"Donald Trump has ICE. ICE is functionally a paramilitary organization, armed and empowered to harass citizens, brutalize opposition, and murder people who get in their way. Like any paramilitary apparatus, its chief aim is to strike fear in the population. It does this not only through feats of violence, false imprisonment, and kidnapping but also by repeatedly showing us it can't be held accountable for its actions."
"These paramilitaries can be dismantled, but only when the people demand it, over and over again, and refuse to support any politicians or regimes who would keep them in place. ICE can be stopped, but we do not elect people to power who actually want to stop ICE; we tend instead to elect people who want to "fund" ICE, control it, and use it for their own purposes. And that is why we fail."
Throughout history, authoritarian regimes have relied on armed, lawless enforcers to implement leaders' will, including Caesar's Praetorian Guard, Duvalier's Tonton Macoutes, and Hitler's Gestapo. ICE operates as a contemporary paramilitary entity, armed and empowered to harass citizens, brutalize opposition, kidnap, and kill, while cultivating impunity by demonstrating it cannot be held accountable. Such paramilitaries tend to persist beyond any single strongman, aligning with successors and retained because leaders find them useful. Dismantling them requires sustained public demand and electoral refusal to support politicians who maintain or fund them. Abolition of ICE is presented as necessary.
Read at The Nation
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