"The tragic end of CBS News" - Robert Reich

Click here for Robert Reich's Substack entry of February 12, 2026, entitled "The tragic end of CBS News," subtitled "Another trusted source of information bites the dust under Trump." It starts:

Producer Alicia Hastey departed CBS News Wednesday, saying the kind of work she came to do was “increasingly becoming impossible,” as stories were now evaluated “not just on their journalistic merit but on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations.” 

Whose ideological expectations was Hastey referring to? Would it be impertinent for me to suggest it’s the sociopath in the Oval Office?

Reich goes on to list several offenses that have already been committed by CBS News under recently appointed editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and her lightweight anchor, Tony Dokoupil, and references CBS's ties to Trump crony Larry Ellison and his son, David. Reich says:

Weiss doesn’t exactly report to Donald Trump, of course. Trump runs CBS News the way he runs Venezuela — with a widely-understood threat that he’ll wreak havoc if it doesn’t do what he wants.

 Reich concludes:

I’m old enough to remember when CBS News would never have surrendered to a demagogic president. But that was when CBS News — the home of Edward R. Murrow (who also revealed to America the danger of Joe McCarthy) and Walter Cronkite — was independent of the rest of CBS. And when the top management of CBS felt they had responsibilities to the American public that transcended making money for CBS’s investors.

America can survive without a “60 Minutes” it can trust, just as we can survive without trustworthy editorial pages of the Washington Post — which Jeff Bezos has censored, and whose newsroom he just gutted.

But at some point, as Trump continues to repress criticism of him and his regime, American democracy is compromised beyond repair.

 

 

Laundry list - Trump's offenses

This is copied from a post on Twitter from "Grandpa Snarky":

I owe my Trump-supporting friends an apology. I’ve been critical of the Trump presidency and am still exhausted from the experience. But to be fair, President Trump wasn’t that bad, other than when: 

He incited an insurrection against the government Mismanaged a pandemic that killed nearly half a million Americans 

Separated children from their families, and lost those children in the bureaucracy 

Tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church 

Tried to block all Muslims from entering the country

Got impeached, got impeached again 

Had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history 

Pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden 

Fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia 

Bragged about firing the FBI director on TV 

Took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community 

Diverted military funding to build his wall 

Caused the longest government shutdown in US history 

Called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate" 

Lied 30,000 times 

Banned transgender people from serving in the military 

Ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions 

Vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers 

Refused to release his tax returns 

Increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion 

Had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history 

Called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers 

Coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist 

Refused to concede the 2020 election 

Hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House 

Walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl 

Called neo-Nazis “very fine people” 

Suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID 

Abandoned our allies, the Kurds, to Turkey 

Pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans 

Incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic 

Withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords 

Withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal 

Withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership, which was designed to block China’s advances 

Insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter 

Pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op 

Failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies 

Called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries 

Called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation" 

Claimed that he single-handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere 

Forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader 

Believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 

Berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe 

Threatened military action against Greenland 

Colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges 

Repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people" 

Claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases 

Violated the emoluments clause 

Told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public 

Called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “pussy” for following the Constitution 

Nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet 

Nominated a corrupt head of the EPA 

Nominated a corrupt head of HHS 

Nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department 

Nominated a corrupt head of the USDA 

Praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies 

Refused to allow the presidential transition to begin 

Insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death 

Spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president 

Falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote 

Falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year 

Considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions 

Mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID 

Locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones 

Used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus" 

Hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses, including his campaign manager and national security adviser 

Pardoned several of his shady associates 

Gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressman who amplified his batshit-crazy conspiracy theories 

Got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!) 

Had a Secretary of State who called him a moron 

Forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history 

Botched the COVID vaccine rollout 

Tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him 

Charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties 

Constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate 

Claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear 

Called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas" 

Used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise 

Opened up millions of acres of pristine federal lands to development and drilling 

Got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers 

Claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US 

Ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings 

Blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining 

Redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle 

Got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters" 

Threatened to go after social media companies, in clear violation of the Constitution 

Botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico; threw paper towels and toilet paper at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them 

Pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes 

Thought that the Virgin islands had a President 

Drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane 

Allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing 

Rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos 

Pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID 

Rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers 

Held blatant campaign rallies at the White House 

Tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man 

Refused to attend his successors’ inauguration 

Nominated the worst Education Secretary in history 

Threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted 

Attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci 

Promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t) 

Allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues 

Struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble 

Called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ" 

Threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders 

Went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic 

Claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts" 

Seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution 

Demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director 

Praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles 

Completely gutted the Voice of America 

Placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service 

Claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower 

Suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country 

Suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered, with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public 

Overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported 

Reduced the number of refugees the US accepts 

Insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames 

Gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential Medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address 

Named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties 

Eliminated the White House office of pandemic response 

Used soldiers as campaign props 

Fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him 

Demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade 

Hired a ton of white nationalists 

Politicized the civil service 

Did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government 

Falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts 

Claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won 

Insulted reporters of color and women reporters and women reporters of color 

Suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs 

Attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him 

Summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election 

Spent countless hours every day watching Fox News 

Refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas 

Hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer 

Tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him 

Acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney 

Attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a women who accused him of sexual assault 

Held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present 

Didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin, so that the US had to find out via Russian media 

Stopped holding press briefings for months at a time 

"Ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power 

Led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform 

Claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers 

Tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course 

Suggested that the government nuke hurricanes 

Suggested that wind turbines cause cancer 

Said that he had a special aptitude for science 

Fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure 

Blurted out classified information to Russian officials 

Tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida 

Fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban 

Hired Stephen Miller 

Openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them 

Interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel 

Abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war 

Tried to get Russia back into the G7 

Held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden 

Seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive 

Lost 60 election fraud cases in court, including before judges he had nominated 

Falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t 

Shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies 

Still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan 

Still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks" 

Forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID 

Told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by" 

F***ed up the Census 

Withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic 

Did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings" 

Allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act 

Seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican 

Stood before CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win 

Constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president, which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor, whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump 

Claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War, even though he died 16 years before it happened 

Said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake 

Claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him 

Claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President 

Created a commission to whitewash American history 

Retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain 

Claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun, even though there was an armed security guard there 

Hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims 

Had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons, even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others 

Billed the Secret Service for higher-than-market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties 

Apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House 

Stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians 

Falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police 

Said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about 

Gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic 

Tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax 

Said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states 

Deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented 

Claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln 

Touted a “super-duper” secret “hypersonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all 

Retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile 

Forced through security clearances for his family 

Suggested that police officers should rough up suspects 

Suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs 

Tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender 

Suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher 

Nominated a climate change skeptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy 

Retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden had played a song called “F**k tha Police” at a campaign event 

Hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags 

Accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address 

Claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia 

Mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasely Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault 

For 15 years was best friend of the biggest sexual predictor of young girls 

Obsessed over low-flow toilets 

Ordered the re-release of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release 

Called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek) 

Hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech 

Took advice from the MyPillow guy 

Claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists 

Said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading political opponent 

Never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign 

Falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent 

Announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria, which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest 

Insulted the leaders of Canada, France, Britain, Germany, and Sweden

Falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues 

Blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually 

Continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders 

Said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked 

Left a NATO summit early in a huff 

Stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of 5 knows not to do that 

Called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary 

Refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise

And a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember at the moment, and that was just his FIRST term. Do I need to list what's happened since then?????? 

Whoever wrote this deserves credit, but I don't know who it is.

ICE will "surround the polls" in the November mid-terms

 Here's the opening of an article at Democracy Docket, February 4:

Steve Bannon says ICE will ‘surround the polls’ as Trump doubles down on taking over elections

Former senior advisor to President Donald Trump Steve Bannon said Tuesday that the federal government is planning to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to patrol polling stations during this year’s midterm elections.

“We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November,” Bannon, still a figure of influence in the administration, said on Tuesday’s episode of his War Room podcast, addressing Democrats. “We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.”

The comments come amid rising concerns that Trump is plotting to interfere in this year’s midterms.

 Unfortunately, the rest is behind Democracy Docket's paywall.

 

 

Krugman on the cowardice of SCOTUS

Click here for Paul Krugman's Substack entry for February 4, 2026, entitled "Profiles in Cowardice, Tariff Edition, subtitled "The Supreme Court's silence says volumes."

The Constitution is quite explicit in saying that Congress alone has the right to levy tariffs. Trump is end-running Congress by claiming he has the right to act in a "national emergency." There is of course no emergency; it's another Trump lie. But that's the defense he's putting up in a case argued in the Supreme Court in early November. We're still waiting for a decision.

 Krugman explains why SCOTUS is dragging its feet on coming to a decision. Trump has no case; it's open and shut. So if they decide in his favor, they are announcing to the world that they are not a court of justice, but are simply partisan hacks in Trump's pocket. But if they make what everyone knows to be the right decision and go against Trump, it will be a humiliating blow for him, and they will be ostracized from the social milieu they live in, where they are comfortably surrounded by right-wing billionaires and Republican luminaries. Krugman says:

They share in the privilege and glitter of that scene even if they aren’t outright corrupt — even if they aren’t all like Clarence Thomas, who, as ProPublica revealed, has taken multiple lavish vacations paid for by billionaire Harlan Crow. 

In fact, with death threats skyrocketing against people who oppose Trump, perhaps judges, SCOTUS among them, fear actual physical danger if they come to a decision that would certainly damage Trump. 

Jeff Bezos's film "Melania" is a huge bribe.

Click here for Robert Reich's Substack entry for February 2, 2026, entitled: "Melania: The Movie. The Bribe. The Shame," subtitled "Bezos's illegal payoff."

 He starts: 

I haven’t seen it. I hope you don’t, either.

This, from one of the kinder reviews:

“Across some 104 minutes, the first lady delivers these blatantly scripted and meaningless narrations with all the conviction of someone who just woke up from a two-hour nap and can’t remember what day it is.”

Reich states:

My purpose today is less to highlight this inane excuse for a film than to talk about its real excuse — allowing Jeff Bezos to give a big fat bribe to the president of the United States. 

He goes on to state some of Bezos's business ventures that are dependent on Trump's goodwill -- for example,  "Bezos’s Amazon Web Services has a $1 billion agreement with the General Services Administration for cloud services, which presumably Bezos would like renewed."

He says he hopes American business leaders who knuckled under to Trump will be "condemned to the hellfire they deserve for helping destroy American democracy." In this category he lists Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Larry and David Ellison, Shari Redstone and the board of Paramount; Bob Iger, CEO of Disney; Debra O'Connell, president of ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks; Elon Musk; Tim Cook of Apple, crypto magnates Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss; oil tycoon Harold Hamm; Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman -- but especially Jeff Bezos: "Jeff Bezos, with his $75 million bribe of Trump, will deserve a special place in the innermost ring of hell."

The $40 million he paid Melania Trump’s production company is at least $35 million more than the cost of typical high-end documentaries. (By way of comparison, Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films produced “RBG,” a documentary about the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for around $1 million.)

Melania Trump pocketed more than 70 percent of that $40 million — or more than $28 million — the Journal reported.

The additional $35 million Bezos shelled out for marketing “Melania” is 10 times what other high-profile documentaries spend on marketing. The promotional budget for “RBG” was about $3 million. (To be sure, Melania Trump is no Ruth Bader Ginsburg, so I suppose you might argue that Melania needed a larger promo budget. But this much larger?)

He concludes by saying "Melania" was never a financial investment:

Of course it’s an outright bribe.

If America still had a Department of Justice, Bezos would be indicted for bribery of a public official pursuant to 18 U.S. Code § 201, which criminalizes offering or giving anything of value to a public official with the intent to influence their official actions. Penalty: imprisonment for up to 15 years.

(Also note: The U.S. Constitution lists taking a bribe as an impeachable offense for a president.)

There’s a statute of limitations for criminal prosecution of such bribes: Prosecution must begin within five years of the deed.

So, my friends, if America gets a true Justice Department starting in January of 2029, Bezos’s inferno may become a reality.

 

State terror in America

Click here for an excellent op-ed in The New York Times by M. Gessen, entitled "State Terror has Arrived." Gessen begins:

After the past three weeks of brutality in Minneapolis, it should no longer be possible to say that the Trump administration seeks merely to govern this nation. It seeks to reduce us all to a state of constant fear — a fear of violence from which some people may at a given moment be spared, but from which no one will ever be truly safe. That is our new national reality. State terror has arrived. 

He compares what is going on in America today to state terror in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, and finishes:

The toolbox isn’t particularly varied. President Trump is using all the instruments: the reported quotas for ICE arrests; the paramilitary force made up of thugs drunk on their own brutality; the spectacle of random violence, particularly in city streets; the postmortem vilification of the victims. It’s only natural that our brains struggle to find logic in what we are seeing. There is a logic, and this logic has a name. It’s called state terror. 

President Obama on the shooting of Alex Pretti

Statement by President Obama and Mrs. Obama:

JANUARY 25, 2026

"The killing of Alex Pretti is a heartbreaking tragedy. It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.

Federal law enforcement and immigration agents have a tough job. But Americans expect them to carry out their duties in a lawful, accountable way, and to work with, rather than against, state and local officials to ensure public safety.

That's not what we're seeing in Minnesota. In fact, we're seeing the opposite.

For weeks now, people across the country have been rightly outraged by the spectacle of masked ICE recruits and other federal agents acting with impunity and engaging in tactics that seem designed to intimidate, harass, provoke and endanger the residents of a major American city. These unprecedented tactics—which even the former top lawyer of the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration has characterized as embarrassing, lawless and cruel—have now resulted in the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens. And yet rather than trying to impose some semblance of discipline and accountability over the agents they've deployed, the President and current administration officials seem eager to escalate the situation, while offering public explanations for the shootings of Mr. Pretti and Renee Good that aren't informed by any serious investigation—and that appear to be directly contradicted by video evidence.

This has to stop. I would hope that after this most recent tragedy, administration officials will reconsider their approach, and start finding ways to work constructively with Governor Walz and Mayor Frey as well as state and local police to avert more chaos and achieve legitimate law enforcement goals.

In the meantime, every American should support and draw inspiration from the wave of peaceful protests in Minneapolis and other parts of the country. They are a timely reminder that ultimately it's up to each of us as citizens to speak out against injustice, protect our basic freedoms, and hold our government accountable."

 Here's an entry on Democracy Docket by stalwart Democratic lawyer Marc Elias:

January 24, 2026

Only a day before Donald Trump stood on a global stage and declared that he was prosecuting political enemies, Prime Minister Mark Carney issued an important warning: “We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.”  In his observation, Carney touched on America’s Achilles’ heel and the challenge for the pro-democracy movement. Though the United States is a young country, we celebrate it as the world’s oldest democracy. Though Jim Crow ended only a generation ago, we recite how this country guarantees liberty and justice for all.  The United States’ identity is entangled in nostalgia. We tell ourselves that the Statue of Liberty’s torch guided immigrants towards a beacon of hope. Our presidents paved the path to peace in two world wars. We are not only a world power, but the global light of justice and liberty.  There is a reason why Donald Trump’s slogan to Make America Great Again resonated with the masses, even though it excluded so many. Like many families, mine came to America to flee persecution. Under the Russian czars, they lived in the Pale of Settlement — the only area in the empire where Jews were allowed to legally reside. Life in the Pale was difficult. Jewish families were subject to pogroms, where they would be beaten, killed and expelled from their villages.   America wasn’t the only safe haven, but it was certainly a safe haven for many — including my family. As Holocaust survivor Benjamin Meed was told when his boat docked at New York Harbor after the long journey from Warsaw, “Everything is open to you. What you do is up to you.”  That America doesn’t exist anymore. And we cannot afford to be nostalgic for it. Yet, we still are.  During his testimony on Thursday, former Special Counsel Jack Smith warned: “If we do not hold the most powerful people in our society to the same standards, the rule of law, it can be catastrophic. It can endanger our election process, it can endanger election workers and ultimately, our democracy.”  While I agree with the threat posed by Trump, I worry about Smith’s use of the word “if.” We do not hold the most powerful people in our society to the same standards. The rule of law is not applied fairly or to all.   Our election process is already endangered. Election officials are regularly doxed and attacked by Trump and his supporters. Our democracy is already on life support. It is already catastrophic.   Worse still, it’s not coming back. Those who are looking in the rearview mirror and expecting the rule of law to crawl back to us are fooling themselves. Those who expect the old norms and institutions to protect us are endangering our democracy. For over a year now, Trump has targeted and threatened his political opponents. His administration has ignored court orders. His party is actively trying to manipulate and rig the next election for his political party.   The paradox of the current moment is that while none of this is normal, it is also not extraordinary. It is the country in which we live, and we are not going back to a previous era. Those who sit around and insist things will revert after Trump is gone have learned nothing from the history of why many of our families once fled to this country.   It’s heartbreaking that this is what the United States has come to. But we are doing ourselves a disservice by thinking otherwise.   From what I witnessed at Davos, our NATO allies have come to terms with the new world order. The United States is no longer a steady ally and a trusted global power — but an unstable volcano ready to erupt. We cannot be looked to for democracy, nor can we be the torchbearers for peace. They should be wary of us, and they should be prepared for uncertainty.  Just as nostalgia is not a strategy for them, it cannot be one for those of us who care about democracy and free and fair elections.   There are no longer huddled masses at the Statue of Liberty. Instead, we see ICE agents terrorizing our cities.   Our government no longer believes that its power comes from the consent of the governed. Instead, Trump believes power comes from threats and force.   Most importantly, we no longer have a country in which we have one system of justice for all, and no one is above the law.   However, if we allow ourselves to let go of nostalgia and recognize our current reality, we can, as Carney said, “build something better, stronger, more just.”

Courageous Carney vs. Demented Donald

Click here for Paul Krugman's Substack entry for January 22. It's a comparison of Mark Carney's and Donald Trump's statements at the Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum.

Carney's speech at Davos - met with wide acclaim

Trump despises weakness, and treats those who roll over for him with contempt. Here is Mark Carney's courageous statement of Canada's position:

Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must. This aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable — the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself.

And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety. It won’t. So, what are our options?

In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless. In it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself?

His answer began with a green grocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world, unite!” He does not believe it. No one believes it. But he places the sign anyway — to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists.

Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

Havel called this “living within a lie.” The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing — when the greengrocer removes his sign — the illusion begins to crack.

It is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.

For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, praised its principles, and benefited from its predictability. We could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

This bargain no longer works.

Let me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics laid bare the risks of extreme global integration.

More recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

You cannot “live within the lie” of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.

The multilateral institutions on which middle powers relied— the WTO, the UN, the COP—the architecture of collective problem solving — are greatly diminished.

As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy: in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance, and supply chains.

This impulse is understandable. A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.

But let us be clear-eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable.

And there is another truth: If great powers abandon even the pretence of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from ‘transactionalism’ become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships.

Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. Buy insurance. Increase options. This rebuilds sovereignty — sovereignty which was once grounded in rules—but which will be increasingly anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.

This classic risk management comes at a price.

But that cost of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty, can also be shared. Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortress.

Shared standards reduce fragmentation. Complementarities are positive sum.

The question for middle powers, like Canada, is not whether to adapt to this new reality. We must. The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls — or whether we can do something more ambitious.

Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture.

Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumption that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security is no longer valid.

Our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb has termed ‘values-based realism’ — or, to put it another way, we aim to be principled and pragmatic.

Principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter, respect for human rights.

Pragmatic in recognising that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner shares our values. We are engaging broadly, strategically, with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait for the world as we wish it to be.

Canada is calibrating our relationships, so their depth reflects our values. We are prioritising broad engagement to maximise our influence, given the fluidity of the world, the risks that this poses, and the stakes for what comes next.

We are no longer relying on just the strength of our values, but also on the value of our strength.

We are building that strength at home.

Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on incomes, capital gains and business investment, we have removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade, and we are fast-tracking a trillion dollars of investment in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors, and beyond.

We are doubling our defence spending by 2030 and are doing so in ways that builds our domestic industries.

We are rapidly diversifying abroad. We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the European Union, including joining SAFE, Europe’s defence procurement arrangements.

We have signed twelve other trade and security deals on four continents in the last six months. In the past few days, we have concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We are negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines, Mercosur.

To help solve global problems, we are pursuing variable geometry— different coalitions for different issues, based on values and interests.

On Ukraine, we are a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per-capita contributors to its defence and security. On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future. Our commitment to Article 5 is unwavering.

We are working with our NATO allies (including the Nordic Baltic 8) to further secure the alliance’s northern and western flanks, including through unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, submarines, aircraft, and boots on the ground.

On plurilateral trade, we are championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union, creating a new trading block of 1.5 billion people. On critical minerals, we are forming buyer’s clubs anchored in the G7 so that the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. On AI, we are cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure we will not ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyperscalers.

This is not naive multilateralism. Nor is it relying on diminished institutions. It is building the coalitions that work, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations.

And it is creating a dense web of connections across trade, investment, culture on which we can draw for future challenges and opportunities.Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.

Great powers can afford to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity, the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not. But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness.

We accept what is offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating. This is not sovereignty. It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.

In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: to compete with each other for favour or to combine to create a third path with impact.

We should not allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong — if we choose to wield it together. Which brings me back to Havel. What would it mean for middle powers to “live in truth”?

It means naming reality. Stop invoking the “rules-based international order” as though it still functions as advertised. Call the system what it is: a period where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as a weapon of coercion.

It means acting consistently. Apply the same standards to allies and rivals.

When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window. It means building what we claim to believe in. Rather than waiting for the hegemon to restore an order it is dismantling, create institutions and agreements that function as described.

And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion. Building a strong domestic economy should always be every government’s priority. Diversification internationally is not just economic prudence; it is the material foundation for honest foreign policy. Countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.

Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world’s largest and most sophisticated investors. We have capital, talent, and a government with the immense fiscal capacity to act decisively.

And we have the values to which many others aspire.

Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse, and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability. We are a stable, reliable partner—in a world that is anything but—a partner that builds and values relationships for the long term.

Canada has something else: a recognition of what is happening and a determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is. We are taking the sign out of the window.

The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, and more just.

This is the task of the middle powers, who have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from a world of genuine cooperation.

The powerful have their power. But we have something too — the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together.

That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently.

And it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.

"Caring Guy" knocks it out of the park -- again.

@AGPamBondi

❌ “Restored public safety”
Public safety has not been restored. Americans are less safe, not more, and much of the fear and harm is coming from the government itself. Armed federal agents using aggressive tactics, killing people in their cars, and operating with…

— Caring Guy💙🇺🇸🌈✌🏻 (@caringguy1957) January 21, 2026

Trump's madness

There are a wealth of posts out there castigating Trump. Here's a good one, by Michael Jochum:

One year in — and the stench is unmistakable.

 

Donald Trump, at seventy-nine, has come to embody the very worst distortions of the baby-boom generation he so desperately claims to represent. Where there could have been wisdom, there is only vanity. Where there might have been experience, there is only grievance. Where age should have brought perspective, it has produced nothing but brittle ego and reactionary cruelty.

 

We, most of the people of the United States, were humiliated that you were president in 2016. Now, in 2025, we are not merely embarrassed, we are mortified that you occupy the Oval Office again.

 

As a man, you display the most contemptible traits your gender can offer: boorishness dressed up as “strength,” cruelty masquerading as toughness, and insecurity so raw it leaks into every decision you make. Men and women across the world recoil at your nastiness, your sexism, your bullying, your perpetual adolescent need to dominate and belittle.

 

As an American, you possess a chilling absence of compassion. You look at the vulnerable, the poor, the sick, the immigrant, the worker, and see not fellow citizens but expendable props in your narcissistic theater. You slash their benefits while scheming to protect your own hidden privileges. You posture as a “billionaire” while treating the less fortunate as if they exist only to serve your lifestyle.

 

As a supposed steward of democracy, you are a walking repudiation of everything the Founders envisioned. Your presidency is not public service; it is personal enrichment and political vengeance. You manifest a stunning ignorance of how government actually works, yet you wield power with reckless arrogance.

 

Educated people are not “confused” by you, they are stupefied by your incompetence. Your speech is a toxic paella, tangle of incoherence, your thinking shallow, your grasp of facts tenuous at best. You fumble words, distort reality, and weaponize ignorance like a badge of honor.

 

Physically and morally, you present a grotesque spectacle: absurd hair, ill-fitting suits, a posture of manufactured bravado that barely conceals a cowardly core. You are weak in character, devoid of empathy, desperate for validation, and incapable of confronting the truth, about yourself, your crimes, or your country.

 

And yet, through a grotesque fluke of history, you became the most powerful person in the world, first in 2016, and now again. That fact alone will stain this era forever.

 

The Arctic Delusion, A First-Year Catastrophe in the Making.

 

If your administration follows through on its Arctic fantasy of seizing Greenland, we must be brutally clear about what that means. This is not a “real estate deal.” It is not strategy. It is not bargaining. It is the geopolitical equivalent of pulling the pin on a grenade in a crowded elevator and smirking as the doors close.

 

The moment American boots touch Greenland to steal territory from a fellow NATO member, the world as we know it fractures. The consequences would not be symbolic or temporary, they would be total, permanent, and devastating.

 

First casualty: NATO itself.

Article 5 — the sacred promise that an attack on one is an attack on all, becomes a cruel joke the instant the United States attacks Denmark. Seventy-five years of European stability would evaporate overnight. Instead of leading the free world, America would manufacture a unified enemy across the Atlantic.

 

Second: military humiliation.

Europe would demand the closure of U.S. bases: Ramstein, Aviano, Lakenheath, gone. American power projection would collapse. We would be expelled from the very continent we helped defend, retreating like a chastened bully forced back into isolation. “Fortress America” would not be strength, it would be exile.

 

Third: economic annihilation.

The European Union, the largest market on Earth would weaponize its power. U.S. debt could be called in. Dollar reserves dumped. The greenback would spiral. Inflation would make post-COVID look trivial. Pensions, savings, retirement accounts, incinerated.

 

Corporate America would face extinction: Apple, Google, Tesla, McDonald’s, markets frozen, assets seized, access revoked. The stock exchange would not merely crash; it would seize up. De-globalization would become a lived catastrophe.

 

Fourth: isolation in the skies and on the seas.

Boeing jets grounded. U.S. airlines banned from European airspace. Transatlantic travel dead. Supply chains severed. Medicines, machinery, technology, cut off. The “indispensable nation” would become an island prison of its own making.

 

Fifth: cultural exile.

The Olympics. The World Cup. Global sport would treat the United States like Russia, a pariah. No Team USA, no prestige, only humiliation.

 

For ordinary Americans, the damage would be personal: visa-free travel gone, expatriates suddenly vulnerable, the blue passport transformed from privilege to liability.

 

And this break would not be temporary. You do not invade a democratic ally and simply apologize your way back into legitimacy. Europe would build systems designed to exclude us, militarily, financially, politically.

 

All of this, for a frozen island. A handful of minerals. A vanity project disguised as “national security.” Invading Greenland would not be strength. It would be national suicide.

 

The Man Behind the Madness

This Greenland fiasco is not strategy. It is the tantrum of a spoiled, thin-skinned autocrat who wraps his wounded ego in imperial rhetoric.

 

Your demand for “complete and total control” of Greenland, tied, absurdly, to your failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize, is the petulant logic of a crybaby king. A man who cannot tolerate rejection now threatens a NATO ally and toys with global stability because his feelings were hurt.

 

This is not leadership. It is toddler tyranny in a tailored suit.

 

You question Denmark’s “ownership” of Greenland as if borders are suggestions for men like you, men who believe power erases consent. You cloak a land grab in “national security” when every serious analyst knows it is nonsense. What you seek is not safety, but domination, not stability, but spectacle.

 

The fact that you are willing to risk the greatest transatlantic crisis in generations exposes the moral rot at the heart of your presidency.

 

Europe sees you clearly. Macron calls out your intimidation. Starmer condemns your coercion. Even Meloni pushes back. Our allies recognize you as what you are: a bully with tariffs instead of tanks, blackmail instead of diplomacy.

 

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin watches with delight as you shred NATO unity and do Russia’s work for free.

 

The Cult of Enablers

 

But the most nauseating element of this first year is not just you, Donald Trump, it is the cult that cheers you on.

 

The true believers who call your madness “patriotism.” The voters who salivate at every threat, who mistake your tantrums for genius. They are willing accomplices in a regime that enriches billionaires, crushes the vulnerable, dismantles democratic norms, and normalizes the idea that America should behave like a rogue empire rather than a republic.

 

Your Greenland gambit is not a curiosity, it is a warning. A preview of what happens when a petulant would-be dictator is given power without restraint, surrounded by sycophants, and worshipped by a movement that confuses cruelty with courage.

 

If you get your way, the precedent will be unmistakable: borders mean nothing, allies are disposable, and the American presidency is a weapon for personal vendettas.

 

That is the world you are building, a world of bullies, billionaires, and broken democracies.

 

And anyone who still defends you is not merely misguided. They are complicit in the erosion of everything this country once claimed to stand for.

 

Postscript: A Year of Reckless Ruin

 

I cannot believe that more Americans are not taking your first year with the existential seriousness it demands. This is not political theater. It is not satire. It is not “Trump being Trump.”

 

It is a calculated drift toward authoritarian expansion dressed up as national security, and its consequences are potentially civilization-shattering.

 

What we are witnessing is not merely global humiliation for the United States, though it is that in abundance. It is a reckless march toward geopolitical catastrophe, driven by your bruised ego and enabled by a cult that mistakes brutality for strength.

 

You are not leading, you are lurching.

 

You are not protecting America — you are isolating it.

 

You are not preserving order, you are detonating it.

 

And still, 78 million Americans stand behind you.

 

When do they wake up? When NATO collapses? When the economy implodes? When American soldiers are sent into a needless, illegal war against a democratic ally? When their savings vanish, their jobs disappear, their children are dragged into a conflict that never should have existed?

 

How much destruction must occur before loyalty is finally exposed as delusion?

 

Because history will not remember you alone as the architect of this catastrophe. It will remember every single person who cheered you on while the world burned.

 

 

 

 

Parallels between ICE and the SA, or Sturmabteilung (Hitler's Brownshirts)

It's long, but I've copied in full an essay by a German documentarian named Neal McQueen, as Robert Reich says, "on the chilling parallels between ICE and Hitler’s Brownshirts": 

When History Starts to Rhyme

Neal McQueen

Ninety-two years apart, two documents authorized rapid expansion of forces empowered to use coercion against designated populations. The contexts differ. The mechanisms — hiring surges, compressed training, weakened oversight — follow a recognizable pattern.

On February 22, 1933, Prussian Interior Minister Hermann Göring signed an order deputizing 50,000 stormtroopers as auxiliary police. On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order entitled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.”

Both documents expanded the authority of organizations tasked with confronting what their political sponsors called “enemies within.”

The comparison that follows is not about moral equivalence. The Sturmabteilung was a party militia that murdered political opponents and helped lay the groundwork for genocide. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a federal law enforcement agency operating under statutory authority. They represent different legal systems, different eras, and different constraints.

What the comparison examines is structural. It asks: what happens when a state rapidly expands a force authorized to use coercion against a designated population? The mechanisms — recruitment surges, relaxed vetting, compressed training, weakened oversight — produce similarly recognizable patterns. Do those patterns have predictive value for the present?

The Surge

By January 1931, the SA numbered roughly 77,000 members. Under Ernst Röhm’s leadership, recruitment surged. Within twelve months, membership reached 400,000. By the time Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, the rolls showed approximately two million. The force had grown twenty-five-fold in two years. A sample from 1929-1933 found that over 77 percent of SA members were under thirty; nearly 59 percent were under twenty-five. Many were unemployed. The Great Depression had thrown millions out of work, and the SA offered what the labor market did not: a uniform, a purpose, a promise of action. Ideology mattered less than belonging.

ICE’s expansion followed a different path but a similar tempo. At Trump’s second inauguration, the agency employed approximately 10,000 officers and agents. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (Big Ugly), signed into law in July 2025, devoted $150 billion over four years to border and deportation efforts — boosting ICE’s annual funding from roughly $10 billion toward $100 billion by 2029. A tenfold increase. By December 2025, the agency had onboarded 11,751 new employees. More than 56 percent of ICE’s workforce by New Year 2026 had less than one year on the job. The majority were rookies.

The recruitment campaigns differed in medium but shared a targeting logic. The SA charged no dues and asked for no credentials beyond a willingness to fight. ICE’s 2025 expansion lowered the minimum age to eighteen, eliminated the maximum age, dropped college degree requirements, and waived polygraph examinations under Direct Hire Authority. The Washington Post reported ICE spending over $100 million on a “wartime recruitment strategy” that placed ads on conservative podcasts, at NASCAR races, near military bases, and at gun shows. One poster asked: “Which Way, American Man?”—a phrase echoing nativist slogans about cultural decline.

Both organizations attracted a mixture of true believers and opportunists. According to Rudolf Diels, the first head of the Gestapo, roughly 70 percent of new SA recruits in Berlin during 1933 had been Communists — men who sensed which way the wind was blowing. ICE leadership in 2025 stated they sought people “inspired by MAGA ideology rather than by the typical perks of a federal badge.” One veteran ICE officer cautioned: “You’re gonna get a lot of people who are just power hungry and want authority.” Rapid hiring selects for zeal over judgment.

Authority Expanded

The SA spent twelve years in a legal gray zone before its February 1933 transformation. Weimar authorities viewed it as a private militia subverting the constitution. The organization operated quasi-legally as a “sports and gymnastics” club, with men armed with clubs, rubber truncheons, and brass knuckles rather than firearms. The Reichstag Fire Decree, issued six days after Göring’s deputization order, suspended civil liberties and shielded SA actions from legal consequences. The shift required no new legislation—only the will to use existing emergency powers without restraint.

ICE needed no such workaround. It inherited existing statutory authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act. What changed in January 2025 was how the executive branch chose to use that authority. Trump revoked Biden-era orders that had set enforcement priorities and limited certain ICE actions. DHS rescinded guidance that had barred enforcement at schools, hospitals, churches, and protests. An ICE memo required supervisory approval before action in formerly protected areas— but set no penalty for skipping approval. The restraint was nominal.

By September 2025, DHS announced over 1,000 agreements with local law enforcement— a 641 percent increase from approximately 150 such agreements before 2025. The Laken Riley Act mandated detention without bond for any non-citizen charged merely with a theft-related offense.

A crucial judicial development came in September 2025. In Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, a lower federal court had enjoined ICE from making stops based solely on factors like race, language, location, or type of work. The Supreme Court stayed the injunction. Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence reasoned that while ethnicity alone cannot create suspicion, the “totality of circumstances”— many undocumented residents in the vicinity, common work patterns, language — meant agents could use those factors collectively. Justice Sotomayor’s dissent condemned the ruling as declaring “all Latinos… who work low-wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time.”

The outcome was similar across these two eras: a force authorized to use coercion against a designated population, operating with diminished oversight. The SA gained police powers in weeks. The change was visible and dramatic. ICE’s expansion was incremental and bureaucratic. Both ended in the same place: expanded latitude, weakened checks.

Training Compressed

The SA’s training was paramilitary but ad hoc. There was no formal academy. Manuals circulated with instructions on hand-to-hand combat and crowd control. The uniform’s psychological effect — intimidation through mass display — was integral to tactics. The SA’s strength lay in numbers and willingness to use force, not tactical competence.

ICE historically required approximately 13 weeks of comprehensive basic training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers — covering immigration law, arrest procedures, firearms, defensive tactics, and Spanish language. In 2025, these timelines were cut by more than half. DHS officials confirmed academy training was cut to 47 days — roughly a 60 percent reduction. The number was symbolic: Trump is the 47th president. Spanish language training was eliminated or minimized; NBC News found recruits received only one week.

ICE asserted that “no subject matter has been cut.” Three ICE officials told The Atlantic that the reduction was purely to expedite deployment. Both statements cannot be true. A House Committee letter expressed concern about “a potential for an insufficiently trained and vetted force of thousands.” Over 200 recruits were pulled from training mid-course after belated background checks revealed disqualifying information.

The structural logic was the same: political leadership demanded immediate results. Training was the variable that could be cut.

Detention Expanded

Throughout 1933, SA regiments set up hundreds of improvised detention sites — “wild camps” — in abandoned factories, breweries, and cellars. The Oranienburg concentration camp near Berlin was established by SA troops in March 1933 without central permission. Local police acquiesced. By mid-1933, SA guards there were on the Prussian government payroll. The state did not shut the camps down. It paid for them. Conditions were brutal. Records document at least 16 prisoners killed by guards at Oranienburg alone. The camps were eventually absorbed into the formal concentration camp system. The state wanted terror, but organized terror.

ICE inherited a national detention infrastructure built starting in the 1980s. What changed in 2025 was its scale. The Big Ugly’s $45 billion detention allocation funded rapid construction. In 2025 alone, ICE opened 59 new sites and reopened 77 closed centers — 136 facilities in twelve months. The detained population nearly doubled, from roughly 39,000 to approximately 70,000 by January 2026. Capacity outpaced staffing, oversight, and medical care.

Communities learned of proposed facilities through news reports rather than formal consultation. In Social Circle, Georgia — population 5,000 — local officials expressed alarm at reports of a proposed 5,000 to 10,000 person detention center. The town, they noted, lacked sufficient water and sewer capacity. In Kansas City, the City Council enacted a five-year moratorium on non-municipal detention centers after learning DHS had scouted a warehouse as a potential 7,500 bed facility. Resistance was reactive. The scouting had already happened.

Thirty-two detainees died in ICE custody in 2025 — triple the prior year’s figure of eleven. The mechanisms differed from the wild camps’ documented murders. The outcome was the same: state-sanctioned detention that produces fatalities.

The “Enemy Within” Frame

Nazi ideology rested on a founding lie: the Dolchstoßlegende, or stab in-the-back myth, which held that Germany’s army had been betrayed from within by Jews, Marxists, and democrats. In Mein Kampf (1925), Hitler wrote: “Before one defeats external enemies, the enemy within oneself must first be annihilated.”

The Trump administration reshaped immigration enforcement with a structurally similar frame. Executive Order 14159, signed on inauguration day 2025, was titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” The order framed illegal immigration not as a law enforcement matter but as a national security emergency.

The invasion frame transformed undocumented immigrants from lawbreakers into combatants. But it required an additional element: an explanation for why the “invasion” had been permitted. Soon before the 2024 election, Trump told Fox News: “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within... . We have some very bad people, sick people, radical left lunatics.” He added: “The enemy from within is more dangerous than China or Russia.”

A year later, addressing military commanders at Quantico, Trump said: “The enemy from within is a bigger threat than any foreign enemy.”

Stephen Miller, Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy, provided the ideological framework. He depicted a clash between America’s “noble, virtuous people” rooted in “Judeo-Christian and Western heritage” and “forces of wickedness.” On Fox News in October 2025, he declared: “To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity... no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist can prevent you from fulfilling your duties.”

The claim of “federal immunity” had no basis in law. DHS amplified the message as a “REMINDER.” The legal fiction did not matter. The permission did.

What We Know, What We Don’t

The parallels are well-documented: rapid expansion, lowered barriers, compressed training, expanded detention, and ideological framing of targets as existential threats.

What remains uncertain:

Whether ICE’s expansion exceeds institutional control. The SA’s trajectory was eventually curtailed not by external accountability but by Hitler’s purge of its leadership in June 1934, when Röhm’s ambitions threatened the regime’s alliance with the army. ICE faces no internal purge, and its political sponsors remain in power.

Whether American oversight mechanisms can constrain the agency. The DHS Inspector General has opened an investigation into training adjustments. Federal judges have issued injunctions that were subsequently stayed. Congressional Democrats have vowed to oppose new funding but acknowledge they lack votes to defund ICE. Trump’s Big Ugly bill locked in resources through 2029. Public opinion polling show that deportation operations have become “deeply unpopular,” but public opinion operates on different timelines than operational expansion.

Whether the “enemy within” framing will expand in application. The Nazi usage of der Feind im Inneren evolved from “November criminals” to “Jewish Bolsheviks” to simply “Jews.” So far, ICE has targeted undocumented immigrants, particularly Latinos. Yet Trump’s rhetoric embraces a broader category of “enemies within” including Democrats, federal bureaucrats, and media that criticize him. Whether operational targeting follows rhetorical expansion is not yet determined.

The comparison does not predict outcomes. It identifies mechanisms. The basic question it asks: once set in motion, can institutions control these trajectories? The record suggests it depends on whether oversight constrains domestic armies before they double in size.