Quelling riots is about thinking ahead, being prepared. Governors, like presidents, must be ready to quell riots – especially when they seem in the offing. California was just turned upside down, as in 2020, 1992, and again in the 1960s. How governors and presidents respond either fan or put out violence.
In the 1960s, when California had a governor named Ronald Reagan, a dedicated conservative, already famous for his anti-Soviet, limited government stands, riots broke out. They started small, got bigger, and would have become society-stopping, had Reagan not stepped up.
What Reagan did in May 1969 was controversial at the time, but necessary – and serves as a lesson on how to turn riots off, especially in urban centers where enormous property damage can occur.
When anti-war, pro-leftism riots broke out in Berkeley, Reagan used multiple legal means available to a governor to settle them down, deterring future riots. He changed university leadership, which earned him the curse of outgoing liberals that he was “brutal, cruel, and asinine.”
Reagan was none of those things, but he went further. He had the California Highway Patrol intercede to keep the free flow of traffic, arresting those intent on stopping the city’s commerce.
Like Trump in 2025 and other presidents, Reagan used his authority to mobilize the National Guard in support of police, which at times seemed overwhelmed. While Reagan, as governor, deployed them under Title 32, and Trump did so under Title 10, both moves are legal and created deterrence.
Notably, while radicals at the time could not understand it, Reagan’s moves – to preserve public order, personal and property security, and restore a sense of “normal” – were incredibly popular.
In 1992, race riots tore Los Angeles apart, 60 dead, more than a billion dollars in property damage, a race-based upheaval pushed by organized anti-rule of law groups, could easily have widened.
Riot central was LA. When things took a turn for the worse, Republican Governor Pete Wilson asked for federal help. President George HW Bush mobilized 10,000 National Guardsmen, under Title 10, then US Marines from nearby to support police and quell the unrest. That act sent a bright signal.
Wind the clock forward to 2020, when other anti-rule of law groups – those disposed to violent riots – set up violence in 200 cities, causing law enforcement and National Guard to be deployed to settle things, Atlanta, DC, Minneapolis, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Seattle, Portland Oregon down to California. Only after the message was sent that rioting had to stop, did it.
Bottom line: Getting ahead of diseases or physical health conditions is what permits long life. Getting ahead of diseases in the body politic, deterring political violence, is the only way to stop the slide toward it from accelerating.
We are at a moment when urban protests could become riots again, often pushed these days by those paid or incentivized to push the limits. Trump was right – and so are governors who look ahead, make clear that political violence will not be allowed, and act swiftly to address it. Quelling riots is about thinking ahead, being prepared.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).
