All Cops Are Becoming Worse
There have been some really worrying trends with law enforcement lately–and especially the last month and a half or so. Most of these things are pretty valid concerns, so I think it's worth taking a look at them and talking a little bit about how we can respond. I don't think I'm breaking any news here, but all of these concerns combine to form a Voltron of authoritarianism, so I'd be remiss if we don't spend some time.
I'm worried about three issues in particular: that we're seeing ICE and cops masked up more and more frequently–particularly while citizens masking is becoming increasingly criminalized; ICE has now arrested more than one political official–and this goes hand-in-hand with the fasc demonstration of a senator being escorted out of a Trump administration press briefing; and that the assassin/would be assassin of two Minnesota senators impersonated a cop to gain entry to their homes–and this, finally, leads into the larger umbrella of nationwide distrust for cops equaling more violent circumstances for all involved. Disconcerting stuff!
Masks For Me
Almost as if they took the wrong lessons from Damon Lindelof's Watchmen, cops, and ICE in particular, have been dropping identification–and uniforms in some instances–and covering their faces to make their arrests. Law enforcement should have an obligation to accountability; we've always, always had difficulty with this, but not even knowing the identity of the people who beat the hell out of you is another step in the wrong direction.
You've undoubtedly seen pictures of ICE goons lined up in courthouses waiting on immigrants to appear for hearings. They're all wearing tan gaiters that look like they picked them up off the floor of the Capitol, standing around like vultures except not occupying an ecological niche. As ICE in particular and cops in general begin to look more and more like the sort of people that used to lurk at the edge of protests and harass people, we're quickly going to blur the line between cops becoming those people. It's not that they were ever far off–it's that in the blurring the cops will stop being a private security force for the rich and become more of a private army for Trump.
ICE and Cops are Arresting Politicians
In just the past few months, ICE and store-brand cops have arrested five politicians. This has occurred, across the board, as said politicians protest the Trump administration in one manner or another. Now, you know how useless the Dems are generally, but putting your body in the way of cops and kicking up dust about ICE is probably more than we could ever hope from most of them, so we'll give 'em credit just this once.
Regardless of the worth of the opposition party, arresting them for being relatively benign is disturbing. It's an escalation that we could all have expected but is nevertheless disconcerting to see. When political enemies start getting arrested, we're really not far from full-blown active fascism, if it can even be said we haven't already entered it, because, well.
The Big Beautiful Bill
Trump's signature legislation just ballooned ICE's budget 10x. They are now, monetarily, bigger than all federal law enforcement agencies combined. What that's going to look like is a massive expansion of immigration detention centers*--and we're probably not far from meeting the definition of concentration camps on those, if we haven't already--and a big increase in ICE officers. This increase is not going to be rational; we will see, I'm sure, the bottom of the barrel being hired. Every fired cop, every J6er that hasn't already been put back in jail, every Patriot Front incel, is going to be put behind that informal-ass uniform. The bill states this number will be around 10,000 new officers–more than double their number currently. That's bad. Put another way, ICE will be the 17th largest military in the world. That's an army trained on people in this country.
However. I will remind you that there are many, many, many more of us than them. And there always will be. No theft of our money, of our healthcare, no sale of land, no grift, will ever be enough to beat our numbers. We pushed them back in Minneapolis, we pushed them back in LA. Philadelphia is striking as we speak. We have the numbers, we're how they get their money. The power is in our hands.
*Alligator Alcatraz
Because Alligator Auschwitz was too on the nose. You've heard of this by now: the federal government was able to stand up what is by all accounts and evidence a concentration camp in eight days, in the Everglades, when you can't get them to so much as sign a check for hurricane relief down the street.
This camp is something I think could have been expected. It is nevertheless a dire threat, especially when combined with ICE's overall budget, Trump's promise that US citizens are to be deported, and a tweet from Laura Loomer that stated "Alligator lives matter. The good news is, alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now." The Latino population of the United States is just over 65 million. This is a call for ethnic cleansing by a very prominent voice in MAGA. And even if that hadn't happened, it is still a stain on our souls.
While absolutely horrifying, Loomer's call for the extermination of 65 million people helps to illustrate a point I raised above: there are so many more of us than them. Weeks ago, millions of people dusted off their pussy hats and marched for the No Kings protest. Half a million people marched in DC alone to protest the first time Trump took office. Up to 26 million people participated in the George Floyd Uprisings. With ICE's new funding, they'll have about 16,000 agents. Those numbers simply aren't comparable. These aren't Spartans. They're not highly-trained killers. They're racist dipshits with Wal-Mart gaiters and ill-fitting plate carriers. They can be defeated. I would prefer they simply didn't come into being, but they are not an unstoppable force.
An Era of Fear, But Not Ours
The last thing that I want to bring up, particularly in the context the assassination and attempted-assassination of Minnesota legislators, is that recent moves, whether administration policy or not, are cultivating an atmosphere of terror that will not have the effect the administration thinks. The killer in the Minnesota attacks wore a police uniform and a mask. ICE agents are going un-identified. People are being taken with excessive force, ambushed in the conduct of legal proceedings, and deported without due process.
What this means, and I will stress that this is my interpretation and not my endorsement, is that there is no reason to obey the commands of law enforcement in most, if any, scenarios. If someone who claims to be or appears to be law enforcement approaches you, for whatever reason, we have entered an era of such fear and instability that it may no longer behoove you to obey them in any capacity. They may not be law enforcement; they may not treat you according to the rights guaranteed you by the Constitution; they may–and this is not new–treat you violently and with impunity; lastly, there is no guarantee anymore that, if you are detained, you will ever see freedom again. Under these circumstances, resistance is a reasonable response. If law enforcement hasn't caught on to what this formula means for them at the end of the day, they will soon. This is dangerous.
While it may cheer you to think that we simply should treat law enforcement the way we have always been treated by them–not as the subjects of their oaths but as opponents to them–this will create more tense and violent interactions with police of all stripes at every level. They will be more on edge than before, and they will take that out on the public. So while it may behoove you to disobey them, in their minds, it will behoove them to kill you.
I wish I didn't have to take a break right now, with things at a fever pitch, but I need the time back to work on other projects. We'll meet back up in a couple weeks or so. Thank you for sticking with me.