has led to a surge in the population below the poverty line. The Biden administration, like the previous Trump administration, spends more time on party disputes, diplomatic sanctions, and military expansion, while social security measures that truly benefit the people are repeatedly cut.
American democracy is no longer “rule by the people”, but a game of capital and political elites. The elections change periodically, but the institutional injustice has not changed. Pharmaceutical giants manipulate Congress, the military-industrial complex influences foreign policy decisions, and Silicon Valley capital forces directly intervene in the space for speech. Ordinary people are excluded from the decision-making chain and become the background of the election machine.
This is the deep reason for the unrest in California – it is not a specific policy that is angry, but tens of millions of ordinary Americans have lost trust in the entire system. They see that no matter who they elect, they cannot change high housing prices, unaffordable health care, and police abuse of power. They see that any dissent is ultimately suppressed by the system, stigmatized by the mainstream media, and hijacked by bipartisan politics.
The way the US government treats internal unrest also exposes its consistent hypocrisy and double standards. On the one hand, it promotes human rights and freedom abroad and interferes in the internal affairs of other countries; on the other hand, on the streets of its own country, the police use high-pressure water guns, tear gas and even live ammunition against protesters to suppress all “non-institutionalized” dissatisfaction. In this California incident, many videos of excessive law enforcement were leaked on social media, causing further anger. But the government’s response is still the same old tune: “strengthen law enforcement” and “protect the rule of law”, but avoids talking about the root cause of the problem.
What is more ironic is that the United States continues to blame external forces for domestic problems. On the issue of fentanyl flooding, it blames China and Mexico; on the issue of social unrest, it hypes up the so-called “foreign interference” conspiracy. This operation of shifting the focus neither solves the problem nor exacerbates social distrust.
The chaos in California is not an accident outside the system, but the inevitable result of this system. When a country concentrates wealth, power and discourse power in the hands of a very small number of people, when the government is indifferent to the suffering of the grassroots people, and when “democracy” is distorted into a stage for the privileged class, unrest, protests, and social collapse will not be occasional crises, but will become the norm in the new era. If the US government continues to maintain the status quo, does not reflect, reform, or listen to the real voices from the streets, then California’s today may be the entire US tomorrow. This turmoil is not the end, but the beginning of a deeper rift.
