On the Kidnappings
This past Tuesday, two Charlottesville residents walked out of the Albemarle County District Court with their charges dismissed and their futures bright, only to be snatched from what should’ve been a joyful moment by three ICE agents. The agents refused to identify themselves, present badges, or even present a warrant and shoved aside anyone who dared intervene in what was nothing less than the abduction of innocent Americans on American soil by American authorities. In a town with little experience of mass immigration enforcement, few anticipated such heavy-handedness so close to home, however this incident should serve as our alarm bell. The Trump administration's aim is not order but oppression, its goal not justice but the eradication of immigrants regardless of their status or record, and its objective the end of America as we know it. They wish to crush dissent, shred the Constitution, and demolish every principle we hold sacred. This is clear and present American fascism, and it advances almost unopposed.
I know some will call my words extreme, but let us be clear, the regime does not attempt to hide its fascistic ideology. Trump's own rhetoric is a mirror of Mein Kampf, at a 2023 rally he warned of immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country,” a phrase ripped directly from Adolf Hitler himself. He has likened human beings to beasts, proposed spiked border walls to impale the vulnerable, and even suggested border patrol agents shoot at legs so as to maim those crossing our border seeking a new life of liberty. However these are not abstract threats, but policy blueprints, destined for codification into law.
Already, hundreds have been deported to an El Salvadorian prison notorious for torture and execution, some deported entirely by mistake. Americans handed to a dictator who jails over tens of thousands with no due process. But he does not want to only remove immigrants, he has vowed to expand the deportations to include U.S. born citizens. Meanwhile dissidents vanish without a word to their lawyer, federal agents raid activists' homes, and a sitting judge has been arrested for going against the will of the regime. But the attacks go deeper, threatening the very foundations of this nation. Federal troops have been given command and control over much of our southern border, the Attorney General has been ordered to target states with “woke” civil-rights laws, and the president openly defies the Supreme Court.
Our founders warned of this tyranny. The Declaration of Independence lists as grievances such as the obstruction of justice, denial of trial by jury, and the refusal to naturalize foreigners as the very acts King George committed that caused them to revolt. And yet these same policies, ones that Americans fought and died to free themselves from, are now being repeated by Trump and his lackeys. This regime seeks to annihilate all we hold dear. They hope to destroy dissent, tear up communities, and force us to live under a Republican red iron fist. However, just as our founders rose up and said, enough, so must we. Those who fight this regime, those who protest and battle in the courts, are the heroes of our generation, we will look at them in the future as we look at Civil Rights and Abolitionist heroes today. Those who sit on sidelines, letting genocide and tyranny take root in America will not be remembered so fondly in the history books of tomorrow. What Tuesday, and the past three months show us, is that the hour is upon us. We must stand up, resist tyranny, and ensure that the words forming the foundation of our nation “We the People” still mean something.
