By David Sole
President Donald Trump is being described as angry and frustrated by what he considers the slow rate of deportations after only a few weeks into his new administration. NBC News headlined, on February 7, “Trump is ‘angry’ that deportations numbers are not higher.”
The Guardian reported on February 21 that “Trump removes ICE chief amid apparent frustration over rate of deportations.”
The president’s frustration level must also be rising with the many judges around the country who are stopping many of the arbitrary, illegal or unconstitutional actions taken by him or his agents. Demonstrations are taking place almost daily in many locales against Trump’s policies and mass turnouts at local congressional town hall meetings are exposing a strong backlash, even among his MAGA supporters.
A meeting between Trump and the National Governors Association went viral when Trump singled out Maine’s Governor Janet Mills (D) for refusing to go along with his Executive Order barring transgender women from participating in women’s sports. He threatened to withhold all federal funding from Maine. Mills replied tersely, “I’ll see you in court.”
If Trump reaches a breaking point with the confines of ordinary democratic procedures open to him, it is very possible he will again respond with extra-legal measures. That is precisely what he resorted to on January 6, 2021, when he incited his MAGA supporters to storm the Capitol to stop the electoral process. The time of Nazi Stormtroopers may be at hand.
Adolph Hitler had thousands of his Brownshirts, goons, in the streets before and after taking power on January 30, 1933. They were used to terrorize socialists, unionists Jews and other progressives. On March 23, 1933, Hitler had hundreds of armed Brownshirts enter the building where the German parliament was meeting. They made sure the representatives voted to pass the “Enabling Act” that gave Hitler and his cabinet the power to make and enforce laws without the parliament’s consent.
It is no big stretch to see something like this evolving under Trump. On February 21 the fascist Proud Boys held a press conference outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C. to announce plans to file a lawsuit against the Department of Justice. Former Proud Boys leader, Enrique Tarrio, had been serving a 22-year sentence for his role in the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol. He, along with about 1500 other January 6th insurrectionists were pardoned by Trump on his first day in office. Tarrio was arrested at the press conference for assaulting a counter-protester.
More concerning than the motley crew of Proud Boys is the proposal submitted to the White House by Erik Prince, founder of the private military company Blackwater. Joined by other contractors and former ICE officials, he gave a 26 page plan for Trump’s consideration that calls for “a $25 billion offer to execute mass deportations through ‘processing camps’ on military bases, a private fleet of 100 planes and a ‘small army’ of private citizens who can make arrests.”
The Daily Beast puts the number of this small army at 10,000 and says that the proposal “has been circulating among [Trump’s] advisers since before the inauguration.”
There is also legislation circulating in state capitals that would offer bounties of $1000 to $2500 for each undocumented immigrant deported. The Missouri bill was defeated after sharp confrontational hearings. Aura Velasquez, a U.S. citizen declared “It is inhuman to say people should be hunted like a sport.”
The Arizona bill, Senate Bill 1111, would pay local police the bounty, diverting them from their regular law enforcement duties. “It will supercharge racial profiling across the state” Noah Schramm of the ACLU told Arizona’s Senate Government Committee. Others called the bill “hateful, racist legislation.”
Needless to say, the formation of a private army of 10,000 under Trump’s control would not, and could not, be guided by any constitutional principles. Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is an open advocate of creating an “underground army” to overturn the Constitution and impose biblical law. He also refused to rule out using the U.S. armed forces to shoot down protesters in the streets of this country. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, an African American, was just fired by Trump. His replacement isn’t even qualified by law to hold that office but is sure to be totally loyal to do whatever Trump wants.
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