Angelenos Should Have a Say: Is It Better for the City to Cancel the 2028 L.A. Olympics?

The city of Los Angeles is under attack. Instead of witnessing a scene of struggle and resistance, chaos, economic deterioration, lack of work, and fear due to ongoing raids have left people terrified.

Los Angeles officials recently announced a victory in the reduction of the homeless population. These statements sound more like a public relations campaign than reality.

In addition to hosting the Olympics, Los Angeles will also be the site of several matches for the 2026 World Cup. Displacement and the rising cost of affordable housing are a reality. Small businesses are struggling, and many will disappear.

Is Los Angeles in a position to host such major events?

Yesterday, the mayor declared, "We will be ready." And one wonders — ready for what?

The celebration of these two competitions brings back memories of the 1936 Berlin Olympics under one of history’s greatest oppressors, Adolf Hitler. It also recalls the 1978 World Cup in Argentina under the rule of Jorge Rafael Videla. In both cases, global events were used to cover up sinister regimes, which had nothing to do with the true spirit of these competitions.

"Hosting an Olympic Games requires working with a lawless U.S. regime — and its rights-violating security apparatus — as they openly wage war against California," says opinion columnist Joe Mathews in the San Francisco Chronicle.

This show must not go on.

"It’s time, right now, for greater Los Angeles to halt all preparations to host the 2028 Summer Olympics. Let’s turn over these Games to a world city better positioned to host them.

Not because Angelenos don’t love the Olympics. We are a proud Olympic city, shaped by the 1932 and 1984 Games. In normal times, the city’s incomparable international connections, entertainment assets, and sports facilities would make us the perfect host for what LA 28 chair Casey Wasserman calls “the largest peacetime gathering in the history of the world.”

But it’s no longer peacetime in Los Angeles.

This event is now too dangerous for California. Hosting an Olympic Games requires us to work together with a lawless U.S. regime — and its rights-violating security apparatus — as it openly wages war against our city and state.

National Special Security Events, like the Olympics, require host cities to let federal agencies take the lead during the Games. For the 2028 Olympics, an agreement, which took effect last year, puts the U.S. Secret Service in charge of security, with support from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

All those agencies work for President Donald Trump, who has launched a war against California that includes deploying troops and secret federal police in our neighborhoods. California leaders have righteously demanded that immigration raids end and the troops leave. But those demands are incompatible with the Olympics agreement, which gives these agencies the power to surge security personnel into Los Angeles."

We believe that Angelenos must decide whether to move forward with this circus or to validate a regime — Trump’s — that has declared war on them.