The West was moving to the right — and then Donald Trump got elected again
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Something is happening among America’s allies, and it’s a tremendous relief. For some years now, we’ve seen the MAGA-infused global right gaining a foothold amongst western democracies, largely driven by the same demagogic, nationalist, pseudo-populism that has fueled Donald Trump’s dominance on the American right.
Some countries like Hungary have served as a sort of experiment for the kind of post-democratic autocracies dreamt of by the modern right wing in which government co-opts, intimidates and de-legitimizes the political opposition to create an authoritarianism that dominates the culture and the politics without a lot of overt violence.
But the rise of the far right among the Western allies seems to be stalling out.
I mean, you have to go where the evidence takes you, even if you don’t like the results. The best thing you could perhaps say about Biden or Obama, was simply that any of their direct participation in border patrol activities followed rule of law.
Generally, CBP/ICE has stayed above much direct scrutiny or supervision, and if an individual doesn’t have reporters, lawyers, or family asking after them (sometimes even then) a lot can be hidden even from administration.
It’s very likely Trump did not do much to “push” ICE’s behavior, he just enabled them, and they reward him by threatening his direct opponents.
Okay, show me the evidence. You are claiming that all trump did was enable them, when he is very clearly and publicly pushing a racist anti immigration agenda. Please show me how this and anyone else in recent years is the same.
Some context:
The basic idea is, while Trump aims for very visible rhetoric to inflame his racist base, ICE’s presence has still gone up regardless of which president is taking the chair. In fact, Biden beat Trump’s deportation numbers (and I’m sure given his ego, he aims to inflate that further, and finds due process one of his obstacles).
One thing that can be said is that when ICE has been in the news, it was never visibly aiming for cruelty under Democratic presidents. But that’s also only accounting for the cases that we know about. And, the last article points out how even through a full term, Biden not only failed to address the growing worries of cruel behavior within ICE, but built them a new quarter-billion-dollar headquarters.