Trump and Detention Camps
This came up in another thread and it brought me up short.
The claim is that Donald Trump is unlike Hitler because he would only send political dissidents and unpopular ethnic groups to prison camps. Seriously.
For those who are unaware, the mass detention of all undocumented immigrants in the U.S. is a major Trump campaigning point. That's anywhere from 9 million to 12 million people, depending on whose estimates you use. Radley Balko runs through the logistics of what would be involved. A sample.
Maybe it's just me, but that sounds at least a little Hitler-y. On the other hand Joe Biden is three years older than Trump, so I can see why this hasn't gotten a lot of media attention.
As for whether Trump is like Hitler, well, to the extent that the MAGA cap fits. He's unlike Hitler to the extent that he's unlikely to start sending anyone other than immigrants and political opponents to prison camps.
The claim is that Donald Trump is unlike Hitler because he would only send political dissidents and unpopular ethnic groups to prison camps. Seriously.
For those who are unaware, the mass detention of all undocumented immigrants in the U.S. is a major Trump campaigning point. That's anywhere from 9 million to 12 million people, depending on whose estimates you use. Radley Balko runs through the logistics of what would be involved. A sample.
The pre-World War II Jewish population of Europe — including the Soviet Union — was about 9 million. So just in terms of transporting people, we’re looking at an operation that would need to be two thirds larger than the Nazi transport of Jews during the Holocaust — if they’d managed to get to every Jewish person on the continent.
The Trump immigration plan would be the second largest forced displacement of human beings in human history, on par with Britain’s disastrous partition of India, and second only to total forced displacement during World War II.
Maybe it's just me, but that sounds at least a little Hitler-y. On the other hand Joe Biden is three years older than Trump, so I can see why this hasn't gotten a lot of media attention.
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"Trump is unlike Hitler to the extent that he doesn't do X but only does Y" implies "Trump is like Hitler in that he does Y".
But obviously, mileages may vary.
At least call it litotes if you want us to be impressed with your British take on US politics.
Immigrants in the US today are the bogeyman that Jews were in 1930s Germany. It is neither irony nor understatement to say Trump would put them in camps. So don't tell anyone how to read when your writing has addressed the situation so poorly.
Nick Tamen understood me.
🙏🙏
Hmm. You may well be right - perhaps not so much the Devil (as popularly pictured) as le mal Dieu, the evil God of the Dualists...
/tangent
Yeah, a God who divinely intervened but let the guy behind him get fatally shot.
People actually believe this sort of shit.
Shooter was off by 4", that's all.
As did I.
Why do you think the way you talked about the possible fate of millions of people is appropriate? Why do you think it's appropriate to tell someone to "read for comprehension"?
Just going back to this for a moment, without (I hope) causing more distress to @Lamb Chopped - there must be many millions of legal immigrants (I hate that term, but YSWIM) in the US, so how could Trump II possibly hope to deal with them all?
Some MAGA folks also want to do away with birthright citizenship for people born in the US to non-citizens.
It's good to keep in mind that these worst-case scenarios come into play if the Republicans take Congress as well as the White House.
Welcome back !
[/tangent]
This stuff doesn't bear thinking hard about, but the simple answer is that he won't. Trump like other Populists before him will pick a team in ways that are incomprehensible to anyone else. So there will be some who are on his side and are (likely temporarily) protected from the things that are envisioned for others.
Also I suspect there would be the rise in vigilantism, so that bands of violent men bully and harass anyone that Trump directs his wrath.
Thanks!
Agree with @KoF - looking back at it eventually the team Trump and MAGA pick will seem like an actual group, but right now, it's all a mess. The only people who can be assured of safety in a second Trump administration with a MAGA Congress are straight white cis men with money who don't say or do the wrong thing.
Donald Trump got shot in the face. His opponent, Joe Biden, did not get shot at all. I'd say God is actually doing a better job of looking after Biden than Trump, if that's the way people insist on framing things.
The Radley Balko article I linked to earlier deals with the the likely logistics of that scenario, extrapolating from existing structures and statements from various Trumpworld figures. It would be massively disruptive and massively expensive, but Trump appears determined to make the attempt.
For the record, Trump is also on record wanting to end birthright citizenship, so those could also make up the several million person difference between the number of people Trump says he wants to deport and the number of undocumented migrants actually living in the U.S.
And immigrants who happen to be married to Donald Trump.
I don't know much about Vance but it is tough to be sure whether Trump would be faithful to his family, wife or family of those closest to him.
I appreciate that!
We're talking it through because we all have anxiety issues, and Trump isn't helping. Mr. Lamb did 3 1/2 years in a camp in Vietnam right after the war, so yeah, this isn't good.
That you even have to think about it breaks my heart. Prayers indeed.
Agreed.
Naive question. What sort of time-scale do MAGA-ists have in mind before a migrant is deemed to be pukka or properly integrated or assimilated - to use inadequate terms?
One generation? Two generations? Tracing their ancestry back to 'The Mayflower'?
I don't wish to be naive or to play down legitimate concerns but I can't see Trump interning legal migrants. The cost would be prohibitive for one thing. I can see him going after unregistered migrants though and can certainly envisage the kind of vigilanteeism that's been referred to upthread.
I can see him taking revenge on his political opponents too.
I don't think any of that is a paranoid reaction, it's commensurate with what we know of the man and his more extreme supporters.
I may be overly optimistic but I would be surprised to see the worst case scenario come about, but even if it doesn't a second Trump term does not bode well for anyone.
I fear the answer to that question would depend on the outcome of a paper bag test.
I'm anticipating a program where a lot of discretion would be given to enforcement agents on the ground about who qualifies as "undocumented". ("Fun" fact: fewer Americans per capita hold passports than citizens of other developed nations, meaning that a lot of Americans have no immediate proof of citizenship easily to hand, especially if birth certificates are no longer going to be considered proof of citizenship.) During the Eisenhower era mass deportation program called "Operation Wetback", which Trump has cited as an inspiration, a lot of American citizens were also deported "back" to Mexico. Trump has also minimized the need for detention camps "Because we'll be bringing them out of the country. We're not leaving them in the country. We're bringing them out. It’s been done before." I'm skeptical of the logistics involved here, but the main point is that Trump is anticipating very minimal, if any, due process for anyone detained by his agents. And once someone has been dumped in Venezuela (or wherever) their practical ability to petition the American legal system becomes questionable.
Indeed. I mean, supposing instead of twenty million deportees Trump's agents "only" round up five million, or even two million. Forced migrations on that scale have always been atrocities.
Wouldn't that mean Trump himself as well as his wife?
A family of immigrants.
Well, presumably he'd clamp down on that, if not through the 'official' channels through proxies such as vigilantes and militias.
That doesn't bear thinking about.
I'd like to think US democracy was pretty robust. It survived the storming of the Capitol.
I'm beginning to sound as optimistic as @Gramps49.
I've always thought the US has some pretty robust checks and balances.
I hope the line holds.
Yes, and he would invoke the Insurrection Act and send in troops. It's what he wanted to do when the protests of George Floyd's murder took place. The Insurrection Act allows the president to deploy US troops within our borders and to federalize the relevant state's National Guard. So he could take command of the California National Guard away from Gov. Newsom.
The last time a president invoked the Insurrection Act was in 1992 during the uprising responding to the acquittal of the LAPD officers who beat up Rodney King.
The Supreme Court has already indicated that it will not be a check on presidential power in a future Trump administration, as have Congressional Republicans.
I hope I'm right. If I'm wrong I can only say that I promise to write to you in prison.
If Trump returns to office, you can pretty well bet this will go on unabated and even increase. Remember how his border patrol would physically separate children from their parents? To this day, not all of them have been located and return to their parents. Just think of the potential for abuse within his system.
Probably this interview with Time magazine, though it's been extensively quoted elsewhere.
Given the logistics of quickly moving what Trump claims will be 15-20 million people Trump's minimization of the "need" for prison camps seems disingenuous.
Before that, when the Japanese Americans were rounded up, detention centers were used before the people were relocated to remote centers.
You just cannot round people up and send them out on the next flight to Mexico or other places without some temporary detention.
Another one of Trump's lies.
So they'll need a camp for us.
His supporters would ignore it.
Be careful what you wish for.
It's more likely a case of the imperial boomerang bringing back techniques used elsewhere for the management of so called 'surplus populations' - so the kinds of measures used to deal with refugees in North Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere.