Trump is not a fascist

[Bret Ripley]

He was understood by two judges to be a MS-13 gang member ...

... based solely on a Gang Field Interview Sheet completed by Prince George's County PD detective Ivan Mendez, who just a few days later was suspended from the force after being accused of tipping off a sex worker he had hired about an ongoing undercover investigation into a brothel she ran; Mendez was indicted over his misconduct and subsequently fired after pleading guilty. Mendez was just one of several members of the gang unit that were criminally prosecuted for misconduct on the job.

Epilogue: a few years later Prince George’s County PD stopped using the Gang Field Interview Sheet altogether over concerns about racial profiling.

(For those keeping score at home: former detective Ivan Mendez definitely has a criminal record.)

[¥akaSteelhead]

To me the idea that you are "illegal" and look like a banger is sufficient to get you imprisoned indefinitely in a Salvadorian torture prison without any due process re the restriction upon your life and liberty is antithetical to our ideas of liberty.

[Markk]

Look, Markk is looking for justification. When Trump’s ghouls decide that you need to be out of the country for unpaid parking tickets, Markk is right there pounding the table and whooping in assent. If Trump wants you gone, Markk wants you gone. It is not about having the rule of law to protect us all; it is about using the law, no matter how dubiously or unjustly to be cruel, exercise power arbitrarily, and push people around to show who is in charge. People of this mindset make me ill. They are a blight on the body politic. They are the Dolores Umbridges in our midst. The point is the cruelty. The goal is to take pleasure in inflicting pain on others and to push other people around. Safety is the excuse to do it.

You can address me Kish, I won't bite. But if it was Biden, Harris, or anyone else removing illegal immigrants who beat the crap out of their wives, and are gang members or at the least associate with known gang members, I would support their removing them.

Lol. Kish your approach is just baseless identity politics with no ability to articulate your position to any sort of logical conclusion.

I'll ask you this in hopes to engage you to give me an honest answer. Do you believe that illegal aliens, that have gang affiliations or a criminal history, and even a history of domestic violence. I will even add the caveat if after due process has taken its course.

[Markk]

That is quite the claim. Markk, can you produce any court documents that actually show Garcia has a criminal history? Move beyond FoxNews and the White House Twitter feed?

As noted, the protective order was civil, not criminal.

Markk can bring the docs. He just can’t interpret them properly.

Please do paste then in full context, not a snippet, and let's go through them.

[Markk]

Focus, it is in context with Garcia having a criminal history, which Kish did not understand. What does not matter in context to what I wrote is that the protective order does not erase his criminal history.

Does he have a criminal history Cakes?

Did the court rule that he had a protected residency status, Markk?

Yes, and despite his criminal history and acknowledgment by two judges he was a members of MS-13. Can we agree on this? I have no problem acknowledging he received protection, as noted earlier when I brought it up to you first.

[¥akaSteelhead]

You can address me Kish, I won't bite. But if it was Biden, Harris, or anyone else removing illegal immigrants who beat the crap out of their wives, and are gang members or at the least associate with known gang members, I would support their removing them.

This is the big part of the problem Markk, you are not representing it accurately. We are not discussing the removal of such a person, we are talking about their incarceration in a third party nation. In a prison with abhorrent conditions. Our government is saying there is no way to appeal this imprisonment, no way for the US to effectuate release. We do not know the length of said incarceration; will these people ever be released?

Saying this is about being removed from the USA is disingenuous. This is about the deprival of "life and liberty" without a process outside of being an illegal with tats, or wearing a Bulls hat. Deport them? I'm ok with that, as long as it follows our processes. Lock them up for life in a hell hole, without a trial? How is this even being considered in our country!!!???!!! What the “F” have we become that y'all think this is ok?

[¥akaSteelhead]

Some guy for the evils of being an illegal with possible gang affiliation but "no known criminal history" is being sent to rot and die in this, with out any process and you are OK with that?

WTF is wrong with you? And what prevents the government from doing the same to you? Claim you are an illegal with gang affiliation and rush you into the hell hole from which they say they can not return you, before you can mount a defense?



Locked in a cell with 100s of other inmates, bare bunks, and .5 hours to walk around a day, to stay until you wither and die.... for the crimes of being illegal and a possible gang affiliate, or possibly just being accused of being such.

Are we not better than this?

[sock puppet]

I do not think fascism has a precise meaning but it does refer to things which have been real. Fascist movements in the first half of the 20th century were creating what was theorized as the ideal best society. It was one where individuality was to be overwritten by command of society. It was a thoroughly militarized society not just as an emergency but as an ongoing ideal. People remember these movements for starting ww2 and killing millions of people in social cleansing campaigns.

All sorts of people may look at Trump and think that whatever he is he is not that. Some people see pieces phrases attitudes with Trump that remind them of fascism in disturbing ways. It is an easy phrase to just up and call Trump fascist. People uncertain or supporting Trump hear that and thinking of the differences reject the accusation. The very accusation becomes a cloak obscuring the dangerous aspects of Trump.

I think Trumpism is its own kind of creature. It is evolving perhaps taking shape. I see an unstable mix of Trump's ego and conjectures with various groups who think he is useful. With no crystal ball I do not see where it goes.

It can be resisted by focusing upon basic human and American values. People are not to be put in prison without legal due process.

Did Germany go from non-fascist to fascist in one fell swoop? No, it was more like the frog in the pot of water slowly heating up on the stove until it becomes so hot it kills the frog. What MAGA has achieved in the U.S. is a series of significant steps over the last 17 years, all leading to fascism. Now, America sits precariously on the precipice above the abyss of fascism below.

[Kishkumen]

... based solely on a Gang Field Interview Sheet completed by Prince George's County PD detective Ivan Mendez, who just a few days later was suspended from the force after being accused of tipping off a sex worker he had hired about an ongoing undercover investigation into a brothel she ran; Mendez was indicted over his misconduct and subsequently fired after pleading guilty. Mendez was just one of several members of the gang unit that were criminally prosecuted for misconduct on the job.

Epilogue: a few years later Prince George’s County PD stopped using the Gang Field Interview Sheet altogether over concerns about racial profiling.

(For those keeping score at home: former detective Ivan Mendez definitely has a criminal record.)

That is where we are in a nutshell. Trump IS A FELON.

What do you expect from people who support a shady con man with 34 felony convictions for president? Of course they will trust the criminal abusing power over the people they wrongly accuse. Truth does not matter to them. Law does not matter to them. It is about restoring the white man to power and throwing the brown people out of the country. I am not surprised they can’t admit the truth. Who really could? They will come up with any conceivable justification to avoid owning up to their actual base motivations. They will tell any lie, believe any falsehood, equivocate, engage in poorly reasoned false equivalencies. They are totally bamboozled.

It is all very sad. They are killing the country because a felonious con artist convinced them he could save it. Nothing in his track record suggested this might be true. By most measures, Trump is a failure. But he spoke their language and told them what they wanted to hear. Now they will support him in any illegality or atrocity. They have all become potentially dangerous, just like that young MAGA terrorist who shot up my campus, killed two Latino men, and injured 6 others.

When they are in power, they abuse it as a matter of course. Who would think that the winners of the political process would be radicalized to the point of terrorism? That’s what we are seeing here. They are reveling in inhumanity and violence on a massive scale. Ikner was just draughting on the terror of the Trump administration, which shows just as little regard for humanity as he did when he shot up FSU.

[Bret Ripley]

... based solely on a Gang Field Interview Sheet completed by Prince George's County PD detective Ivan Mendez, who just a few days later was suspended from the force after being accused of tipping off a sex worker he had hired about an ongoing undercover investigation into a brothel she ran; Mendez was indicted over his misconduct and subsequently fired after pleading guilty. Mendez was just one of several members of the gang unit that were criminally prosecuted for misconduct on the job.

Epilogue: a few years later Prince George’s County PD stopped using the Gang Field Interview Sheet altogether over concerns about racial profiling.

(For those keeping score at home: former detective Ivan Mendez definitely has a criminal record.)

That is where we are in a nutshell. Trump IS A FELON.

What do you expect from people who support a shady con man with 34 felony convictions for president? Of course they will trust the criminal abusing power over the people they wrongly accuse. Truth does not matter to them. Law does not matter to them.

It is literally depressing. It is an objective, verifiable fact that Trump is a convicted felon. At the same time, Trump's most enthusiastic supporters are perfectly happy to deprive a group of folks of their Fifth Amendment right to due process -- and yes, the right to due process even applies to illegal immigrants -- because they may be criminals. We'll never know, because instead of following our own laws we are whisking them away and paying a foreign dictator to abuse them. The technical term that describes what we are doing is "damned immoral."

It is about restoring the white man to power and throwing the brown people out of the country. I am not surprised they can’t admit the truth. Who really could? They will come up with any conceivable justification to avoid owning up to their actual base motivations. They will tell any lie, believe any falsehood, equivocate, engage in poorly reasoned false equivalencies. They are totally bamboozled.

Sometimes I feel like I need to remind my fellow honkies that white privilege is something we get automatically: it is entirely unnecessary to lean into it. Some folks work at it like it's 'leg day' at the gym.