Dying Before Our Very Eyes
Along with many of you, I’ve been trying to think Big Thoughts, like democracy, freedom, and the American Way. That, and the cluster of awful alternatives: tyranny, authoritarianism, dictatorship, oligarchy, and the newly conceivable rule-by-junta. I have Timothy Snyder on a human tracker as he disengages from Yale and moves to Canada. Just in case, I want to know where to find him when the helicopters train their weapons on the crowd. Paranoid? Yes. Inconceivable? No.
That’s because the things we took for granted a minute ago are no longer guaranteed in 2025. All it takes is a hundred days to undo the achievements of two and a half centuries. You would think that we could count on due process, but beginning with immigrants, it is now under siege. The cursed Stephen Miller was recently interviewed. Staring into the camera, he robotically intoned that due process should no longer apply to non-citizens because the protections of the Constitution are only for the few. That’s news to me, but it might actually happen. Chief Justice Roberts told Donald Trump that he could break the law with functional impunity. He can also pardon pretty much anyone he likes. Something tells me that there is Big Trouble ahead.
The fundamental question is when will we know? Will the curtain fall when they come for Rachel Maddow? Will they cancel credit cards on women at the gas pumps? That’s the formula in The Handmaid’s Tale, and it depends on a data base like the one DOGE is working on. I figure a thousand dystopian novels of the last century offer numberless scenarios for a tyrannical takeover. Donald and the MAGA men will have plenty to choose from.
But just in case you need a signpost, I want you to keep your eye on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national who has been stuffed into a hell hole. Current location? Nobody knows. The flunkies of Administration have already tagged him with lies, insisting that he is a murderous gang member. Kristi Noem, our pathological Secretary of Homeland Security, looked at a doctored photograph of his knuckles and refused to confirm that his gang tag had been faked.
For all these reasons, the unpredictable Supremes demanded that the administration expedite his return. At the most basic level he deserves a day in court. The operant phrase was “facilitate his release.” The administration first insisted that it had no authority and then decided that it would stop explaining itself. At this point it is merely clearing its throat.
This will be the sign that all has been lost: If Garcia is returned, the Rule of Law is intact. But if the administration continues to ignore the order, decided by the Supremes without a dissenting vote, it will signify that the Rule of Law is dead, and the Trump and his allies have seized absolute power. What will you do when that moment arrives?