Since Trump did win in 2024, we are quickly descending into fascism. There are already over 4000 people detained by ICE who are missing, and that’s intentional. ICE moves people from facility to facility, back and forth across the country multiple times, which makes it so they can’t be reached or located by family or even their lawyers. All the while ICE is pressuring those they’re moving around into signing forms some of them can’t even read without the aid of counsel. These forms do things like waive the right to counsel or otherwise impede access to due process. It also potentially makes it much easier to kill the detainees without too many people knowing about it.
And that’s just one example. There are also the recent jailings of protestors with draconian punishments like 30 years in prison for distributing material advertising the protests, the murders of Joan Guerrero, Lorenzo Araujo, Alex Pretti, and Renée Good, or the military action that the president has been approving without Congressional oversight. And those are just a few of the many things going on right under our noses.
This is an absolute nightmare, and it could happen to any one of us. Some of us saw something like this coming and tried to warn people but one of the things about fascism is that it never happens in exactly the same way each time around. This phrase that is often wrongly attributed to Sinclair Lewis says it best:
When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
I would add that it turns out American fascists also talk an awful lot about freeze peach.
I am so scared about what might happen with the election in November.
Edited for accuracy and clarity.