Thomas Zimmer: How the Republic Falls

[Nevilledog]

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/how-the-republic-falls


On some days, the Trumpist regime’s assault on democratic self-government crystallizes in events that have such a visceral effect on anyone who dares to pay attention that it can feel overwhelming. Monday, April 14 – Day 85 since Trump took power – was such a day for me.

Over the preceding weekend, officials from the Department of Justice had made it clear that the Trump administration had no intention of complying with a unanimous Supreme Court order from April 10 that demanded the government “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. A month earlier, on March 15, Garcia had been deported illegally, as the Court found. Fleeing gang violence in El Salvador, Garcia came to the United States as a teenager. In 2019, due to the immediate threat from the same violence he had fled, an immigration court granted him “withholding from removal” status, meaning he was, at the time he was arrested, living in America legally. He has not been charged with, let alone convicted of a crime. He’s not had a chance to appear in court to make his case to a judge. And yet, Garcia was flown to El Salvador and put into a prison labor camp, the so-called “Terrorism Confinement Center.” In fact, even the Trump administration had initially admitted Garcia’s deportation was an “administrative error.” Yet instead of trying to correct that “error” and comply with court orders, the Trumpists have engaged in an all-out propaganda campaign to portray Garcia as a dangerous criminal (no evidence) and a member of MS-13 (an accusation based on the testimony of a discredited confidential informant and, somehow, the fact that Garcia was wearing a Chicago Bulls jersey).

The Trump administration does not want to bring Garcia back, that much is evident. They don’t care about his humanity or his rights, everything else follows from that. They don’t want him to talk and bear witness to the horror that is being inflicted in this prison labor camp, on people who have not even been charged with a crime. They don’t want to admit they actually have to follow court orders. And they fundamentally don’t believe they made a mistake: For the Trumpists, Garcia is an undesirable “Other” who must be purged from the nation, no matter his legal status.

What the Trump regime is really up to was on full display on the morning of April 14, as the president welcomed the Salvadoran dictator Nayib Bukele in the White House for a friendly chat among authoritarians. Also present was Attorney General Pam Bondi, who promptly declared it was “up for El Salvador if they want to return” Kilmar Abrego Garcia, “That’s not up to us.” This is complete nonsense, as the Trumpists know, considering that the American government is paying Bukele millions of dollars specifically for the privilege of being able to disappear people into his prison labor camp. Asked by the press to chime in, Bukele mocked the very idea that he would even consider releasing Garcia: “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.” The idea that the American government would comply with a unanimous Supreme Court order: “preposterous.” And if you ask Marco Rubio, who was also in the Oval Office last Monday, it’s preposterous for the courts to even weigh in at all: “No court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States.”

*snip*