Republicans are the party of white Christian conversatives, so whatever message is most expedient to appealing to them at the moment is what they stand for.
"Small government" meant "get the Black President out of my healthcare." "Personal freedoms" meant "let me discriminate against people."
Never take a Republican at face value, especially if you're not in their in group. Get them alone and they'll tell you what they mean behind what they say.
> Small government: cut things we don't like (e.g. social programs)
Yeah, and guess how? By claiming the program is rife with abuse, demanding all sorts of record-keeping and auditing...and then a few years later shouting blue-bloody-murder about "administrative cost" in the program.
I wonder what the actual stats are for TANF and SNAP in terms of paper-pushing and auditing vs funds dispersed to recipients.
> remove freedoms for things we don't (e.g. LGBTQ)
Or the really big one: abortion. Doing things like passing legislation that forces doctors to say certain things to their patients, for example...and mandate medical procedures like forcing the mother to go through an ultrasound so they have to see the fetus and if it's old enough, listen to its heart.
Can you imagine how much outrage there would be if democrats passed legislation mandating doctors tell their patients that the vast overwhelming majority of scientific evidence supports efficacy of vaccines, and oh by the way, flu shots are now compulsory? They'd lose their goddamn minds and riot in the streets (er...again?)
Not to lessen your point, because I 100% agree, but I'd like to point out that you could swap a couple words in your statements to make the same point about the Democrats:
- Small government: cut things we don't like (e.g. military), and spend more on things we do like (e.g. social programs)
- Personal freedoms: more freedoms for things we like (e.g. LGBTQ), remove freedoms for things we don't (e.g. guns)
Thank you for demonstrating the hilarious insanity of bothside-ism by jokingly equating people running around carrying guns with people who do not identify as heterosexual, made me spill my Coke. You are joking, right?
I ran into this problem when I was a smart ass early 20 something on 4chan. Those were fun times being sarcastic and hyperbolic for effect. Up until I realized that it wasn't just edgy satire for a good chunk of the crowd. They actually believed a lot of the ridiculous shit we were saying. Then I learned about Poe's law and cut WAY back on my online shitheadedness. But no... Unfortunately a lot of folks who say crazy stuff believe it.
Even in the past it was nothing but a coded language. They don't actually believe in it from a principled point of view. Lee Atwater 1981 interview has continued to remain relevant. From direct racial slurs to forced busing, states' rights. Then it morphed into small government, personal freedoms. And now it's DEI and trans.
They never claimed to be the party of personal freedom. There's a libertarian contingent within the GOP that wishes they could persuade people to go that direction, but unsuccessfully for decades.
They have claimed to be the party of small government. And even someone who disagrees with them can recognize the "small government" within their idealized view means government that is only involved in the things that government should be involved in. It doesn't necessarily (or in practice ever) mean less spending.
> And even someone who disagrees with them can recognize the "small government" within their idealized view means government that is only involved in the things that government should be involved in.
Sure, maybe if they were ever ideologically consistent. Yet somehow “government should not be involved in healthcare” also means “government can dictate your healthcare decisions” vis a vis gender affirming care and abortions. Or how “government should not be involved in wealth redistribution” means “let’s grow the national debt to give billionaires more tax breaks and subsidies”.
This is totally setting aside the fact that small government has always carried the connotation of fiscal conservatism.
I feel like American democrats are leaving Christian votes on the table. Here is a party programme of center left evangelical party from Europe [1]. For example, I find it brilliant that they rebranded the environment to the Creation.
I don't think the hypocrisy has bothered them for quite some time. By "personal freedom", they mean the freedom for themselves to personally oppress others - not a society based upon widespread individual liberty. This is very apparent when a blatant violation of constitutional freedoms happens to someone in an "othered" group (eg Kenneth Walker's 2nd amendment rights), and they line right up in support of the oppressors.
It’s basically the party of narcissism. Which is why Trump has succeeded. Freedoms insofar as their world and life are concerned. Generally not an externally motivated “hey they need to be free too” unless they can somehow appear morally superior in a US Christian way, like abortion or prootecting marriage.
On the one hand the guy in OP article didn’t have documentation and he illegally crossed the border, so what do you do as ICE? The guy claims he is a US citizen, but I bet you a lot of illegal immigrants without documentation claim they are a US citizen as well.
Also there is no federal ID system, so how do you go about confirming if this person is a US citizen or not? It does seem reasonable that people within ICE custody should get the chance to call someone so that person can bring identification for ICE to confirm the identity, and that is maybe the missing part which lead to this situation.
> On the one hand the guy in OP article didn’t have documentation and he illegally crossed the border, so what do you do as ICE? The guy claims he is a US citizen, but I bet you a lot of illegal immigrants without documentation claim they are a US citizen as well.
For what it's worth, OP article says that the court documents claim he admitted to entering the country illegal. Guy himself denies this.
> Court documents say a Border Patrol agent arrested Hermosillo “at or near Nogales, Arizona, without proper immigration documents” and that Hermosillo admitted to illegally entering the U.S.
> Hermosillo and his girlfriend, who have a 9-month-old child together, live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and are visiting family in Tucson. He says he has never been to Nogales.
The person would have a social security number, and face photographs in various government databases. Verification ought to be easy peasy. They do it all the time for people abroad who lose their passports while traveling.
Also, as you suggested yourself, even if he didn't have an ID on him, he would have had one at home.
I would like to know how far from the “norm” ICE has deviated since January 19, 2025.
It’s possible this is something that happens, and just wasn’t widely reported before now, but is because of the ethnophobic nature of our current administration.
It’s also possible this is far outside of the norm and deserves more attention than it’s getting just on the face of its irregularity.
I cannot find a non-AI generated (in my admittedly quick search) list of statistics of how many US citizens have been detained by ICE (and I do not trust that AI generated answers are accurate), so I am left with feelings, and my feelings indicate this would have been a news story no matter how rarely or often it happens, and therefore is worthy of discussion and reflection as to whether our border policies accurately reflect what we say our values are.
They need to file a massive lawsuit against the US government, the agents that apprehended an innocent citizen and all parties involved. This is NOT OK.
Yeah, a lawsuit would be a strong chess move. Too bad it doesn't work on the opponent who already flipped the table with the board and is drawing a knife on you.
Perhaps. Supreme court preemptively reminding the government it has to stop deportations until court case is resolved has been reported as quite unusual. On the other hand, the only people who are empowered to punish Trump are terrified of him and the people he's pardoned.
Pretty sure ICE has sovereign immunity which is how they get away with this.
They also have deputized every state and even local law enforcement with their powers.
This has happened at least a dozen times this year, US Citizen detained for days.
Last story I read the judge immediately realized the mistake and wanted him released but ICE had put a hold on him so he had to go back to jail FOR NO CRIME, US CITIZEN BORN IN USA
Go ahead, it'll get thrown out due to qualified (read: absolutely unconditional) immunity. And on the microscopic chance it doesn't, Trump will pardon everyone involved and talk about what heroic hardworking Americans they were for standing up to the woke mob.
You best start believing in Russia-style mafiocracy, you're in one.
I was abused at this same port of entry, including being jailed as a USC.
Prior at this same port, a woman was warrantlessly vaginally "searched" via manual manipulation at the direction of CBP. She lost. And I contacted her attorneys with my own case, they said I would lose too.
But this was under Biden, so no one gave a shit. They don't give a shit unless it suits their political agenda.
Are we done with the great deportation experiment? Giving amnesty like Reagan or Bush Jr's visa proposal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guest_worker_program) would make us safer just due to IDing everyone, and richer due to taxing more people. That's the one great thing about America, we'll try every bad thing at least once (internment camps, segregation, false wars), and then we realize we're actually not down with it.
We can tighten down the immigration entrance policy after we humanely deal with what has already happened.
I know. The left has not seriously put thought into how to actually tighten and have a sane entrance/enforcement policy either. This is a bipartisan issue that requires a) humanity b) reality c) practicality. We don't have the political leadership to get us there yet, but it is at least grass roots to begin having the two reasonable sides even discussing it in far corners of the internet (maybe it'll bubble up). Obstinance on both sides certainly is getting us nowhere, because kicking out whoever Trump is going to kick out is going to be undone by the next Democrat, so back to square one, right?
I never thought I'd say Bush Jr had one of the best policies on this ever, and it was the Democrats that stopped it. So, I know the left isn't nearly correct on it. That I don't even think a whole wall is stupid if we humanely incorporate whoever already built a life here.
We had a shot at a general amnesty or reformed guest worker program in the mid 2000s to early 2010s, but unions like the UFCW (the primary decider of elections in NV) and others in the AFL-CIO opposed it.
That said, the AFL-CIO of today is much more white collar and diverse compared to that of 20 years ago, so it wouldn't be as brutal for their locals.
I've said this a thousand times: all unions aren't equal, and we as Dems need to drop the Midwest (aside from MN and IL, where unions are AFL-CIO aligned, and demographics are Dem aligned) and the UAW+ILU. The GOP has a platform that is closer aligned to their locals, and national has flipped as a result.
Give up the rust belt, and concentrate on shoring up UFCW heavy states like NV, AZ, GA, and NC.
Pandering to the UAW and ILU cause the Biden admin to snub Musk, which enraged an already unstable egotistical person to go into the deep end [0], and the UAW and ILU anyhow decided to endorse the Trump admin's current moves [1]. So much for making an enemy.
Stop pandering to the Hank Hills - they will vote red.
Of course, this won't change - such a change would inevitably break a lot of factions internally in the Dems, and would be fought tooth and nail by the Shapiros and Whitmers.
I was a tourist in the US and drove towards one of these ICE checkpoints in southern AZ I’ve heard so much about.
I was perfectly legal, but I was worried, started to think about where my passport was in the car, etc.
Before I could even stop the guy waived me through.
I’m white.
> FTA: Court documents say a Border Patrol agent arrested Hermosillo “at or near Nogales, Arizona, without proper immigration documents” and that Hermosillo admitted to illegally entering the U.S.
the article indicates he was visiting the area from where he lived in New Mexico and he was "lost", but it's not clear from the article whether he was seen crossing the border, or other evidence like that.
The real answer is that we need to align incentives and encourage the rule of law by getting rid of this blanket sovereign immunity. Held by the government for 10 days while the government slowly figures out that they shouldn't be holding you? Here's a hefty check compensating for your time, emotional distress, and other damages. Obviously, the chance of this happening with Krasnov in office is a pipe dream, but regardless of where we're at we need to remember which direction is forwards.
You just need to get back to the true meaning of bureaucracy: drone gov workers applying the law. Instead border officials were empowered to be mini dictators, a lot of power, no responsibility, and guess what, a bunch of them turn out to be dumb, malicious or raging racists.
Bureaucracy has different failure modes, but failures still happen. The point is to make the government accountable for its own actions, which increases its legitimacy and sets up an incentive to minimize the amount of harm it causes.
I think government accountability, which includes making government agents and agencies beholden to the laws they're purporting to uphold, would have helped prevent many of the frustrations and "both sides" arguments that made otherwise reasonable people shut off their reasoning and buy into the destructionist movement.
As for the realities of our current situation, I acknowledged that in my last sentence.
Does the article happen to say how many were denied judicial recourse and summarily shipped to an extrajudicial concentration camp?
Just because the authoritarianism problem has been slow burning for a while doesn't mean we're not facing an urgent problem of a new degree with this simple-minded fascist at the helm.
Assuming we have fair elections in the future, MAGA is screwed. Every demographic they made gains with last election is being targeted by this administration.
Lol never been to the US/Mex crossing? Almost everytime I cross I see like 20 hispanic looking people with nothing but a birth certificate. They let them right across back into the US, meanwhile I used US passport and they locked me up, printed me, and interrogated me about where I was really born (I look super white and talk with an American accent).
In my experience CBP doesn't actually care that much about whether you have ID, but if you don't it just makes it easier for them if they decide to pick you out as the person they want to torture for the day.
The sword cuts two ways and once genie has been let out it’s hard to put back. A lot of DEI was political posturing for prior governments and this one has retroactively punished institutions globally for that. So, be careful whose table you eat at today as tomorrow is another day.
The article is a bit confusing because the story they tell is ICE said he told them he was illegal but he maintains he never said that as he said he was a citizen. It’s the basic playbook of corrupt cops. ICE has demonstrably become out of control. I worry they are transforming into a lawless police force for the executive.
