... and they're trying to end birthright citizenship. I.e. people who are literally not immigrants (were born here and perhaps have never lived anywhere else) are already being lined up for this.
It's not unreasonable to see the situation as "Then they came for the Jews, and the administration finally deported the people who were coming for the Jews".
The president's literal argument for doing it is that the activist groups are coming for all of American life.
I'm not a big fan of either side's rhetoric, but clearly the horseshoe has become a ring.
> I'm not a big fan of either side's rhetoric, but clearly the horseshoe has become a ring.
Either side? Tell me which "side" does that sound like?
- hostility towards non traditional sexuality
- immigration being used as the scapegoat for economic problems
- strong feeling of national exceptionalism
- assault on women's productivity rights
- politicizing of science
- deportation for political reasons
- "Roman" salutes
It brings parallels with some things happening in Europe some time ago.
> activist groups are coming for all of American life.
I wonder who's actually going for all of American life though. Let's take Birthright citizenship, which has been established in 1868. Is that American life enough for you?
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
And guess who goes against this American way of life value? An orange grandpa married to an immigrant. You really can't make this up.
> Either side? Tell me which "side" does that sound like?
Up until you got to the "Roman" salutes, it sounded like both sides in the US.
Or rather, it will sound like whichever side you aren't. That's the point.
But using "Then they came for the Jews" when you're discussing deportation of these particular people is perhaps a new level of absurdity in the discourse.
> "Roman" salutes, it sounded like both sides in the US.
The liberals / Dems can barely organize a picnic. They can't agree on anything. There is no Fox News, there is nobody they bow down to. The obsequiousness to Trump is unprecendented.
> If a president stretched the limits of executive power to go after guns, half of the country would cheer for it.
That's speculation about specuation about an undefined interpretation. We are bounded by law, including by the Constitution.
> The Constitution is a living document, and the line is constantly pushed back and forth on its interpretation and enforcement.
There is variation in interpretation, but within bounds. If you want to eliminate Constitutional gun rights, you would need to repeal the 2nd Amendment.
Ok, but if we want to repeal it there's a defined process for that. The president doesn't just get to declare people's citizenship invalid, that's Nazi shit. That's why I call Trump and everyone who tacitly or explicitly supports him a Nazi. He's trying to rule by executive fiat to enforce white nationalism.
> The president's literal argument for doing it is that the activist groups are coming for all of American life.
What is American life? Why can't people criticize whatever they want - that is American life.
> "Then they came for the Jews, and the administration finally deported the people who were coming for the Jews"
The vast majority of antisemitism is on the right. The administration does nothing about it (and supports and legitimizes much of it).
Also, the Jews will be next. By attacking critics of Judaism, they are entrapping Jewish people (and others) in legitimzing this oppression, and in making themselves into targets of hate. Then when the white supremecists turn on them, and say Jews are conspiring to control American, what will these Jewish supporters of arrests, oppression, and deportations say?
Most of the pro-Palestine or anti-Zionist content I see is denouncing Israeli war crimes and genocide. No one is bashing Jews because of their ethnicity or religion.
Also a lot of this comes from the Jews (who are then attacked for being confused or..... antisemitic)
We're not at the point of people hunting Jews because they're Jews. We are at the point when opposing targeting/killing medics, press, children or hospitals may result in being kidnapped from the street and either locked up without charges or trafficked to the torture camp.
I do not disagree with your comment in general, I disagree with you putting "Judaism" while the almost all the critique and rebuke is aimed at the Israeli war crimes or the Zionist supremacy ideology.
Got called a "self-hating Jew" for the first time on Mastodon a year ago, for criticizing Israel.
Unfortunately for those of us in the diaspora, Israel has really muddied the waters by convincing people that anti-Israel = antisemitism, because it's given real antisemites cover. E.g., like when the ADL came to Musk's defense after his Nazi salute because he officially supported Israel.
Almost all far-right / neo-nazis groups with a long (real) antisemitism trajectory like the ones Elon Musk supports are now pro-Israel and pro-Gaza genocide. Sounds weird, but it makes total sense, as:
- The Zionist project is an ethno-state, just like those groups want for their countries. This also echoes the Zionist-nazi collaborations before WWII to move jewish population out of Germany to Palestine.
- Israel works as an spearhead of the global imperialism configuration, if you support imperialism on the Middle East -as those groups and their bourgeoisie do- you must support Israel.
- European neo-nazi groups are militant against immigration, and a big chunk of that immigration to their countries is muslim, so they are more than open to the Israel narratives against the muslim world... even the most extremist ones that de-humanizes Gaza children ("those children are future terrorists").
> I do not disagree with your comment in general, I disagree with you putting "Judaism" while the almost all the critique and rebuke is aimed at the Israeli war crimes or the Zionist supremacy ideology.
It's good that you brought this up!
It's a common right-wing tactic to conflate themselves with the purest version of something that is highly regarded and hide behind it. E.g the Nazis conflated themselves with "pure" Germanness, the fascists in Italy conflated themselves with "pure" Italianness, the same way now Israel conflates itself with Judaism/Jewishness. Then it naturally follows that if you attack Israel's genocide of the people in Palestine, you are attacking Judaism/Jewishness. If you question Netanyahu's genocidal ultra-supremacist ideology (which many Holocaust survivors, Jewish themselves, have done repeatedly), you are anti-Jewish, and so on.
A similar thing is happening in the US where the current administration is trying to position itself as America-first, so naturally any critique on them must be anti-American, right? You will find that this playbook is always the same. First will be immigrants, then non-traditional sexual orientations and women's reproductive rights, then the press and universities and finally just whoever they feel like.
Fortunately, if history goes to show us anything, it's these hate-fueled-orders always end up imploding.
> Fortunately, if history goes to show us anything, it's these hate-fueled-orders always end up imploding.
That's taking the 'in the long run' analysis to an extreme.
In WWII, after hundreds of millions died - including over 10 million murdered by the hate-filled - major parts of the world were devestated, and the free world united in a massive war, the hate-fueled were stopped. They didn't implode.
The idea that they will implode is a common fantasy that you (and many others) won't have to do anthing, face their fears, fight an uncertain fight. If you really believed they would implode, the fight would be certain. They won't stop until you stop them.
> And the same way now progressives conflate Zionists with White supremacists / Nazi
Nazism and Zionism are both ultra-right-wing nationalistic ideologies. The conflation doesn't stop on the surface though, but it runs deep in the actions of the two states: The Nazi state during WW2, and the Israeli state:
Yes Zionists are the Nazis and Hamas are the good guys I got it. Thanks for all the links I read each and every one of them , especially Wikipedia articles about Nazi concentration camps I've never heard of that.
I am sure I won't hear the end of it how the torture concentration camp of the Nazis is completely different from the much more civilized and completely different torture detention camp of the Israelis. Israelis' of course, have a high regard for their prisoners' well being, especially considering they call them "animals": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr24GcCDgyM
> Yes Zionists are the Nazis and Hamas are the good guys I got it
I probably shouldn't bite, but here it goes:
Here are some stats even before the current war started.
I am sure when some Nazis were killed by the French Resistance, somebody Nazi apologist was saying: "see, French are also bad, because they are killing the poor Germans". However, there is a very important distinction:
And nobody says Hamas are the good guys: both the leaders of Hamas
and Netanyahu and his genocidal posse are sought to be trialed by the ICC for war crimes (https://www.icc-cpi.int/defendant/netanyahu).
- Both are far-right ideologies based on some feeling of superiority (racial or national/religious)
I mean, yeah, there are differences in the "flavor", like fascism in Italy was different from Nazism in Germany and is different than the contemporary genocidal Zionism by the Palestinian state, but the similarities are far more than the small differences.
Not sure what "fair exchange" would mean here. It looks like
a) A war / protracted conflict , not some kind of one sided genocide. Jews haven't killed thousands of Germans or tried to bring down the German state. Also, if there is one side that is sympathetic to Nazi ideology it is actually historically the Palestinian side (see Mufti relations with Hitler and his contributions to the final solution).
b) One side is clearly stronger than the other side (however, the weak side is doing everything it can to bring the casaulties numbers up. We know Hamas is doing this).
Israel is not going to try get more Israelis killed just so progressives become happier.
Israel is bulldozing Palestinian houses, bombards working hospitals, forbids (and shoots) humanitarian aid, starves the opponent, stops their electricity, and calls them animals. Why not respond to that?
> Not sure what "fair exchange" would mean here. It looks like
Again, when a nation occupies another nation's territory, it's normal that there are resistance movements. The numbers actually suggest not a war of army vs army but instead warfare on Palestinian territory, in which thousands of innocent Palestinians are caught in the crossfire.
Are those 13,000+ children that Israel killed part of Hamas? Is everybody in Palestine Hamas? Or is it the excuse of a Zionist-apologist for bombarding innocents?
> Israel is not going to try get more Israelis killed just so progressives become happier.
Well, actually again, you are conflating the actions of the genocidal Israeli state and of the wanted war criminal Netanyahu, with the will of the Israeli people, who repeatedly protested against his genocidal regime.
Zionism is the same as Nazism, a type of fascism, predicated on the fact that some are "better" and "chosen" and have a right to and deserve more than others just because of their race/skin color/nationality/religion.
> The president's literal argument for doing it is that the activist groups are coming for all of American life.
American life is defined by the acceptance of dissent and the encouragement of even distasteful free speech. If that's not American, what even is American?
Your funds might be cut off though: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/07/trump-...
Or your president might declare a wartime law to deport all the immigrants: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp34ylep987o
Or you, a honors student (but not a citizen) might find yourself in an unmarked van if you dared to question the powers that be. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrn57340xlo
Sure it happens to immigrants only for now, brings memory to this poem:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.