The American Gestapo

 America has lost its shine, charisma, and personality. We are no longer the country that other nations are envious of. In fact, many tourists are spending their vacation dollars in other places because of the horrific fascist policies of the Trump Administration created primarily by the evil and sadistic mind of Stephen Miller.  Miller has created a cruel disappearing campaign targeting primarily the Hispanic population made possible through a decade of constant demeaning and dehumanizing rhetoric. 

I lived in Sweden a quarter of a century ago and all my friends and business associates alike wanted to have conversations with me about America. They talked glowingly about the different cities and towns that they have visited when they visited the United States, the food they liked, the clubs that they danced in, etc. My Swedish friends would save their money for years just to go on a family vacation to Disney World or far off Hawaii. Now, they ask me “What has happened to America?” or “Is it really true that our government deported children who have cancer?” Their glow towards the United States has been replaced by disbelief and sadness. 

 

When I was a child in the 70s, we were taught in school that America is a melting pot that unlike most other countries we have citizens that come from all over the globe looking for a better life for themselves and their children and their children’s children. Growing up in suburban New York I witnessed American’s blended society firsthand at school, in the grocery store, at the mall, on the train and in the airport. In elementary school. I had play dates with friends from India, Israel, and South Korea. As I got older, I would spend all day playing stickball in the neighborhood kids. We all came from different backgrounds (Jewish, Italian, Irish, Chinese)

 and when I went to college, I was exposed to cultures from all over the globe just in my dormitory. 

 

Interacting with people from different cultures and backgrounds was normal for me. America was a diverse society on the way to a “more perfect union” as we entered the 21^st century. The horrors and cruelties inflicted on Native Americans and Immigrants in the United States during the 19^th and first half of the 20^th Centuries were a thing of the past.  The anti-Semitic polices of Nazi Germany was as well. No western government, especially the United States, who was the voice of human rights, would think twice about enacting immigration policies from the past. Sadly, I was naïve and wrong. There is a whole big nation outside of New York whose inhabitants did not experience the same multi-cultural society that I did, and centuries old prejudices still existed and as the saying goes: history always repeats itself.

 

For our entire history, even back to colonial days, the power in this country has resided with the white population, more specifically, the protestant worshiping white population. Even though the population viewed themselves as good God-fearing Christians, they had a problem with the Native population and half our country geographically enslaved millions of black people. The Native Americans and free & enslave blacks looked different, they dressed differently, they had different customs, and the Native Americans had different customs when it came to how they worshiped their gods. 

 

The logic of the white ruling class was since Natives and Blacks were different, then they must be inferior. So, when Irish Catholics started immigrating to the United States in the 1840’s, why would the Country’s White Protestant worshiping thought process change. The fear and insecurity of losing political and social power because of the immigration of Irish and German Catholics led to the formation of the Know Nothing movement in the 1850’s. The Know Nothing Party was prominently an anti-immigration and anti-Catholic Party.  They believed that all power should reside with native born Americans. Sounds very familiar to the MAGA movement of the last ten years except Trump and MAGA target predominately immigrants from Latin America. 

 

At the same time, slavery was dividing the nation and there were many people in high-ranking positions in the federal government who were determined to keep slave power in charge of the U.S. government and the peculiar institution of the South intact. The most powerful person who felt this way was Roger B. Taney, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Dred Scott case was his chance to achieve his goal. Dred Scott was a slave who sued for his freedom when his owner took him to the free territory of Wisconsin and the State of Illinois for an extended period and then brought him back to Missouri, which was a slave state. 

 

The Taney Court ruled in 1857 that Scott did not have the right to bring his suit because he was a slave and slaves being property had no rights. The Taney Court could have stopped there with their ruling, but they went further declaring that all black people living in the United States whether free or enslaved were not citizens of the United States. The Court overreached its judicial authority because they wanted to make sure that people who look different can never enjoy the freedoms and political power that white men had enjoyed since the colonial days. 

 

Compare this ruling to today’s Roberts Court, who last year overreached their judicial authority by giving un precedented power to Donald Trump; pretty much making him a king. The Roberts Court’s decision giving Trump immunity from prosecution for any decision or policy enacted while in office enables Trump to suppress the growing Latin American population by any means possible so the White Protestant worshiping population can keep political power. 

 

Now that Trump has cover from the Supreme Court, his fascist advisors can implement the Trump agenda to “purify” America. Their hatred of Latin American immigrants and immigrants of any kind has been an unfortunate part of this Nation for centuries; however, the Project 2025 playbook is straight out of Nazi Germany. Trump, Miller, and MAGA have spent years gas lighting and dehumanizing Latin American immigrants and now they have turned the Immigration and Customs Enforcement into an overly aggressive police force, an “American Gestapo”, to carry out their plans.  

 

 When the American Gestapo started their masked raids in Latin communities, I was wondering why the agents weren’t quitting in masses in protest to Trump’s over the top policies just as the lawyers at the Justice Department or agents in the FBI? What they are being ordered to do is not only a violation of people’s rights under the Constitution, but also inhumane! The only answer is that the agency was remade with agents who have bought into the MAGA ideology and propaganda of dehumanizing a community of people. Once you believe that non-white immigrants are not equal to you in any way, shape, or form people feel that they have the freedom to carry out unspeakable orders. 

 

As the immigration raids continue daily and more and more stories come to light, I get more and more upset because how could the country that I love dearly carryout Nazi tactics across the country. The Trump Administration will not stop with the Latin American community. They will next target Muslims, Asians, and then the Jewish population, and not necessarily in that order. Unlike Nazi Germany, the pro-democracy faction of our government and citizenry are not being quiet. People are peacefully protesting in the streets, confronting masked, warrant less agents and effectively using social media to bring consistent attention to the world the unconstitutional and inhumane acts that the American Gestapo is carrying out. 

 

The worst atrocities are being carried out at detention centers that ICE has set up around the country or through partnerships with fascist nations like El Salvador. These “detention “centers are being run as concentration camps. Detainees are living in cages, little access to food, water, showers. The sink and toilet are connected, so the water that they are drinking isn’t even sanitary.  The detainees are not given access to legal counsel, and their families most of the time don’t even know where their loved ones are being detained.  There are reports that detainees are being beaten and abused in the El Salvador prison and are being denied medical care. 

 

The Trump Administration is even trying to market their cruelty, naming their latest concentration camp in South Florida “Alligator Alcatraz”. It should be called Alligator Auschwitz. If you are a resident of Florida as I am, our tax dollars went to build and operate this concentration camp.  The Trump Administration is denying State representatives, congressmen, women, and Senators from touring a majority these facilities when they show up unannounced, which is their right to do.  The immigration & deportation policy is so cruel and chaotic that American citizens are being rounded up, detained, and in some cases deported. There is no structure and I guess that is the point. The Trump Administration’s goal is to strike fear into Latin communities through cruelty in major cities across the country. 

 

There are several things that the American public can do to slow down the cruelty of the Trump Immigration Policy until the Democrats most likely take control the House and the Senate in ‘26, and hopefully the White House in ’28. People need to keep making their voices heard through organized peaceful marches and spreading the word about the Administration’s atrocities on social media through video and blogs.  In my opinion the number one reporter doing this is Jacob Soboroff of NBC & MSNBC News. I suggest that you go back and watch his reporting. 

 

People with the financial means can donate to causes such as the ACLU and the Legal Defense Fund so wrongly detained immigrants can have access to legal representation. Donate to Mark Elias and his firm as he is busy fighting Trump’s un-Constitutional policies in court. Corporate and Political leaders need to take a stronger stand against Trump. Corporations and the News Media keep paying him off through the phony lawsuits thinking that he will leave them alone if they throw a few million dollars his way. 

 

The public now sees this as for what it is, corruption, and the public is turning away from brands that support Trump as well as the brands that are profiting by supplying the government with products to build and sustain their concentration camps. However, the thing that would help the most is for the mainstream media and news outlets to report on the whole truth as to what the Trump Administration is trying to accomplish with their immigration policy and frankly, all of their policies. ABC and NBC News have an obligation to report the whole truth not just a watered-down version because network executives are worried that the Trump Administration will go after them. I call bullshit. Trump will go after you even if you pay him off. 

 

Every day families are being separated and destroyed illegally while MAGA Congresswoman Nancy Mace says that she loves watching YouTube videos of ICE arrests. “There’s nothing more American than watching ICE drag people out of court”, claims Congresswoman Mace. Most of the people being arrested have not committed any of the crimes Trump claims that they have committed. 

 

It's time to put people and our democracy over profits and fear before it is too late, and we are a democracy now more.