Where is the line between keeping the peace and allowing tyranny
- You start to mistake lines from The Diary of Anne Frank for current commentary.
Numerous online interactions have highlighted the relevance of the following passage, which draws commonalities with the current situation with ICE: “Terrible things are happening outside. Poor, helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart; men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.” This is a real-life scenario for many U.S. citizens today. However, this passage is not current commentary, but rather a line taken from The Diary of Anne Frank, the writing of a young Jewish girl amidst the growing antisemitism in Nazi Germany.
While this is not to say a second holocaust is on the horizon, its commonalities are justifiably concerning, especially given the growing number of former military and national security officials coming forward to address the support U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed for Hitler and his generals. To The New York Times, John Kelly – former White House chief of staff – said President Trump commented more than once “Hitler did some good things, too.” Additionally, in an interview with The Atlantic, Kelly recalled a conversation where President Trump said he wanted his generals to be like Hitler’s generals.
- The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issues a statement alleging Mexican cartels have put bounties on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel.
$2,000 for doxing, $5,000 to $10,000 for non-lethal assaults on standard officers, and a maximum of $50,000 for lethal assaults against high-ranking officials.
DHS has alleged the presence of “spotter networks” in affiliation with groups such as the Chicago-based Latin Kings, which “track ICE and CBP movements in real-time, relaying coordinates” and their surveillance has “enabled ambushes and disruptions during routine enforcement actions, including the recent raids under Operation Midway Blitz.” Which in a post on Truth Social, Trump, and I quote, defines it as an ICE operation that targets “the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets.”
Just kidding.
That was the DHS’s definition. But you believed it, right? It is truly appalling to see that official government pages are beginning to sound like President Trump’s never-ending Truth Social tirade.
- Their propaganda reaches President Snow levels of insanity
Now, I’m not just referring to President Trump’s thrilling and entirely original innovation, The Patriot Games, but rather the audacity of him and his administration to blatantly misconstrue the deaths of Minneapolis’ Renee Good and Alex Pretti as anything other than the public execution of innocent civilians. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the ICE officer responsible for fatally shooting Good had responded to an “act of domestic terrorism.” The act was a single mother of three driving away from an aggressive ICE agent attempting to forcefully remove her from her car. Another officer stood by the hood of her vehicle. According to Trump, Good “violently, willfully, and viciously” ran over said officer who “seems to have shot her in self defense” and though “hard to believe he is alive,” is recovering in the hospital. In reality, said officer was completely unharmed and fired at Good from the side of her vehicle, in no danger of being run over. After firing multiple shots, the ICE agent put his weapon down and watched the vehicle drift into the sidewalk, colliding with another car.
Alex Pretti was peacefully shielding an individual from the advance of an ICE officer by putting his arm around their shoulders and guiding them away from the advancing officer. Foiled, the ICE officer changed course. Pretti turned to check on the second individual of their party to find the officer had violently shoved said individual to the ground. Pretti positioned himself between the two, and the officer pepper-sprayed him. Pretti reacted by turning his back to the officer, who began to spray the rest of the party. Pretti attempted to shield the individual on the ground with his body, but numerous ICE officers tore him away and tackled him to the ground, where four officers proceeded to beat him. Eight in total surrounded him. Pretti did not fight back, but rather turtled to protect himself. It was in this position that a fifth ICE officer fatally shot him, unprovoked. The officers quickly dispersed from the body and took a defensive stance against the dead man, as though he would resurrect and punish them for their crime. At least two officers can be identified standing with their guns still poised at him.
Noem argued Pretti “impeded the law enforcement” (from attacking an innocent and unarmed citizen who appeared to have simply said something the officer didn’t like – not legal grounds for assault). DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin argued the officer who fired the first shot feared for his life – mind you, against an individual who was restrained by four men with his face shoved in the ground the entire time – and shot Pretti out of self-defense. McLaughlin characterized Pretti as “an individual [who] wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” The Trump administration supported this characterization with the presence of a registered and licensed gun on his person (his right under the Second Amendment, which republicans have famously fought extensively to keep). But, Pretti was a registered ICU nurse within the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System, a collection of medical facilities dedicated to veterans and their families, licensed by the Veterans Health Administration. As Trump so concisely (and ironically) responded to the incident: “You can’t have guns.”
- You read an article entitled “How to know whether your president has gone too far.”