When Do We Call This A Police State?
The continuing crackdown on immigration could turn on a dime to target you.
POLICE STATE
noun: a political unit characterized by repressive governmental control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures.
If you’re anything like me, you choose your words carefully.
I distinctly remember when Trump first came into power and how I struggled with making mild analogies to Nazi Germany even though the historic parallels were there. Throwing around the term Nazi given the mass killing of 6+ million people isn’t something to do lightly.
On the other side of the equation we have Trump and the MAGA movement who have no problem using the most extreme language possible all the time. While I might be leery of calling Trump a traitor given the specificity of the definition, he has no problem saying Biden should be charged with treason. Or any other wild, crazy claim or dictatorial threat.
Whether purposeful or not, it serves the Orwellian purpose of taking the power out of language — which brings us to calling out what’s going on now. While we may not be in a full police state based on history or a dystopian novel — we’re well into the territory where we shouldn’t shy away from using the term.
ICE Keeps Ramping Up Raids
Trump’s immigration force is driving the slide into a police state — and it’s not just in Los Angeles. My BlueSky and Substack feeds have been filled with citizen shot videos of increasingly aggressive tactics being used by his array of forces.
You can read what I wrote about them a few weeks ago here. But, know that it keeps getting worse. These forces are evolving into a mobile strike force with a mix of ICE, DHS, FBI, radicalized local police, and unknown (white nationalist) thugs without badges, IDs or insignia — masked and dressed in full tactical gear and wielding semi-automatic weapons.
The raids are geared to not just fill some Stephen Miller quota, but to terrify whole communities. The court hearing kidnapping continue, and I’m seeing more and more video random confrontations with people being pulled out of cars or off the streets simply based on being brown.
And legal status doesn’t seem to mean a damn thing — at least to get sent to one of the makeshift deportation centers popping up across the country. There are also multiple reports of overcrowding and terrible conditions in those centers with DHS last week attempting to amend their rules to let in members of Congress for legal oversight.
Yes, most legal challenges to this whole program are bearing fruit — but the Trump Regime has no respect for the Constitution and it’s impossible to know exactly what they’re doing across the country, and the globe.
What Does This Have To Do With Me?
The good news is that Trump’s actions on immigration are not producing the groundswell of support he was counting on. But, as history shows, minority support is still enough support to bring on Dictatorship. And Trump’s obvious attempt to stoke unrest is still his best path to it.
Part of the problem is a lack of coherent, honest coverage in mainstream media. First you have MAGA media spreading pure disinformation and covering LA like it’s a war zone. And then the so-call liberal media treating the LA show of force more like riot porn than the implementation of Project 2025.
The other problem is apathy. There are millions of low-information voters out there who may feel a little leery of the bits and pieces they hear on these crackdowns but don’t see how it really affects their daily lives.
Let me play out a very plausible scenario that could bring the police state to your life fast than you might imagine.
For months now, DHS has been targeting foreign students, independent journalists and seemingly US citizens people coming in and out of the country — primarily at airports, but also the US vehicle borders with Canada and Mexico.
They know who they are looking for and insist that they are given full access to their phones. What these people are then shown are social media posts on immigration or anti-Trump topics. Literally speaking/writing against Trump is getting people held and interrogated for hours.
Who is compiling these lists and where are they getting their information?
As part of their platforms, Facebook, Threads, and Instagram already allow users to search for people based on keywords. If you know a name and add anti-Trump terms you can come up with results based on that search.
Now imagine the granularity of targeting if Zuckerberg or Musk gave the government full access to all that platform data. Is there anyone who think that has not happened? Based on terms used, profession and frequency the job of coming up with multiple target lists of instigators is likely already built in to the platforms for marketing. Conversely, former cops, military, and any other white nationalist goon advocating pro-Trump violence could be targeted to help the regime.
According to the conservative CATO Institute the (now stalled) Trump budget will pump billions into immigration, not only allowing Trump to spread his military chaos beyond LA to other blue cities but easily expanding a program that could put the secret police at your door.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the bill will direct an astounding $168 billion of the budget to immigration and border law enforcement, and there is even more for agencies that indirectly support immigration law enforcement.
This isn’t hyperbole.
It’s real, and it’s very possible.