—> ICE / Immigration / Nation grapples with ICE killings

[superrific]

People are responsible for intervention and they've need to be armed with historical facts, context, and current connections to be dangerous.

Unclear if those are valuable. Some of the dumbest takes I've ever seen take the form of "historically, X [some phenomenon today] was linked to white supremacy." Or, on the other side, linked to communism or socialism or what have you.

Sometimes history can be genuinely informative for intervention, but it's usually in the form of generalizations and not minutae. You can't understand the conflict in Palestine without understanding the general history, but direct comparisons between settlers today and, say, the 1960s aren't helpful and can impede understanding.

We live in a world in which pretty much all politics and policy is outcome determined. History is going to be twisted, and if it can't be, ignored. So I'm not sure the "historical facts" are useful.

They could be fun, though.

 

[superrific]

HCR exists to tell bedtime stories to anxious liberals. That’s her role. If someone is actually interested in history, there are dozens of historians in her field who have produced serious, paradigm-changing work. But that kind of history doesn’t make millions on Substack or fit into a Facebook post. Black Reconstruction in America doesn’t soothe anyone before bed.

It's unclear to me why paradigm-changing work would be relevant for non-historians. I mean, nobody outside history academics knows about or cares about the paradigms.

That said, I think we are in general agreement about HCR, though I would phrase it differently.

 

[donbosco]

This is a bit of a FOFO..."You can’t help but laugh at Junior Pena. The Brazilian who campaigns for Trump and ends up getting arrested by ICE. It’s a level of self-sabotage that needs to be studied. The guy is completely unreachable while embarrassing himself with this video he posted on his own Instagram profile in 2025."

Brazilian influencer who defended US immigration crackdown arrested by ICE

Trump supporter Júnior Pena falsely claimed migrants being rounded up, including Brazilians, were ‘all crooks’

www.theguardian.com

 

[superrific]

Her writing tells readers: this moment fits into a familiar historical script, the bad actors are intelligible, and your existing moral framework is sufficient to understand what’s happening. The content is often alarming, yes, but the script itself provides emotional stability.

Again, I think we are in general agreement, but I would characterize the function of her writing somewhat differently. Here I am admittedly drawing mostly on my own reactions, with little other basis for my view, which is always dangerous but anyway:

One of the most frustrating -- perhaps the most frustrating -- aspect of the Trump administration is the way it makes resistance feel futile. It's because our tried-and-true strategy for social change has been speaking truth to power. It's how minorities of intellectuals have been able to effect social change. It works only so long as people care about the truth. Obviously MAGA doesn't, and Trump and his council of demons even less. So that's why people feel like we are screaming into a void. That's certainly the case on this message board, and also one reason that some of our MAGA friendly posters get as much attention as they do. It feels like a rare traction point, except we don't get traction.

HCR is basically performing a speak truth to power ritual. I wouldn't call it reassuring, and I don't think people take from it that our issues are historically precedented. I think it scratches an itch. It's an invocation of the way we used to do things. I'm not sure people take reassurance from it. It's more like a family prayer before a meal, or going to church perhaps. My wife talks about church as her sanctuary; it doesn't give her reassurance so much as a break from the bullshit.

There's considerably overlap between my description and "reassurance," so I really don't see this as disagreement so much as different emphasis.

On the plus side, you could also perhaps make a case that it's community building, in sort of the same way that QAnon built communities. QAnon turned out to be vital to MAGA; it created a new set of grievances and power narratives that allowed people who feel isolated to belong. HCR is maybe doing something similar, though with facts and not obvious nonsense.

 

[nycfan]

 

[WaynetheDrain]

This is a bit of a FOFO..."You can’t help but laugh at Junior Pena. The Brazilian who campaigns for Trump and ends up getting arrested by ICE. It’s a level of self-sabotage that needs to be studied. The guy is completely unreachable while embarrassing himself with this video he posted on his own Instagram profile in 2025."

Brazilian influencer who defended US immigration crackdown arrested by ICE

Trump supporter Júnior Pena falsely claimed migrants being rounded up, including Brazilians, were ‘all crooks’

www.theguardian.com

Time to dust off those kneepads and Minaj your way out of this mess.

 

[nycfan]

 

[donbosco]

https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/university-anti-ice-walk-out-siembra-nc-20260202

 

[donbosco]

"All over my neighborhood we keep finding empty cars, the glass shattered into diamonds on the snow, the people missing. Tiny private automotive kristallnachts, everywhere and ongoing."

Read "Dear Dara" at the link below

Dara's Guide to Handling Reality

Minneapolis, inside the economic blockade zone where we are pioneering nonviolence, whistle edition

deardara.com

 

[nycfan]

I originally joined Twitter in hopeful support of the Arab Spring. And all these years later, here I am sharing tweets about government oppression at home.

I didn’t see this sort of thing coming to the USA back then. Me, a door who wanted to join the marines after Tiananmen Square.

After Trump 1.0, especially after Charlottesville, I was relieved how many Republicans in Trump’s cabinet held the line (too quietly, I admit). Then I stupidly thought it had been exposed and hopefully ended on J6.

But here I am.

Here we are in the year 2026.

As Trump likes to emphasize, the 250th anniversary of our nation. Me, a patriotic child of the Bicentennial & Schoolhouse Rock. A staunchly anti-communist, pro-capitalist American. What the fuck are we doing? How has it come to this?

 

[Paine]

I originally joined Twitter in hopeful support of the Arab Spring. And all these years later, here I am sharing tweets about government oppression at home.

I didn’t see this sort of thing coming to the USA back then. Me, a door who wanted to join the marines after Tiananmen Square.

After Trump 1.0, especially after Charlottesville, I was relieved how many Republicans in Trump’s cabinet held the line (too quietly, I admit). Then I stupidly thought it had been exposed and hopefully ended on J6.

But here I am.

Here we are in the year 2026.

As Trump likes to emphasize, the 250th anniversary of our nation. Me, a patriotic child of the Bicentennial & Schoolhouse Rock. A staunchly anti-communist, pro-capitalist American. What the fuck are we doing? How has it come to this?

“This sort of thing” is homegrown. It didn’t have to come from somewhere else. Treat mass democracy as a bigger threat than oligarchy, and this is the endpoint.