Republicans have funded the world's largest police state
Worse than cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, republicans just gave ICE more money than the US spends on its entire federal prison system.
REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Less than a week after Republicans passed Trump’s big brutal bill into law, national media awaits Trump’s next performative show of force. The bill signing ceremony, however, will be a tough act to follow.
Trump signed his heinous creation into law in an overly produced, lavishly made-for-Fox-TV moment paid for by American tax dollars. On the Fourth of July, cameras zooming in, Trump raised his sharpie, perfectly choreographed to follow B2 bombers flying overhead in formation, at a cost to taxpayers of $2 million per.
Once again using the nation’s military as a political prop, Trump’s high-res production team finally turned out the spectacle he’s been craving since his military parade became an international joke. Trump got to perform his assault on America’s interests on America’s own birthday, after he forced his 950 page abomination of a bill down scared Republican throats. No democrat in either chamber voted aye.
July 4 was the artificial deadline Trump imposed for Congress to pass the bill, to guarantee that no one would have time to read it before they voted for it. Dubbed the cruelest piece of legislation in US history, Trump’s monstrosity will:
Remove over $1 trillion from Medicaid, which will leave 12 to 14 million Americans without health care;
Extend already unaffordable, damn-near-theft tax cuts to wealthy Americans and corporations that don’t need them;
Adjust Medicaid payments forcing many rural hospitals to close their doors;
Slash Food Stamps and food assistance for approximately 42 million Americans, including children and senior citizens; while
Increasing the already-bloated federal deficit by $3.4 trillion, an unprecedented debt level many economists consider dangerous.
Trump and his party are spending money like drunk sailors on leave, dampening the economy with a deficit to GDP ratio that will affect interest rates, bond markets, the strength of the US dollar, and the cost of repaying the national debt owed to foreign governments, including, primarily, China.
What about the political backlash, you ask? Too clever by half, republicans delayed cuts to Medicaid until after the midterms to insulate themselves from consequences.
Republicans just created an American police state
Even worse than the misery awaiting America’s poor and working class, the bill specifically funds a new and unprecedented American police state. Draped in anti-immigrant language, the bill creates a standing army of masked ICE agents, and funds enough of them to terrorize every city in the nation.
The bill provides $45 billion to build new immigration detention centers, and a 265 percent annual budget increase to ICE’s current detention budget. This funding level is a 62 percent larger budget than the entire federal prison system, where 155,933 inmates are currently incarcerated, some of them for life. Trump will soon spend more on ICE domestic apprehensions, transportation and detentions than most nations spend on their entire military budgets.
Republicans are building a police state beyond the comprehension of most Americans. We’ve all seen the videos of ICE goons beating migrants in front of their children; any one of them could have been recruited from Trump’s applicant pool of pardoned felons. After Trump was somehow re-elected, he pardoned rioters who were convicted of violent felonies and assaults against police officers during Trump’s J6 uprising. Here, he at least gets a nod for sinister efficiency: J6 cultists who thrive on hate in service to Trump need something to do. They were already armed and in search of political violence, why not give ‘em an ICE badge? If they were recorded while beating capital police with vigor, or carrying a noose for Mike Pence because he honored the Constitution over Trump, all the better.
Trump’s $1 trillion defense budget will not end well
Trump now has $1 trillion—with a T— to spend on his defense budget. Anyone wondering how he’s going to spend it, after shamefully withholding military aid and weaponry Congress already approved for Ukraine, should consider Pete Hegseth. Trump’s SecDef recently testified before Congress and described how national defense, under Trump, is transitioning from a force fighting foreign threats into a “domestic affair,” testifying that,
“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.”
Juxtapose that promise over Trump telling reporters that the worst threat to national security is ‘the enemy within,’ ie, people who don’t support him, and it all comes into view. Pan wide for Trump’s wet dream gulag agenda: ICE facilities where migrants, political prisoners and journalists are baked alive, guarded by reptiles, or denaturalized and deported.
Republicans have empowered a lunatic
With this bill’s passage, Trump has now been handed the most heavily funded law enforcement agency in United States history.
This follows the Supreme Court making him the most unchecked and unbridled president in our nation’s history, both by allowing him to break criminal laws with broad impunity, and by blocking nationwide injunction orders to stop him. The republican 6-3 majority on SCOTUS has now permanently knee-capped federal judges who were doing their best to stop Trump from doing his worst.
The criminally insane president they empowered wants masked ICE goons and military tanks on every city street, and Congress has just written him the check to pay for it. Whether they accept or acknowledge their culpability or not, Trump’s Supreme Court justices bear complete moral responsibility for the crimes against humanity and suffering about to come.
Trump was barely elected; this was not a mandate
Despite Trump’s bluster, which Fox News repeats on the nanosecond, Trump was not elected “by a mandate.” He eked out his win by a margin of only 1.5 percent over Harris, while 91 million voters were so disgusted by the election, or so disillusioned, or so stoned, they didn’t bother to vote.
Trump’s bill was tied 50-50 in the Senate and squeaked by with one vote when JD Vance voted to break the tie. It passed by only two votes in the House. Polls show most Americans opposed the bill now law, which suggests one of the following:
· Republicans in Congress assume Americans’ short attention span and memory loss will save them; or
· They have faith in Trump’s spin machine to control the narrative, presented 24/7 by Fox News, OAN, Newsmax and more than 1500 rightwing radio stations; or
· They know there won’t be any real mid-term elections.
If anyone doubted Trump’s death grip on the Republican Party, the police state we’re embarking on will remove all doubt. Republicans will now die with Trump, or democracy will die with them.
Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
a superb summary that takes the words right out of my mouth.
the longer trump stays in power the worse things will get.
remember the dictatorship of Castro and what he did to Cuba for many years -
the same thing is happening here.
The enemy within - yes - it’s Trump, the Republican Congress and Republican Supreme Court members. If in fact all those people didn’t vote we are paying a higher price than being disgusted. Shouldn’t be any secret (by now) a police state is being developed and as horrible as it is for immigrants make no mistake: it will eventually involve all those who object to Trump’s madness. If you kiss-up don’t think you’re out of the woods. Dictators care only for themselves.