Jim Walsh
In Los Angeles this week, armed ICE personnel are flooding Courthouses and Home Depot stores — some wearing masks, some wearing military uniforms, some wearing both — seizing mostly men seeking work or complying with the law by showing up at court or immigration offices. The seized are then stuffed into unmarked or military-style vehicles and taken to detention centers.
On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Hegseth testified before Congress, stating, “I think we’re entering another phase, especially under President Trump with his focus on the homeland, where the National Guard and Reserves become a critical component of how we secure that homeland.” In addition to the Guard, Hegseth also sent combat Marines.
On the same day, at Fort Bragg, Donald Trump stated, “We’re going to have troops everywhere. We’re not going to let this happen to our country.”
Would it be fair to compare our current situation and the rise of Donald Trump to Weimar Germany in 1933 and the rise of Adolf Hitler? Well, in words attributed to Mark Twain, “History may not repeat itself…but it rhymes.”
Comparisons between the US now and Weimar then have become more common recently, and I have confidently made the point to friends that the long history of our democratic republic — its core American values, traditions and political history — has made our democratic republic far stronger than the obviously fragile one of 1933 Germany. Still, in recent days, my confidence has been shaken. Is my sense of who we are completely out of step with those currently in power?
Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Within a month, a state of emergency was imposed, giving Hitler and his cabinet extraordinary powers. The German Courts and the Legislature lost their ability to check or balance the power of the Chancellor. At the same time, a prison camp at Dachau was opened…the first of many.
It has been almost six months since Trump returned to the White House and, over the objection of local and state authorities (the Mayor of LA, its Police Chief, and the Governor of California) President Trump has sent Federal troops and the federalized National Guard to Los Angeles under his and Hegseth’s direct control. They will stay there for two months…or longer.
When asked about the legal limits of a President’s power, Richard Nixon responded, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” He made that statement more than forty-five years ago. He had been out of power for several years and would never return. Recently, though, that idea has marched to center stage.
More recently JD Vance has asserted that “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
Having come of age in the 1960s, a decade of riots and assassinations, it is not often that I literally lose sleep over current political events. But when Vance’s quote appeared…a rough night followed. The situation worsened a few days later when Trump followed up, writing “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” And now, with the deployment of troops in LA, the rhymes have become thunderous.
A year ago, the Republican House of Representative obeyed the last-minute demand of Donald Trump to not approve a negotiated, bi-partisan response to our immigration problem. He wanted to keep the “problem” as an “issue” for his campaign and that demand led to where we find ourselves today.
Should we not react with concern at the unsettling prospect of Guantanamo becoming America’s Dachau, a concentration camp for an unwanted minority? He has sent seized folks seeking work or complying with the law there and, even worse, to the most notorious prison in Latin America. Now he wants to reopen Alcatraz! Why? In a previous life he loved saying, “You’re fired!” It looks now like he wants to hear himself say, “I’m gonna send you to Alcatraz!” Should we be concerned?
“Just words,” his defenders say…but words matter. And words have been followed by actions.
The light from the torch that was passed to JFK’s new generation has dimmed and flickers. A very different sort of torch has emerged under Donald Trump. Months into his first term an Alt-Right horde of Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen, Confederate sympathizers and others marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, carrying torches, Confederate battle flags and the “Deus Vuit” symbol that has been adopted by white supremacist movements. In August of 2017, a white supremacist shot 15 people in the Allen Texas Mall, 8 of whom died, including a 3-year-old boy. The shooter had a Deus Vuit cross tattooed on his body, the same tattoo that Trump’s Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, has proudly displayed on his body. It is a symbol of White Christian nationalism.
The Irish writer Fintan O’Toole has characterized our current situation as “Trump’s second coming… a transition of Trumpian modes from comedy to brutality…the first term’s outlandish gestures are the second term’s savage demands.” As he considered the violence of the British suppression of the Irish uprising in 1917, the Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote The Second Coming and, in its last lines, asked his readers this question: …what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
More recently the American poet, Jenny Holzer wrote, “The abuse of power comes as no surprise.”
Our “domestic tranquility” is threatened now as it hasn’t been since 1860.
Jim Walsh is a Nahant resident.
