Healy: Trump talked a lot in his first term about roughing up protesters, “shooting” looters, and allegedly privately asked about shooting protesters in the legs. Will we get there? We already have, at Kent State in 1970, and Nixon then won easily in 1972. But what I’m asking is: are the conditions being laid for violence by the state against its citizens, or is that hyperbolic, alarmist?
Polgreen: I have been deeply worried since Pete Hegseth’s confirmation as secretary of defense about the wanton use of military violence against civilians in the United States. His lobbying on behalf of soldiers convicted or accused of heinous crimes against civilians is pretty chilling, especially because it represents a big shift in his views over time. I don’t find it hard to imagine him sending soldiers to shoot civilians if Trump orders it. Trump has already invoked the Alien Enemies Act, absurdly, against a Venezuelan gang. There is no reason to think Trump would hesitate to use his extraordinary powers to deploy the U.S. military on American soil to put down protests he doesn’t like, and even less reason to think Hegseth would refuse him.
And even before you get to the extreme point of using U.S. troops, you already have agents from ICE willing to engage in what seem to be totally lawless arrests. One might have once taken comfort in the possibility that the police, members of state National Guards and other armed agents would exercise restraint when faced with unarmed protest. Not so much anymore.
Gessen: It’s already happening, and it happened during Trump’s first term. During the Black Lives Matter marches in the summer of 2020, we saw violence, some of it extreme, deployed against protesters. I am thinking, in particular, about Portland, Ore., where, in addition to the physical violence, protesters or people suspected of going to or from a protest were reportedly getting snatched up off the street. Why am I bringing this up now? Because the force deployed in Portland five years ago was the Department of Homeland Security, the militarized outfit that is not subject to the constraints imposed on the military acting domestically. I have argued that the D.H.S. was destined to become our secret police — and now, with ICE raids and detentions, we see exactly how it functions.
The distinction implied in your question, Patrick, is between noncitizens and citizens. But, in just a couple of weeks, we have seen the focus of ICE raids expand from people who are in this country without legal status to legal permanent residents. At this rate, in a couple of weeks naturalized citizens will be seen as a legitimate target (this was already done in the first Trump administration), as will be the children of immigrants (see the executive order repealing birthright citizenship). Other categories of citizens will follow. And, as I noted, D.H.S. has already been deployed against citizens who were protesting.
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