Mother Jones / David Corn - Donald Trump Will Need a Police State to Implement His Agenda

[Dennis Donovan]

Mother Jones / David Corn - Donald Trump Will Need a Police State to Implement His Agenda

It’s going to get very ugly.

David Corn
January+February 2025 Issue

Mr. Smith, please come in, have a seat. Our records show you’ve been with the State Department for 17 years, the past five in the Bureau of National Security and Nonproliferation. Now it has come to our attention through an anonymous tip to the America First Compliance Program that you made a derogatory comment about the president. A subsequent internal investigation discovered your wife donated $125 to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Through further inquiry—with the assistance of the TrumpX social media team—we located a deleted post from your daughter’s timeline that included a photograph of her and your wife knocking on doors in west Philadelphia for Kamala Harris. Under the new Loyal Americans in Government executive order, we are terminating your employment as of this moment. As you might know, your position has been reclassified and no longer enjoys the civil service protections of the past. There is no right of appeal. My secretary will provide you the separation paperwork. You may leave now.

Donald Trump has many plans for his return engagement at the White House. Several will require police-state tactics.

During his 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly and enthusiastically declared he would order the mass deportation of 11 million or so undocumented immigrants. At his rallies, diehard fans excitedly waved signs proclaiming the slogan they chanted: “MASS DEPORTATION NOW!” Such a program would require deploying a paramilitary force—or even the National Guard or the military—to locate migrants, apprehend them, and guard them in a network of prisons and detention camps. (Executives at private prison, security, and surveillance software companies are already salivating.) This system would depend on Trump ramping up monitoring of workplaces and neighborhoods, and on anonymous tip lines susceptible to abuse and false leads. (Have a problem with a neighbor? Report ’em.) Perhaps the forces rounding up migrants will be afforded special powers to evade civil liberties protections. As in East Germany during the Cold War, an atmosphere of terror and intimidation will pervade.

Expect something similar within the federal workforce. Months before he left office at the end of his first term, Trump issued an executive order that would have removed employment protections from civil servants deemed disloyal to the president and that could have required expressions of allegiance before being hired—in other words, loyalty oaths for Trump. The order created a new employment category called Schedule F, to be applied to perhaps tens of thousands of federal workers (maybe more), permitting them to be fired without cause. President Joe Biden rescinded the order upon entering the White House and, in October, his administration issued final rules aimed at preventing a future president from reinstating it. But Trump has vowed to bring the plan back on “day one” and turn a large section of the federal workforce into a Trump corps—a stated goal of Steve Bannon and other MAGA schemers.

Reviving Schedule F, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) has warned, would be a “direct threat to our national security and our government’s ability to function.” Under such a regime, a broad range of federal employees—say, lawyers at the EPA who work on climate change, scientists at the CDC who prepare for pandemics, or analysts at the CIA who watch the Kremlin—could be dumped at will if they raise questions about a Trump position or don’t pay him obeisance. And the threat of a pink slip would not only silence dissent; it could be used to press government employees to take inappropriate actions—maybe jigger statistics to make Trump’s economic policies look good, or slow-walk disaster aid destined for blue states.

/snip

Scary stuff.

[DSandra]

1. Honestly, I expect a lot more border patrol checkpoints around America

Little known is that border patrol actually has the power to put checkpoints in most American cities.

Know Your Rights - 100 Mile Border Zone



"U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the federal agency tasked with patrolling the U.S. border and areas that function like a border, claims a territorial reach much larger than you might imagine. A federal law says that, without a warrant, CBP can board vehicles and vessels and search for people without immigration documentation “within a reasonable distance from any external boundary of the United States.” These “external boundaries” include international land borders but also the entire U.S. coastline."

[dsc]

2. How are Chicago and Milwaukee within 100 miles of Canada?

I thought Lake Michigan was entirely in the US.

[dsc]

3. Just saw the caption

I guess they consider water inner connected and thus coastline being a border in all cases.

[JoseBalow]

10. I bet drumpf tries to expand that

so it includes all US territory.

[uponit7771]

4. If TFG implements 25% of his economic plan its going to get very rough for everyone and then the police state and then

... the propaganda.

We have only his incompetence to count on for the good and the bad

[Efilroft Sul]

5. If MAGA gets deputized on the local level, the America you knew is gone.

And nobody here should crawl up the asses of those who know what needs to be done.

[SunImp]

11. They already are

Look up Constitutional Sheriffs

[DSandra]

6. If the American people voted to reenable segregation, would the left just accept it?

I feel like "the left" has waved the white flag and will just let America descend into tyranny just because "Trump won the popular vote." Were the bill of rights allowed to be taken away by majority vote? We all have more than a month before Trump gets into office, we should not waste a minute building the unity that will give us some hope of weathering this hurricane. Trump will have the power via a police and surveillance state to destroy anyone he wants. We should not accept this!


Remember the Aesop's fable: The Bundle of Sticks

"A certain Father had a family of Sons, who were forever quarreling among themselves. No words he could say did the least good, so he cast about in his mind for some very striking example that should make them see that discord would lead them to misfortune.

One day when the quarreling had been much more violent than usual and each of the Sons was moping in a surly manner, he asked one of them to bring him a bundle of sticks. Then handing the bundle to each of his Sons in turn he told them to try to break it. But although each one tried his best, none was able to do so.

The Father then untied the bundle and gave the sticks to his Sons to break one by one. This they did very easily.

"My Sons," said the Father, "do you not see how certain it is that if you agree with each other and help each other, it will be impossible for your enemies to injure you? But if you are divided among yourselves, you will be no stronger than a single stick in that bundle."

In unity is strength."

[kevinore]

14. Unity is harder than some of us understand.

Depending on how you want to count it, I have been a leftist for 50 if you include when I became politically aware, or 40 years from the first time I cast a ballot. I have voted for Democrats over all these years. I supported Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern in '68 and '72 I was still too young to vote. My first ballot was for Carter in '76.

After the Vietnam War ended, the country's tone started to change. With the war over, most protests died down and very conservative politicians and churches began popping up. Row v Wade was settled law in 1973 and other than the Catholic Church, there was not much out cry from other churches. The Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution on abortion in 1971 and reaffirmed it three years later. Part of the text reads:

"Be it further RESOLVED, That we call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother."

By 1976, the SBC tightened its opinion, and by 1980 the Convention passed the following resolution

"WHEREAS, Southern Baptists have historically affirmed the biblical teaching of the sanctity of all human life, and
"WHEREAS, All medical evidence indicates that abortion ends the life of a developing human being, and
"WHEREAS, Our national laws permit a policy commonly referred to as "abortion on demand,"
"Be it therefore RESOLVED, That the Southern Baptist Convention reaffirm the view of the Scriptures of the sacredness and dignity of all human life, born and unborn, and
"Be it further RESOLVED, That opposition be expressed toward all policies that allow "abortion on demand," and
"Be it further RESOLVED, That we abhor the use of tax money or public, tax-supported medical facilities for selfish, non-therapeutic abortion, and
"Be it finally RESOLVED, That we favor appropriate legislation and/or a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion except to save the life of the mother."

It took less than a decade for the SBC to do that 180. That 180 dragged the conservative churches into the GOP fold.

I bring up these points as context for what it was like for this Leftist when the U.S. started its hard right turn. The GOP pulled many liberals to the right, while Leftists held their ground. As the Democratic Party started to veer right, the party started to split ideologically into Leftists, traditional liberals, and Corporate Democrats. If we are going to have unity, then these three groups will have to work together. However, funding elections requires the Corporate Democrats to give us the money and the Left wants to end things like Citizens United, support tax increases on the 10% and Corporations, and get rid of "Right to Work Laws." Getting Corporate Democrats to support Leftist concerns has never been a winning proposition. The advice frequently given to the Left is "Don't ask, just sit down, vote Democratic, and shut up." Unifying the party will require a collective approach and all sides must be heard.

[Blue_Tires]

15. Well, Dem voters had a chance to make their voice heard on Nov. 5

and they blew it...

So please tell me more about unity.

[markodochartaigh]

7. "Trump

Will Need a Police State to Implement His Agenda".

Police state in an authoritarian regime, it's not a bug, it's a feature.

[NotHardly]

8. Stalinist behavior with extra steps.

[markodochartaigh]

12. Communism has a socialist economic component and

an authoritarian political component. The right wing in the US never had a problem with the authoritarian component, only with the socialist component. Putin kept the authoritarianism while getting rid of the socialism and now the US right wing is willing to ally with him.

[JohnnyRingo]

9. I've heard word of bounty hunters.

Put a price on their heads and let the MAGA posses go wild.

I can see hundreds of armed Dog The Dipshit Bounty Hunters knocking on doors and violating people's civil rights. That way the legal liability is on his idiots instead of government officers. And he can pardon them.

[ThePartyThatListens]

13. America is already a police state

Kinda always been