We Can't Live Like This

Trump's ICE agents are wantonly breaking the law across the country, while he sends the national guard to forcibly occupy blue states. It's up to the good citizens of this country to oppose this unconstitutional oppression.

Every day I log on to the internet and see fresh images and video of ICE agents brutalizing Americans in ever escalating and illegal ways. An ICE goon responding to taunting from a random dude by losing his temper and trying to choke him before several of his ICE goon buddies join to bring down the heckler.

I see a brave congressional candidate who turns up to protest at an Illinois detention center almost every day getting forcibly thrown to the ground, not once, not twice, but three times, by a face-covered, nameless ICE agent. I see literal children zip-tied for some reason, as if a 10 year old could be a threat to a group of allegedly tough grown men. I see an apartment building ravished and looted by ICE agents, and then filmed for a propaganda video.

I see ICE agents opening fire on innocent crowds. I see ICE agents pepper spraying Americans who are simply doing the time honored American tradition of talking shit towards their government. I see ICE agents tear gassing Chicago police.

Most of this, of course, is not new. These police state tactics have been a fact of life for Black Americans basically since the country's founding, even into the 1980's, when Philadelphia police literally bombed a house in which Black Panther party members were organizing.

The modern American police system was born out of the runaway slave patrols of the early and mid-1800's and the police have been the government force for enforcing the race-based caste system that has long plagued racial minorities in this country. ICE not only fits into that model of purpose, but has taken that mission to scary new heights.

What ICE is doing now is clearly unconstitutional and lawless. They are invading our neighborhoods and homes, looking for anyone brown to detain. They are rampantly ignoring documentation that proves people are here in the US legally, instead opting to sort that out later, or maybe never. They are secretly flying people across the world and likely selling them into slave labor in Africa, or Iran, or El Salvador.

They do not use warrants as they go door to door in random Chicago or Portland apartment buildings, tearing peoples' lives apart. The people they are detaining are not being allowed the due process proscribed by the founding fathers. And if we protest these obvious violations of state, federal, and international law, ICE goons are also allowed to do whatever violence they wish to us.

In the meantime, ICE's budget this year was tripled, making it the 13th most funded military force on the planet, just ahead of Italy.

This is a full blown, papers-please police state, and we do not have to live like this.

There are a few amongst us who recognize the state we're currently in. Black activists were on it early, of course, as well as some leftists and progressives. But even liberals are seeing the danger these days. I'm no fan of California governor Gavin Newsom, who takes delight in destroying the personal property of homeless Californians, but he recognizes the threat of this federal executive branch. As does Illinois governor JB Pritzker.

"We must now start calling this what it is: Trump's Invasion. It started with federal agents, it will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state's military troops," said Pritzker in a statement about Trump's overnight order to send hundreds of Texas national guard troops into Illinois without the governor's consent. "There is no reason a President should send military troops into a sovereign state without their knowledge, consent, or cooperation. The brave men and women who serve in our national guards must not be used as political props. This is a moment where every American must speak up and help stop this madness."

Trump's national guard deployment to Chicago is a bar for bar replay of what the British did to Boston to help spark not only the American Revolution, but that established the constitutional rule of law we're supposed to still be living under.

But how are we meant to stop it and maybe more importantly, who has the power to stop it? Pritzker and Newsom have some power as governors, though so far they have resisted deploying their own state police forces to help prevent federal lawlessness. But on top of that, Democratic state level power is unreliable at best in this instance, having been trained on years of anti-democratic crackdowns on BLM protests.

Our police forces are full of right wingers, who may, on their own, decide to obey the president rather than their own chain of command. This is the problem for liberals who have helped build the modern US police state... there's always going to be a bigger cop, and he cometh now in the form of Trump.

Just this week, ICE tear gassed Chicago police officers. If a BLM protest mob did that to Chicago police, the police would have rioted against the protestors. But when ICE did it, they mostly stood around looking confused. There's always a bigger cop out there.

It's up to us, the good people of the United States, to put a stop to this. We must take to the streets every day and keep showing up until those in charge are forced to change. We must install a new federal government as soon as possible and build new systems and institutions and rules of governance to prevent an authoritarian executive branch, along with an acquiescing judicial branch from doing this ever again.

Those who made the lawless plans to do this to the US must be prosecuted and never be allowed to hold office again. The agents and military members who are following these unlawful orders must also face legal consequences of their own.

Rebuilding from this will be the biggest domestic task faced by an American government since Reconstruction, and I worry that today's Democratic Party leadership fails to see this moment for what it is.

I believe we will be victorious in the short term, but we have to do what's necessary to prevent future generations from enduring this again.

Thank you for reading! I'll be back on Wednesday with an interview with the new executive director at the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, Chastity Bowick. I couldn't do this work without the support of you, the readers! If you appreciated this piece and want more, subscribe! You can do so for free, or you could help me out financially with a paid sub either on the newsletter or on my Patreon.

Thanks so much.

-Katelyn