The tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Iran slightly attenuated the threat that the United States could be dragged further into international conflict.
However, many Americans are approaching July 4th with a sense of fear, even if such a war could still be on the horizon and the risk of terrorist attacks in America could be high in America.
For so many reasons, we are a country that has an advantage. That’s why we need to be careful not to allow our fears to overtake our commitment to civil rights.
“The scientists are the ones who are in the cusp of how Democracies Die,” said Steven Levitsky, a government professor at Harvard University and author of How Democracies Die.
None of the political experts I’ve spoke to for the past few days said they thought President Trump was planning to bomb Iran for his domestic agenda – that’s really extreme. However, most Levitsky’s concerns shared that it was a moment when society was concerned about external threats. Authoritarians have found the most fertile foundation for increasing domestic power.
Motomura, a law professor at UCLA who advised the Obama realm transition team on immigration policy, said the trade-offs are “very closely intertwined with Iran and Trump’s immigration policy situation.”
There is no place where the intersection of international and domestic policy is seen more openly than in California, particularly Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is a “test case,” Brad Jones told me, where the Trump administration is already pushing to see how far it can go. He is a professor of political science at UC Davis.
“This is a very opportunistic presidency and every opportunity they can use to transfer immigration agendas. I think they’ll make the most of it,” Jones said.
Perhaps due to Los Angeles’ violent confusion, there are Marines and National Guard on the streets, under federal control. Angelenos knows this is ridiculous, but for now the court is on the side of Trump as this military deployment in the US soil is within his power. And many in America, which flooded the right-wing version of the current immigration protests, have routinely seen lawless stories that seem to justify Trump’s crackdown, such as the arrest and detention of Democrats.
Benjamin Rad is a professor at UCLA, an Iranian expert and a senior fellow at the UCLA Berkul Center for International Relations. He was featured last year in the documentary “War Games” about how military rebellions unfold in the United States.
Not long ago, before the National Guard was deployed in Los Angeles against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s will, Rad was hired by a group of veterans. It refused to identify him in order to federalize the National Guard to the federal government against the will of the governor and game out what would happen if Trump were to attract the American people.
“And behold, I’m here,” Rad said.
In his simulations, Trump’s pretenses did not evoke the Rebellion Act, a law that could promote the president’s ability to deploy military forces within the United States.
But in the real world, it’s concern that Trump would do that — either because of a real threat or because of a trumpet. Rudd said it would be a “big red line.”
“We’re waiting to see if this Donald Trump actually does that because calling this law gives him the power of an emergency that’s currently being hampered in court,” he said.
Ladd’s Los Angeles is home to a large Iranian-American community he is a member of.
As Japanese Americans were once considered a threat during World War II, it is not a major stretch of imagination to dream of a scenario in which governments view this community as a potential threat if conflicts in the Middle East continue. Rudd said he had not seen the possibility of a mass detention, but noted that the government has already detained and deported students who spoke about the Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza.
“When you’re dealing with ethically diverse metropolitan cities like Los Angeles, which have a complicated mix of backgrounds and people, who’s wiped out in it?” he asks.
Already, the administration has announced the arrests of 11 undocumented Iranians across the United States in the past few days.
“We’ve said we’re getting the worst and worst, and we’re,” Homeland Security’s Department of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “We will not wait until a military operation is carried out. We will actively provide President Trump’s mission to secure our hometown.”
Trump’s “full immigration playbook was to characterize immigrants as invaders and invaders,” Motomura said. “By launching a military conflict with Iran, Trump can link actions by Iran or its proxy as further evidence of invasion… and even further evidence that he must take dramatic emergency measures against his enemies both at home and abroad.”
Levitsky said that “the Trump administration is clearly learning how useful it is” to portray immigration as a national security emergency. He points out that the Venezuelan deportation to El Salvador this year was probably necessary as it was portrayed as an attack on America by members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
But the story of immigration as a foreign attack is stuck. Remember when the “Sithole Country” intentionally empty prisons and mental hospitals to send murderers and rapists to the United States?
And many people have accepted the erosion of rights that is meant in exchange for a perception of living in a safer community. The reality is that most people trapped in that Salvador prison are not violent criminals.
With its success in its tactics, Levitsky said, the administration is more enthusiastic about horrifying and “looking for ways to use languages such as rebellions and emergencies that will free it from legal constraints.” “And war is the best way to do that.”
Jones warned that just being concerned that “there are cells or there are people inside” could well be justified to us to want to harm us, as a result of the collapse of more rights.
All of that sounds miserable, but it’s important to remember that it’s not happening yet, and it may never happen. And if that’s the case, that doesn’t mean there’s no requisite to protect our civil rights – people still have power.
“There’s no single strategy, no single slogan, no single move, no single group, no single leader, no single protest,” Levitsky said. “There are literally 1,000 different ways people can express their dissent to what’s going on, and the important thing is that Americans are involved.”
Part of that involvement is accepting that democracy is not given and that American democracy does not have the special powers to survive, he said.
“Frankly, that’s why we’re losing democracy,” Levitsky said. “The Brazilians don’t have this problem. The Koreans don’t have this problem. …The Germans don’t have this problem. The Spanish people don’t have this problem. The Chileans, Argentinians don’t have this problem.
“All these societies have collective memory of authoritarianism. All of these societies know what it means to lose democracy,” he said. “Americans have no idea.”
Our biggest threat right now is not what Trump or he may or may not do. Authoritarianism is really creeping up to us, that we can’t believe that it could happen here.
And what it might take is to denial with a terrifying pursuit to defeat a democracy that once felt unbreakable.
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