All Hail the New Authoritarian America
In America, you can now wear a MAGA hat, storm the U.S. Capitol, and attack police officers, but you can't commit a thought crime, be a legal immigrant, or criticize the dear leader.
(Illustration by political cartoonist Paul Szep)
One day, everyone would have been against all this.
That is if we are lucky to be taught history, read books, and share stories that aren’t deemed dangerous and threatening to the regime.
If America remains committed to authoritarianism, the current Trump Administration will be hailed by future stenographers as the most glorious era of humankind, hearkening a rebirth of greatness thanks to the masculine, brilliant potency of Donald Trump, who was destined by God and fortune to smite the dark forces of wokeness with his gold-plated AR-15.
That might seem like hyperbole or a cheap reboot of dystopian Orwellian fiction. However, in 2025 America, a legal immigrant can be detained and deported without due process simply for a thought crime.
That is what is happening to pro-Palestinian activist and green card holder Mahmoud Khalil, who has been detained for weeks without any criminal charges and kept away from his pregnant wife. According to the Trump Administration, the Columbia University student’s opinions and legal protests posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences.” Louisiana Immigration Judge Jamee E. Comans agreed and said Khalil’s actions satisfied the requirements for his deportation. Again, the government has been unable to prove that Khalil has committed any crimes. But law, order, and procedure matter little to authoritarians who are willing and able to abuse their massive power to crush their critics and pursue their ideological zealotry.
Another grad student, Rumeysa Ozturk, is a legal immigrant who was kidnapped by masked ICE officials near Tufts University and flown thousands of miles to Louisiana, where she’s allegedly detained. Her crime? She co-wrote an op-ed critical of Israel and urged boycott, sanctions, and divestment from a country that receives billions of dollars of U.S. aid and weapons to commit a genocide against Palestinians.
If you think that Arab and Muslim immigrants are the only ones facing crackdowns, then you haven’t followed the case of Maryland husband and father Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He was granted withholding of removal in 2019 by a judge who ruled he would be persecuted if he returned to his home country of El Salvador. Like Ozturk and Khalil, he has committed no crimes and has no criminal history. Nonetheless, he was brown at the wrong place and wrong time and was kidnapped and deported to an El Salvador prison. The Trump Administration admits Garcia was sent due to an “administrative error,” but since their cruelty and arrogance knows no limits, they refuse to bring him home. They’re even refusing to comply with a federal judge who has ordered the Administration to provide her with daily updates on their alleged efforts to return Garcia to his citizen wife and 5-year-old child in Maryland. Despite a Supreme Court 9-0 ruling upholding Judge Xinis’ original order, Trump and his minions remain recalcitrant. There is now growing concern that Garcia might be dead.
“If there's some innocent gardeners in there? Hey, tough break for a swell guy,” said Steve Bannon, Trump’s original advisor whose co-host was just awarded a massive puff piece in the New York Times. It doesn’t matter that a 60 Minutes report revealed that 75% of the 238 men kidnapped and sent to perish in an El Salvador prison have no criminal history. Over the weekend, Trump said he’s open to sending U.S. citizens to foreign gulags as well. After all, human misery is great business for the broligarchy. War criminal Erik Prince, former CEO of Blackwater, pitched a deal to the White House to outsource the transportation of immigrants to military contractors. The head of ICE, Todd Lyons, openly mused about creating an Amazon Prime Deportation system: “We need to get better at treating this like a business like Amazon Prime, but with human beings.” That business can also make a lot more profit by going after children. Earlier this week, federal agents lied to gain access to students at two Los Angeles elementary schools, but thankfully, they were denied access.
The Trump Administration won’t stop at immigrant students. They’re targeting LGBTQ kids as well. On Friday night, it was reported that the Trump Administration will try to cut federal education funding to Maine’s K through 12 schools to punish the Governor and Attorney General for not bending the knee and changing the state’s policy that protects transgender students. Maine didn’t read the White House tweet that warned, “Do not retaliate and you will be rewarded.”
Even white, conservative men aren’t safe anymore. After caving on his disastrous tariff stand-off, Trump signed an Executive Order to target Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor, who dared to call out Trump’s lies and dangerous recklessness during his first failed Presidency. He wants both men to be investigated for “treason.”
The thing with fascists is that their appetite for cruelty and punishment is never satiated. They are driven by fear, insecurity, ego, and the need for control and power. They are inherently weak and must construct a persona of strength backed up by lies, force, and a cult that feeds their brittle ego with constant praise. If you believe Trump will simply stop at pro-Palestinian students, immigrants, and dissidents, then you need to go to the library - while we still have them - and check out books on Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and fascism in Europe.
It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment, and this week proved it for anyone who remained skeptical.. Or, you can remain blind to the authoritarian regime at hand, outsource your solutions to the mythical Avengers, and continue to send a hail mary “inshallah” to the heavens that somehow, magically, everything will get better in 2026. We might not have libraries or “DEI” books in the future, but you can rest assured there will be plenty of copies of The Art of the Deal and Mein Kampf.
*Danielle and I discussed the rise of the new oligarchy in today’s Democracy-Ish.
**In honor of hitting 50K subscribers, The Left Hook is offering a 20% discount for paid subscribers: https://thelefthook.substack.com/discount
Does anyone remember the opening lines of the classic film, Casablanca?
"May we see your papers, please?".
The reality is chilling and frightening.
We are living through repeated history. ICE is effectively the Nazi Gestapo, the SS, the Stasi - choose your preferred Authoritarian police state favourite. 😞
Excellent writing, as always, Waj. Appreciate your brutal, but necessary truth.
🙂✊🏼💙🙏🏼🤲🏼
I just heard in the Guardian about another person with a visa who was stopped at the border upon returning to the US from a visit to his home country Australia, had his visa revoked without due process and was sent back to Australia summarily, totally upending his life. Getting a lawyer and fighting this would cost him thousands and could take up to five years!