"Show Us Your Papers"—the Trump-Bondi-Gabbard Confederacy

Not that many years ago, I attended an event for which I needed to show my papers. These "papers" were a white card proving that I had had my Covid vaccine and could attend a public event.

I never gave the request much thought. We were all retreating from two years of panic and isolation, and showing proof of concern for myself and others seemed innocuous.

Although I was conversant with the history of Nazi Germany, it never occurred to me at the time that the whole concept did have an ominous tinge to it. But it occurs to me now—and to everybody—that it's no longer a health issue; instead, it has become an exercise of power and dominance in an authoritarian regime, as in this scene from Casablanca.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq52TUza3RA

Now some will say I'm overreacting—after all, we need a ticket to get into an event, a proof of membership to enter a gym, a license to drive a car, and even a plastic card to wander around a Costco. But we all know this is different—that stopping people on the street because they "look foreign" is a violation of everything we believe this country to be. "May I see your papers, please?" was, in Nazi Germany, step one to your impending imprisonment and death. From what we have witnessed over the past six months, the occurrences of a century ago seem like a blueprint for the current Trump regime.

Most of us are familiar with the abduction, imprisonment, and eventual release of Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University activist. His encounter with government overreach became news, but now, unlawful searches and seizures occur daily at a frightening pace at the behest of a president who tells lies for a living, and the vapid Intelligence chief and sycophantic Attorney General who swear to them.

We know of the cruelty—the destruction of families and the abandonment of children—but what we are beginning to realize is this: cruelty is not the means to an end; cruelty is the end. ICE agents who robotically follow the Donald Trump/Stephen Miller playbook have no qualms about seeing lives destroyed and, if necessary, ended. It's just collateral damage in the unholy war Trump is waging against America.

But cruelty has repercussions: each new day produces more Trump supporters who witness firsthand the persecution of some immigrant and say, "hey, I know that guy. He's okay." Eventually, more and more of us are going to know that guy. Maybe we can put an end to cruelty as policy  before you and I actually become "that guy."