I sat with a mom yesterday of 3 kids (all US citizens) married to a man from El Salvador. He’s lived here 15-20 years and has been working toward citizenship legally. He has all the papers to prove it, but he is afraid of being taken off the street. He can’t leave the house to work or go to the grocery or to take his children to the doctor. He was afraid to go to the pool on the 4th with his kids. This is not America. We are better than this. We could give people a path to citizenship that is affordable and transparent, but instead we have chosen a police state. I hugged this mom as she cried. What this country is allowing right now is wrong. What happened to wanting to be a beacon of light? “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Definitely an antiquated sentiment according to the current administration! No breathing free in American unless you're a rich white male. Who would have imagined all of this? Well, I guess DJT, Stephen Miller, Kash Patel, and others imagined it clearly; and all have been embraced by the majority in Congress. I think our country no longer believes we are a beacon of light for the world. We're a beacon of danger and oppression.
This is truly sickening. It makes me feel hopeless. What are we to do when our reps don’t listen to us when we call them and they still outwardly support things like this and the BBB? Protests aren’t moving the needle. Genuinely have no idea what I can do and I feel paralyzed 😭 What is the next needed thing?
Thank you, Heather! I have, also. It’s how we can all fight him in court. They are bringing more lawsuits than they ever have, and really need our support.
Shameful. All of these billions of dollars or probably way less, could be used to reform the entire immigration system. Instead we’re terrorizing people and tearing apart families and communities and, as a country, shooting ourselves in the foot at the same time. Sorry to take up space again but I’ll keep repeating the benefits of immigration until I’m blue in the face:
-the $80-100 billion that undocumented immigrants contribute to federal, state and local coffers every year
-immigrants’ contributions to U.S. GDP, which Wall Street economists have said is one of the most significant drivers of growth over the last several years
-the benefits shown in the Trump Admin.’s own 10-yr study of refugees where refugees generated billions more dollars for the U.S. than than they cost us
-immigrants start small businesses at higher rates than native-born citizens and 99.9% of all businesses in the U.S. are small businesses, which make up 44% of our GDP
-immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens
-immigrants enlist in the military at higher rates than native-born citizens and immigrant veterans attain higher education, employment and income than native-born veterans
-studies of Census data going back generations shows that in the majority of immigrant families, the next generation is doing as well as or better than the corresponding generation of native-born citizens
-immigrants fill essential jobs in industries facing labor shortages like healthcare, construction and agriculture and are more likely than native-born citizens to move where the jobs are, relieving bottlenecks and improving resource allocation overall
-in a time of increasing numbers of older people and declining birth rates in the U.S. and other developed countries, immigrants, who skew younger as a whole, provide a vital infusion of able-bodied workers to maintain labor market growth and shore up government programs like Social Security.
Yes to all of this, and immigrants are human beings. The Trump admin is actively working to dehumanize them, and this is a very dangerous and slippery slope that leads us nowhere good.
Kate, please keep taking up space and sharing these stats until we all have them memorized and can repeat them verbatim. Let's put these on a poster, a sticker, a t-shirt, and sell them on Etsy as an antidote to the Alligator bullsh*t.
Miss me with the pearl clutching, especially Joe Rogan. WE TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE LIKE THIS. It makes me sick to my stomach to read “people didn’t think it would be like this” - WE. WARNED. YOU. *loudly* and they willfully chose to believe a convicted felon and proven notorious liar over our warning calls. They wrote a playbook, FFS. 🤦🏻♀️ It’s all so upsetting.
There are not adequate words to express how ashamed I am to live in a country where enough people thought trump should be president. He’s a horrible human being surrounded by equally horrible people. We have become something unrecognizable and have fallen so far from a beacon of light for the world. My only hope is that there is something left to save in 2028.
My newest pastime when I’m sitting in endless meetings is to go on Etsy and report Alligator Alcatraz merch for violating Etsy’s policies, but it’s definitely whack-a-mole. New listings are popping up CONSTANTLY and it’s so disturbing and cruel. I know the cruelty is the point and these types of things were all in P2025, but the fact that so many people are THRILLED by it is so disheartening; seemingly no MAGAs are like “I’m out” when they see this garbage.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this! It's been maddening to see valid criticisms of our immigration enforcement actions being met with, "What's our other option, not enforce our laws??" (as though this violent theatre is the ONLY way to address undocumented immigrants) or even, "Well they broke the law..." (as though a civic or criminal violation means that there are no limits on the retribution the government can dole out).
(Also, there have been 27 alligator fatalities in Florida since 1948, venomous snake bites are not inherently fatal and their death rate is very low, and no one has been killed by a python. I understand that not everyone likes reptiles, but they're not mindless killing machines and they're just as likely to keep a cautious distance from a new hub of human activity.)
Thank you, Emily, for pointing out this is not an either/or issue. Anyone that frames it that way is an extremist. Anyone that enforces it is a terrorist. This is state-sponsored terrorism.
Yes to both of your points. It’s the same with sharks. A healthy respect for nature is what keeps us safe. Teaching fear isn’t helpful. Almost like that could be applicable to more than one thing.
Having been a part of the Church nearly all my life, it sickens me to know that THIS is what a ton (not all) of Jesus-followers in our country want. They told me that we should expect evil of the "World," that it should come as no surprise, but what do we do when the evil is centered in a huge swath of the Church? We are the Empire now. We are the Babylon we were warned about. No longer pilgrims and strangers, we've made our homes in courts of cruelty.
Reading this leaves me so frustrated. I have talked to few people (if any) who discuss how perfect the US immigration system is. But we can also not compare the US immigration system to other countries. We have always *used* immigrants and needed them. We as a country have created this problem. And in the past have done little to help fix it. While needing and using immigrants we have also often (as a country) treated them terribly. Both on the individual and group level. I would love to see meaningful change brought to the US immigration system that was built around treating people better and the fact that we need immigrants.
I lost hope for a minute there, especially when reading that the cruelty IS the point. But then my mind scrolled through other times in U.S. history when cruelty was the point -- (TRIGGER WARNING) and I landed on lynchings 100 years ago. Specifically, that picnics were often held during the lynchings. And people could buy postcards with photos of lynchings. Entertainment. Merch. CRUELTY...used as a deterrent to keep Black Americans from taking their lawful place in society. We can reach back even further, to better known cruelties meant to deter the enslaved from escaping or fighting back. It didn't last, y'all. It didn't last then and it won't last now.
I saw a documentary about the postcards/lynchings recently. I also just last night stumbled upon a letter to the editor in a newspaper from 1917. The reader was writing about the “Mexican problem” America had (migrant workers being the only ones who harvested our fields). This reader’s suggestion? Have the boys from “The Indian Schools” do their work on their summer breaks. The way the writer dehumanized both sets of people in their letter sickened me. But this is also how it’s always been-there have always been people that can dehumanize others. So what stopped this? We have to learn from our history to see how we can get more people to see how horrible this is. I think we are seeing shifts already, like with the Joe Rogan podcast.
I’m a little incensed though when people say they didn’t vote for this. It was laid out in Project 2025. Sharon mentioned sometime last year, if I remember correctly, that buildings/prisons would probably be built near the border soon after the inauguration. I’m not surprised by what is happening. It does make me extremely sad and worried though.
Your first paragraph reminded me of this gem of a quote from *today*:
"U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Tuesday that there will be 'no amnesty' for agricultural workers from the Trump administration's efforts to deport all immigrants in the country illegally... 'When you think about, there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America.'" https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-farm-secretary-says-no-amnesty-farmworkers-deportation-2025-07-08/
Thanks for sharing this article. I saw a video of a debate between George HW Bush and Ronald Reagan concerning this matter. It must have been 1980. They both had great points. They were talking about the unrest and lack of employment opportunities south of us and how we could help to rectify that. They also said that we should have a way to allow migrants to work here for a season and then return home. It is so sad that we haven’t been able to figure this out in a humane, dignified way in so many years. Today we still don’t pay agricultural workers enough. I wonder if those “able bodied” Medicaid recipients, if any of them become an agricultural worker, would be paid enough?
Thank you for using the worst as an example of a way out of equally bad today. I think you're right. Through history, cruelty has always made people gleeful, and hopefully at some point enough of us will say STOP, and it will stop. As you said, it always has stopped; but it evidently has to get awful before that happens.
I recently watched a PBS documentary about the Chinese Exclusion Act. It was very helpful in understanding another time in history when the US was dehumanizing a group of people. It also goes into the 14 amendment . It was an awful time but I did learn that resilience and legal challenges eventually made things better. We can’t give in and turn away.
The farm workers unions are planning strikes until this terrorism is stopped. They will give 2 days notice. When they strike I am planning on buying from small local farms, freezing some and going without. I continue to contact my legislators and demand they uphold the Constitution. I protest. I volunteer. I won’t give up. I’m pretty sure all of you are doing your part too!
I don’t understand why any of this was necessary, or should I say: I don’t understand why they think this was wanted. Yes, Trump promised some big deportation numbers, but the decreased numbers at the border could have counted as that promise kept. If he had told the American people, look, I promised millions of deportations, but people are so afraid of my policies I’m already getting it done by preventing the need for deportations beyond those who are violent criminals, he would have had immense bipartisan approval. Instead, we got him pretending that people are violent gang members because of generic tattoos or popular sports jerseys. We got removing valuable workers from industries like restaurants, hotels and farms, then him calling on ICE to ignore those workplaces, then rescinding that order.
And let’s talk about the fiscal insanity. Why completely humiliate Elon and the DOGE cause, obliterating that alliance with a bill that says our grandkids should be paying for reality show theatrics long after he and the Republicans who voted for it are dead (and perhaps struggling to explain their votes in the afterlife)? If someone had told me at inauguration that public polling would show immigration as one of his consistently least popular policy areas and still nosediving in July, I am not sure I would believe them. That was never the case in his first term.
MAGA is now a fragile coalition built on propaganda, and taking that coalition for granted is a totally idiotic strategy. People like Joe Rogan might have sealed the deal for him back in November, but if you treat the “podcast bro” demographic like they’re locked in forever on loyalty, I predict a swift pivot away from MAGA as these policies start having real consequences. Businesses closing, food prices rising, and militarized anonymous dudes ripping families apart on TikTok — it’ll all come crashing down. Not just for Trump, but everyone who is forced to defend our demise along the way. And then the media apparatus that used to be 3 hours of joking about how MAGA is great is going to be 3 hours of joking about how MAGA is the worst.
So this doesn’t even make sense from a cynical, selfish level. The spectacle is actively undermining the political project it’s supposed to serve. So why do we think they are doing it? Because at some point, the cruelty really did become the point — not just a means to an end, but the end itself.
Very good point about the decreased numbers at the border and that he could be bragging about that, but is not. I think he loves the "reality show" aspect of all of this.
I think at this stage, they're simply ramming in everything from Project2025 they can as quickly as they can, to capture their dystopian nightmare of a White Christian Nationalist state. They don't have the time or the inclination to care too much about how this is going to play out in the future. The ethnic cleansing, the subjugation of women, the destruction and ownership of the land, making people as poor and sick and dependent on the billionaires as possible, the military takeoever, the economic destabilization. I think they believe they have this in the bag (it sure does seem like they do at times), that they will have taken over this country and that there won't be future elections - not in any meaningful sense, anyway. Maybe they aren't entirely sure they'll succeed in their complete takeover, but it's now or never for them. They either go for it full tilt or give up, and they aren't going to give up. I see this as the bad version of someone winning a race - they just throw out form, go as fast as they can, and maybe even kill themselves to get to that finish line, because time is running out. They want this country badly. The billionaires in the meantime are using this time to fill their pockets. They don't care either way, as they are collecting our tax money and laughing hysterically at us.
The Idiot In Chief is just neurotically basking in the spotlight, believing that everything is for him and about him. Maybe he cares what things look like, to a degree, because he wants to make sure the entire world is kneeling at his feet in worship, but otherwise, he's really not in charge of this.
This topic is so distressing, on so many levels. The cruelty, the absolute disregard for human rights and dignity, seeing people profiting off of making a mockery of the pain and fear that people are feeling (and seeing others celebrate that pain and fear)...words can't express how horrible this whole situation is. We had a humanitarian crisis at our border, in my opinion. But this is much worse, and the humanitarian crisis is happening within our borders now. Even if border crossings are down, it's only out of fear and not because anyone solved the actual problem. We are spending billions of dollars on The Immigration Reality Show, and to what end? If Congress had ever voted to properly fund immigration policies in the past, they might have been able to actually repair a broken system, which is what people wanted.
Does anyone know of reputable organizations that are helping immigrants? Would supporting those organizations be a "next needed thing"? I imagine that donating money or volunteering to help provide legal representation is needed? Is there anyone who is writing about these topics on a daily basis or an account I should follow to keep this issue top of mind?
In my area we have a mutual aid group doing good things for the community including migra (ICE) watch training and court accompaniment training for immigration hearings. I am new to this this year and have yet to match the training with my schedule. So far I’ve done a lot of Sundays working at their Seeds for Solidarity farm. I’ve met a lot of great people and am looking forward to the next step.
I know there are other mutual aid groups doing similar things. Maybe there’s one in your area. Here’s a link to a piece concerning this. Good luck!
I sat with a mom yesterday of 3 kids (all US citizens) married to a man from El Salvador. He’s lived here 15-20 years and has been working toward citizenship legally. He has all the papers to prove it, but he is afraid of being taken off the street. He can’t leave the house to work or go to the grocery or to take his children to the doctor. He was afraid to go to the pool on the 4th with his kids. This is not America. We are better than this. We could give people a path to citizenship that is affordable and transparent, but instead we have chosen a police state. I hugged this mom as she cried. What this country is allowing right now is wrong. What happened to wanting to be a beacon of light? “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Definitely an antiquated sentiment according to the current administration! No breathing free in American unless you're a rich white male. Who would have imagined all of this? Well, I guess DJT, Stephen Miller, Kash Patel, and others imagined it clearly; and all have been embraced by the majority in Congress. I think our country no longer believes we are a beacon of light for the world. We're a beacon of danger and oppression.
This is truly sickening. It makes me feel hopeless. What are we to do when our reps don’t listen to us when we call them and they still outwardly support things like this and the BBB? Protests aren’t moving the needle. Genuinely have no idea what I can do and I feel paralyzed 😭 What is the next needed thing?
Yes, Jackie, sickening. But please don’t give up all hope, yet. When we are together, there is still hope.
Thank you for asking the most important question. “What is the next needed thing?”
I feel helpless too. So I’ve joined ACLU to help with the legal challenges.
Thank you, Heather! I have, also. It’s how we can all fight him in court. They are bringing more lawsuits than they ever have, and really need our support.
Same
I'm with you - everything you wrote is what I think about daily....
Shameful. All of these billions of dollars or probably way less, could be used to reform the entire immigration system. Instead we’re terrorizing people and tearing apart families and communities and, as a country, shooting ourselves in the foot at the same time. Sorry to take up space again but I’ll keep repeating the benefits of immigration until I’m blue in the face:
-the $80-100 billion that undocumented immigrants contribute to federal, state and local coffers every year
-immigrants’ contributions to U.S. GDP, which Wall Street economists have said is one of the most significant drivers of growth over the last several years
-the benefits shown in the Trump Admin.’s own 10-yr study of refugees where refugees generated billions more dollars for the U.S. than than they cost us
-immigrants start small businesses at higher rates than native-born citizens and 99.9% of all businesses in the U.S. are small businesses, which make up 44% of our GDP
-immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens
-immigrants enlist in the military at higher rates than native-born citizens and immigrant veterans attain higher education, employment and income than native-born veterans
-studies of Census data going back generations shows that in the majority of immigrant families, the next generation is doing as well as or better than the corresponding generation of native-born citizens
-immigrants fill essential jobs in industries facing labor shortages like healthcare, construction and agriculture and are more likely than native-born citizens to move where the jobs are, relieving bottlenecks and improving resource allocation overall
-in a time of increasing numbers of older people and declining birth rates in the U.S. and other developed countries, immigrants, who skew younger as a whole, provide a vital infusion of able-bodied workers to maintain labor market growth and shore up government programs like Social Security.
Yes to all of this, and immigrants are human beings. The Trump admin is actively working to dehumanize them, and this is a very dangerous and slippery slope that leads us nowhere good.
Kate, please keep taking up space and sharing these stats until we all have them memorized and can repeat them verbatim. Let's put these on a poster, a sticker, a t-shirt, and sell them on Etsy as an antidote to the Alligator bullsh*t.
Good idea! Why not monetize facts instead of oppression and hate?
Miss me with the pearl clutching, especially Joe Rogan. WE TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE LIKE THIS. It makes me sick to my stomach to read “people didn’t think it would be like this” - WE. WARNED. YOU. *loudly* and they willfully chose to believe a convicted felon and proven notorious liar over our warning calls. They wrote a playbook, FFS. 🤦🏻♀️ It’s all so upsetting.
Exactly my sentiments.
There are not adequate words to express how ashamed I am to live in a country where enough people thought trump should be president. He’s a horrible human being surrounded by equally horrible people. We have become something unrecognizable and have fallen so far from a beacon of light for the world. My only hope is that there is something left to save in 2028.
My newest pastime when I’m sitting in endless meetings is to go on Etsy and report Alligator Alcatraz merch for violating Etsy’s policies, but it’s definitely whack-a-mole. New listings are popping up CONSTANTLY and it’s so disturbing and cruel. I know the cruelty is the point and these types of things were all in P2025, but the fact that so many people are THRILLED by it is so disheartening; seemingly no MAGAs are like “I’m out” when they see this garbage.
Thanks for the suggestion! I just reported a few Etsy items, and it made me feel a little better.
Does anyone have the feeling Etsy is going to get swamped with reports today??
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this! It's been maddening to see valid criticisms of our immigration enforcement actions being met with, "What's our other option, not enforce our laws??" (as though this violent theatre is the ONLY way to address undocumented immigrants) or even, "Well they broke the law..." (as though a civic or criminal violation means that there are no limits on the retribution the government can dole out).
(Also, there have been 27 alligator fatalities in Florida since 1948, venomous snake bites are not inherently fatal and their death rate is very low, and no one has been killed by a python. I understand that not everyone likes reptiles, but they're not mindless killing machines and they're just as likely to keep a cautious distance from a new hub of human activity.)
Thank you, Emily, for pointing out this is not an either/or issue. Anyone that frames it that way is an extremist. Anyone that enforces it is a terrorist. This is state-sponsored terrorism.
Yes to both of your points. It’s the same with sharks. A healthy respect for nature is what keeps us safe. Teaching fear isn’t helpful. Almost like that could be applicable to more than one thing.
Among the many "injuries and usurpations" charged against King George in the Declaration of Independence are:
"Depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury;"
"Transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses."
But now many Americans, blind to history, applaud such actions as being patriotic and just. So sad.
Having been a part of the Church nearly all my life, it sickens me to know that THIS is what a ton (not all) of Jesus-followers in our country want. They told me that we should expect evil of the "World," that it should come as no surprise, but what do we do when the evil is centered in a huge swath of the Church? We are the Empire now. We are the Babylon we were warned about. No longer pilgrims and strangers, we've made our homes in courts of cruelty.
Reading this leaves me so frustrated. I have talked to few people (if any) who discuss how perfect the US immigration system is. But we can also not compare the US immigration system to other countries. We have always *used* immigrants and needed them. We as a country have created this problem. And in the past have done little to help fix it. While needing and using immigrants we have also often (as a country) treated them terribly. Both on the individual and group level. I would love to see meaningful change brought to the US immigration system that was built around treating people better and the fact that we need immigrants.
American concentration camps. Live and don't learn, that's us. I absolutely HATE that I have to pay taxes to support this.
I lost hope for a minute there, especially when reading that the cruelty IS the point. But then my mind scrolled through other times in U.S. history when cruelty was the point -- (TRIGGER WARNING) and I landed on lynchings 100 years ago. Specifically, that picnics were often held during the lynchings. And people could buy postcards with photos of lynchings. Entertainment. Merch. CRUELTY...used as a deterrent to keep Black Americans from taking their lawful place in society. We can reach back even further, to better known cruelties meant to deter the enslaved from escaping or fighting back. It didn't last, y'all. It didn't last then and it won't last now.
I saw a documentary about the postcards/lynchings recently. I also just last night stumbled upon a letter to the editor in a newspaper from 1917. The reader was writing about the “Mexican problem” America had (migrant workers being the only ones who harvested our fields). This reader’s suggestion? Have the boys from “The Indian Schools” do their work on their summer breaks. The way the writer dehumanized both sets of people in their letter sickened me. But this is also how it’s always been-there have always been people that can dehumanize others. So what stopped this? We have to learn from our history to see how we can get more people to see how horrible this is. I think we are seeing shifts already, like with the Joe Rogan podcast.
I’m a little incensed though when people say they didn’t vote for this. It was laid out in Project 2025. Sharon mentioned sometime last year, if I remember correctly, that buildings/prisons would probably be built near the border soon after the inauguration. I’m not surprised by what is happening. It does make me extremely sad and worried though.
Your first paragraph reminded me of this gem of a quote from *today*:
"U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Tuesday that there will be 'no amnesty' for agricultural workers from the Trump administration's efforts to deport all immigrants in the country illegally... 'When you think about, there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America.'" https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-farm-secretary-says-no-amnesty-farmworkers-deportation-2025-07-08/
Almost goes without saying, but her numbers are way off: https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/understanding-the-intersection-of-medicaid-and-work-an-update/
Thanks for sharing this article. I saw a video of a debate between George HW Bush and Ronald Reagan concerning this matter. It must have been 1980. They both had great points. They were talking about the unrest and lack of employment opportunities south of us and how we could help to rectify that. They also said that we should have a way to allow migrants to work here for a season and then return home. It is so sad that we haven’t been able to figure this out in a humane, dignified way in so many years. Today we still don’t pay agricultural workers enough. I wonder if those “able bodied” Medicaid recipients, if any of them become an agricultural worker, would be paid enough?
Thank you for using the worst as an example of a way out of equally bad today. I think you're right. Through history, cruelty has always made people gleeful, and hopefully at some point enough of us will say STOP, and it will stop. As you said, it always has stopped; but it evidently has to get awful before that happens.
I recently watched a PBS documentary about the Chinese Exclusion Act. It was very helpful in understanding another time in history when the US was dehumanizing a group of people. It also goes into the 14 amendment . It was an awful time but I did learn that resilience and legal challenges eventually made things better. We can’t give in and turn away.
Yes to all of that, Nancy. I still wish it wasn’t happening at all… but am choosing hope that it won’t last.
The farm workers unions are planning strikes until this terrorism is stopped. They will give 2 days notice. When they strike I am planning on buying from small local farms, freezing some and going without. I continue to contact my legislators and demand they uphold the Constitution. I protest. I volunteer. I won’t give up. I’m pretty sure all of you are doing your part too!
Sorry but this news comes from a well-known grifter. The United Farmworkers Union has announced no such plans.
I haven't been able to find anything about strikes either, at least none in reaction to the raids.
Yes! We need to spread word of this (and how we can support the strikes) far and wide!
I don’t understand why any of this was necessary, or should I say: I don’t understand why they think this was wanted. Yes, Trump promised some big deportation numbers, but the decreased numbers at the border could have counted as that promise kept. If he had told the American people, look, I promised millions of deportations, but people are so afraid of my policies I’m already getting it done by preventing the need for deportations beyond those who are violent criminals, he would have had immense bipartisan approval. Instead, we got him pretending that people are violent gang members because of generic tattoos or popular sports jerseys. We got removing valuable workers from industries like restaurants, hotels and farms, then him calling on ICE to ignore those workplaces, then rescinding that order.
And let’s talk about the fiscal insanity. Why completely humiliate Elon and the DOGE cause, obliterating that alliance with a bill that says our grandkids should be paying for reality show theatrics long after he and the Republicans who voted for it are dead (and perhaps struggling to explain their votes in the afterlife)? If someone had told me at inauguration that public polling would show immigration as one of his consistently least popular policy areas and still nosediving in July, I am not sure I would believe them. That was never the case in his first term.
MAGA is now a fragile coalition built on propaganda, and taking that coalition for granted is a totally idiotic strategy. People like Joe Rogan might have sealed the deal for him back in November, but if you treat the “podcast bro” demographic like they’re locked in forever on loyalty, I predict a swift pivot away from MAGA as these policies start having real consequences. Businesses closing, food prices rising, and militarized anonymous dudes ripping families apart on TikTok — it’ll all come crashing down. Not just for Trump, but everyone who is forced to defend our demise along the way. And then the media apparatus that used to be 3 hours of joking about how MAGA is great is going to be 3 hours of joking about how MAGA is the worst.
So this doesn’t even make sense from a cynical, selfish level. The spectacle is actively undermining the political project it’s supposed to serve. So why do we think they are doing it? Because at some point, the cruelty really did become the point — not just a means to an end, but the end itself.
Very good point about the decreased numbers at the border and that he could be bragging about that, but is not. I think he loves the "reality show" aspect of all of this.
It 100% is the point. Dehumanize. Desensitize. So they can go further. All of the small stress tests are designed for something bigger.
I think at this stage, they're simply ramming in everything from Project2025 they can as quickly as they can, to capture their dystopian nightmare of a White Christian Nationalist state. They don't have the time or the inclination to care too much about how this is going to play out in the future. The ethnic cleansing, the subjugation of women, the destruction and ownership of the land, making people as poor and sick and dependent on the billionaires as possible, the military takeoever, the economic destabilization. I think they believe they have this in the bag (it sure does seem like they do at times), that they will have taken over this country and that there won't be future elections - not in any meaningful sense, anyway. Maybe they aren't entirely sure they'll succeed in their complete takeover, but it's now or never for them. They either go for it full tilt or give up, and they aren't going to give up. I see this as the bad version of someone winning a race - they just throw out form, go as fast as they can, and maybe even kill themselves to get to that finish line, because time is running out. They want this country badly. The billionaires in the meantime are using this time to fill their pockets. They don't care either way, as they are collecting our tax money and laughing hysterically at us.
The Idiot In Chief is just neurotically basking in the spotlight, believing that everything is for him and about him. Maybe he cares what things look like, to a degree, because he wants to make sure the entire world is kneeling at his feet in worship, but otherwise, he's really not in charge of this.
It is so hard to even read this. It turns my stomach. How do we get through to those who don't even see our neighbors as people?
Embody Collective, I don’t know if it’s possible to get through to people that don’t see immigrants as humans.
But we can find people that do. We can find them, educate them, organize them.
Maybe that’s our next needed thing.
This topic is so distressing, on so many levels. The cruelty, the absolute disregard for human rights and dignity, seeing people profiting off of making a mockery of the pain and fear that people are feeling (and seeing others celebrate that pain and fear)...words can't express how horrible this whole situation is. We had a humanitarian crisis at our border, in my opinion. But this is much worse, and the humanitarian crisis is happening within our borders now. Even if border crossings are down, it's only out of fear and not because anyone solved the actual problem. We are spending billions of dollars on The Immigration Reality Show, and to what end? If Congress had ever voted to properly fund immigration policies in the past, they might have been able to actually repair a broken system, which is what people wanted.
Does anyone know of reputable organizations that are helping immigrants? Would supporting those organizations be a "next needed thing"? I imagine that donating money or volunteering to help provide legal representation is needed? Is there anyone who is writing about these topics on a daily basis or an account I should follow to keep this issue top of mind?
In my area we have a mutual aid group doing good things for the community including migra (ICE) watch training and court accompaniment training for immigration hearings. I am new to this this year and have yet to match the training with my schedule. So far I’ve done a lot of Sundays working at their Seeds for Solidarity farm. I’ve met a lot of great people and am looking forward to the next step.
I know there are other mutual aid groups doing similar things. Maybe there’s one in your area. Here’s a link to a piece concerning this. Good luck!
https://www.kqed.org/news/12047018/how-legal-experts-advocates-are-responding-to-the-detention-of-asylum-seekersWhen ICE Is Waiting at Immigration Court, What Can Advocates Do? | KQED