You should know I'm a Republican, but ...
There's an opening here. If only the Democrats are wise enough to take it.
I was speaking with an Orange County neighbor the other day. Nice guy. Wasn’t sure of his politics. He drives a lot for work, and I asked if he’d spotted any ICE vehicles. He shook his head No. Then he uttered something …
“You should know I’m a Republican,” he said. “But this is crazy. I can’t support what’s going on. Not this stuff …”
He was referring to what’s transpiring out here (and all across America): Masked ICE vigilantes in (often) unmarked vehicles, lacking identification and never stating charges or arrest justification, pulling brown people off the streets, throwing them into back seats and driving off.
My neighbor has seen the images—and he is disgusted.
And, for me, that’s the key. The images. It’s one thing to hear, “We need laws in America.” It’s an entirely other thing to see stuff like this. And this. And this. And this.
And this …
It’s as close as we’ve ever come to the tactics of Nazi Germany and the rounding up of Jews. Literally, we—the United States of America—have our own band of brown shirts … our own SS … going after fellow humans, terrorizing neighborhoods, destroying lives. All in the name of Donald (Jan. 6) Trump and Stephen (The Jew Who Loves Hitler) Miller.
And if the Democrats were wise, and if they stopped cowering in fear over immigration PTSD, they’d make torn families, detained Americans, sobbing wives, bawling kids—the face of the Trump Administration. They’d plaster it everywhere. They’d have interviews with wrongly detained citizens (Crime: Being Brown) on endless loops. Because nobody (save the most heartless among us) signed up for this shit. Again—it’s one thing to say, “We need to stop the criminals.” It’s another altogether to handcuff the peach picker with three kids who has lived here for 2 1/2 decades.
So if this is going to happen (and, indeed, it’s happening), let’s at least use it to fight back and bring attention to the hellscape we now occupy.
Before it’s too late.
It is important to be realistic about the environment in this country as we work to make things better. While I continue to hope and believe most people do not want to see vulnerable people (children, elderly, pregnant) suffer, we cannot deny what we see with our eyes: there is a sizable and vocal minority that are celebrating the suffering of people made in God’s image (so long as they are not white). This underscores the need to publicize the suffering our government is creating so those who support it cannot pretend they don’t know.
Off the top of my head, Sydney Kamlager-Dove and Jimmy Gomez are going great work on this. Both are back at ICE facilities this morning trying to do oversight (Kamlager-Dove actually did get access to the facility in Adelanto today). Obviously the governor and Senator Padilla are also doing a lot of work to keep this issue front and center. Locally, Supervisor Sarmiento is working to highlight what's happening in Orange County and also trying to support the immigrant community.
Also, governors Walz, Hochul and Pritzker also just testified in front of Congress on how ICE is impacting their states.