The ICE Storm

According to Donald Trump, it is now a summary on-the-spot Capital Offense to "be disrespectful" to His "Law Enforcement."
  

The killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by ICE agents

There’s a moment in every country’s descent where the brutal men in fearsome uniforms and tall boots stop shoving and start shooting.
We are at that moment.

The body of Alex Pretti is still in a morgue today, still on a cold slab, his remains torn by five rounds fired in his back by an ICE agent drunk on the heady power of brutality and the promise of absolute immunity.

In America, our elite media and political classes have for a decade pretended that moment is always somebody else’s problem, some faraway place with a theocracy, a junta, or a strongman whose portrait hangs in every home and building like a warning label.

But the last few weeks have been a case study in what happens when a government decides the Constitution is an annoying speed bump and the citizenry is a crowd-control problem.

We know the horrors ICE has committed in Minneapolis and beyond. The casual brutality, the arrogant dismissal of rights, the hideous capering and laughter at the suffering they inflict on both immigrants and Americans. They are, in our digital age, recorded for grim posterity.

People of goodwill talk about de-escalation, about easing tensions, about bringing the pot down from an imminent boil to a simmer.
They are fools.

The incentives for the Trump Administration’s armed political force are entirely ratcheting in one direction, and we must consider that direction now. Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, the vast MAGA influencer and propaganda ecosystem, and DHS itself have no incentive to slow down, to turn around, to stop their war on our rights and liberties.

I beg you to understand this: everything happening in Minnesota with ICE delights them. This isn’t a crisis for them; it’s a big shove of the Overton Window toward the fascism they now openly crave.

So let’s talk about the nightmare headline hovering on the horizon: what happens when ICE fires into a crowd of protestors?

I wish I could tell you this is an impossibility, that training, doctrine, discipline, and leadership at every level of government will prevent an escalation where ICE murders Americans wholesale instead of retail, but dear friends, I cannot.

The culture of ICE and the entire MAGA political and media ecosystem is driving them toward it, a confrontation where the Trump Era moves to the next level of oppression and terror.

Here’s how I see the moment playing out, first as narrative, then as prediction… [click here]

Where is this all headed? 

 

"THE FASCISM THEY NOW OPENLY CRAVE"

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Until recently, I resisted using the F-word to describe President Trump. For one thing, there were too many elements of classical fascism that didn’t seem to fit. For another, the term has been overused to the point of meaninglessness, especially by left-leaning types who call you a fascist if you oppose abortion or affirmative action. For yet another, the term is hazily defined, even by its adherents. From the beginning, fascism has been an incoherent doctrine, and even today scholars can’t agree on its definition. Italy’s original version differed from Germany’s, which differed from Spain’s, which differed from Japan’s.

 

I accepted President Biden’s characterization of the MAGA movement as “semi-fascist” because some parallels were glaringly apparent. Trump was definitely an authoritarian, and unquestionably a patrimonialist. Beyond that, though, the best description seemed to be a psychological one propounded by John Bolton, Trump’s first-term national security adviser: “He listens to Putin, he listens to Xi, he listens to how they talk about governing unburdened by uncooperative legislatures, unconcerned with what the judiciary may do, and he thinks to himself, Why can’t I do that? This doesn’t amount to being a fascist, in my view, [or] having a theory of how you want to govern. It’s just Why can’t I have the same fun they have?”

Writing a year ago, I argued that Trump’s governing regime is a version of patrimonialism, in which the state is treated as the personal property and family business of the leader. That is still true. But, as I also noted then, patrimonialism is a style of governing, not a formal ideology or system. It can be layered atop all kinds of organizational structures, including not just national governments but also urban political machines such as Tammany Hall, criminal gangs such as the Mafia, and even religious cults. Because its only firm principle is personal loyalty to the boss, it has no specific agenda. Fascism, in contrast, is ideological, aggressive, and, at least in its early stages, revolutionary. It seeks to dominate politics, to crush resistance, and to rewrite the social contract.

Over Trump’s past year, what originally looked like an effort to make the government his personal plaything has drifted distinctly toward doctrinal and operational fascism. Trump’s appetite for lebensraum, his claim of unlimited power, his support for the global far right, his politicization of the justice system, his deployment of performative brutality, his ostentatious violation of rights, his creation of a national paramilitary police—all of those developments bespeak something more purposeful and sinister than run-of-the-mill greed or gangsterism…

It has been an unnerving weekend.

 

 

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