The Wild Reed: “This Is How Democracy Unravels”

Monday, April 14, 2025

“This Is How Democracy Unravels”

The Trump administration’s handling (or, rather, mishandling) of the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was very much in the news today.

A citizen of El Salvador, Abrego Garcia [right] was illegally deported from the United States on March 15, 2025, in what the Trump administration called “an administrative error.” He was then imprisoned without trial in the maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), despite never having been charged with or convicted of a crime in either country. His lawyers argue that his imprisonment is part of the agreement to jail U.S. deportees there in exchange for payment. The administration has defended the deportation in the press by accusing Abrego Garcia of membership in the MS-13 gang, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, though without presenting any evidence.

Abrego Garcia illegally immigrated to the U.S. in 2011 at the age of 16. He had lived and worked in the country legally since 2019, when an immigration judge granted him “withholding of removal” status, a rare alternative to asylum, over the threat to his life from gang violence in El Salvador if deported. At the time of his deportation in 2025, he was living in Maryland with his wife and child, both American citizens, and reporting to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) annually.

On April 10, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court found Abrego Garcia’s removal to El Salvador to be illegal. The court rejected the administration’s defense that they had no jurisdiction over El Salvador to bring him back, with Justice Sotomayor noting that the argument implied the government “could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.”

The Supreme Court required the U.S. to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release, but stopped short of a lower court’s order to both “facilitate and effectuate” his return. The administration took this to mean that it has no obligation to arrange for Abrego Garcia’s return and can fulfill its obligation to “facilitate” his release by admitting him into the U.S. and providing a plane if El Salvador chooses to release him, which President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele said today he refuses to do.

Following are five commentaries – the first four are specfic to the Abrego Garcia case while the fifth places this case within the broader context of the Trump administration’s “wrecking ball” approach “not just to federal agencies, but to the Bill of Rights.”

______________________

April 14, 2025, will be recognized as a monumental day in U.S. history because this is the day that President Donald Trump sent a clear message to the nation: There is no rule of law in the United States.

The U.S. government has conceded that Abrego Garcia was rounded up and shipped off with other immigrants to El Salvador by mistake. Yet Trump said he would do nothing to comply with the Order of the Supreme Court and the District Court, to return this man for a hearing here.

Attorney General Pam Bondi chimed in with a lie, that Garcia was a criminal, which the federal court here found was not true. Secretary Marco Rubio said the Court had no right to interpret the law, which it does. Then, Trump added that he wanted to send American citizens to the death prison in El Salvador.

Conservative jurist, Michael Luttig, says we now live in a dictatorship. Trump says he does not have to obey the law. And the worse part is that his entire administration, unlike the first time, are co-conspirators.

But the very worst part is that there are college-educated people who will read this and see what is happening, and will still defend this Nazi bullshit.

– Gerald Weaver
via social media
April 14, 2025

Monday’s scene was almost too grotesque to satirize. Pam Bondi – now Attorney General – perched on a couch beside Marco Rubio, Kristi Noem, and Stephen Miller, who seemed to be playing a racist ventriloquist dummy of himself. In the center sat Trump, gold chair, legs spread, double finger guns locked and loaded.

And next to him – tieless, smug, and freshly deodorized with American legitimacy – was Nayib Bukele, the Salvadoran autocrat who once called himself the “world’s coolest dictator.” He seemed to think this was all hilarious.

When asked whether he’d return Abrego Garcia to the U.S., Bukele responded: “How can I return him to the United States? Like if I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it.”

Let’s be clear: Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a legal U.S. resident. A federal judge ruled he should not be deported. The Supreme Court said he must be returned. And yet, Bukele publicly mocked the idea of complying – from inside the goddamn White House.

And Trump just smiled.

. . . Pam Bondi, channeling the legal brilliance of a bathmat, declared: “If El Salvador . . . wanted to return him, we would facilitate it. That’s up to El Salvador.”

That’s not what the Supreme Court said. That’s not what the law says. That’s not how facilitate works. But this administration treats the Constitution like a set of buffet suggestions – take what you want, throw out the rest, then complain that the Supreme Court is being “confusing.”

Marco Rubio whined: “No court in the United States has a right to conduct a foreign policy of the United States.”

That’s not foreign policy, senator. That’s compliance with a federal ruling. It’s the bare minimum expected in a democracy. But maybe Rubio got confused – maybe he thought the press conference was being held in Bukele’s Oval Office.

Meanwhile, Stephen Miller barked to reporters: “People like CNN want foreign terrorists in the country who kidnap women and children.”

Garcia has never been charged with terrorism. A federal judge ruled that there is no credible evidence tying him to MS-13. But Stephen Miller doesn’t care. Because fear is the product. Cruelty is the policy. And reality is whatever they say it is.

. . . In the same meeting, Trump floated something even darker: deporting U.S. citizens. That’s not a typo. According to NBC News, Trump “mulls imprisoning U.S. citizens abroad: ‘Homegrowns are next’” – a statement so breathtakingly illegal that one law professor responded: “Pretty obviously illegal and unconstitutional.”

But that’s what Trump does. He throws Molotov cocktails into the rule of law and watches the cameras flicker. And while we’re all busy reacting, Kilmar Abrego Garcia remains in a cell, trapped in the concrete belly of a prison we are literally paying to operate.

This is beyond contempt of court.

It’s contempt of the Constitution. Contempt of Congress. Contempt of truth, justice, and the very idea of America.

– Excerpted from "State-Sponsored Kidnapping
and the Gold-Trimmed Shrug
Closer to the Edge
April 15, 2025

This is not a prison. This is a concentration camp and the government of the United States is paying El Salvador’s President millions of dollars to run it and house deportees from the US who have been afforded no due process in their journey there. The administration and Congress are gleeful and boastful about their power to circumvent all processes of American and international law to send prisoners there and lose them. The Lower Courts and the legal establishment are tentative and afraid to challenge this, and the Supreme Court makes only tentative, performative and ineffectual gestures to absolve themselves of responsibility without doing anything effective to arrest the Executive’s crimes against the Constitution.

Today, the President of the U.S. urged El Salvador to build more concentration camps, and clearly stated his intentions – to send United States citizens there.

There is no loyalty to the Constitution left. The oaths to the Constitution they all swore have as much worth as goat dung in their mouths. The Bill of Rights has been shredded, and we are not on a slippery slope – we are arriving at its base.

– David Muir
via social media
April 14, 2025

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a Maryland resident. A husband. A father. A man the courts explicitly ordered could not be deported. But Donald Trump did it anyway.

Now he’s gone.

The Supreme Court ruled that Abrego Garcia must be returned to the United States. That’s not optional. It’s the law. And now, at a staged Oval Office event, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador sat beside Trump and smirked: “How can I return him to the United States? Am I going to smuggle him?” No. He’s not going to return him at all. Because – elephant in the room – the simplest explanation for El Salvador’s refusal to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court is the most horrifying one: Abrego Garcia is already dead.

That’s why they’re dodging. That’s why Trump is deferring. That’s why his team – Pam Bondi, Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller – is pretending this is a diplomatic inconvenience instead of a direct violation of a legal order. Because the United States government may have handed a man over to his killers.

And we paid for it.

Let’s talk about that $6 million. That money came from American taxpayers. Trump cut a backroom deal with Bukele to turn El Salvador into a human dumping ground – an offshore prison to house immigrants, gang suspects, asylum-seekers, and, now, wrongfully deported U.S. residents. That $6 million was blood money. It greased the wheels for mass deportation. It helped fill the cells. It helped silence the fallout.

Now one of those wrongfully deported men is missing. And the White House shrugs and says, “That’s up to El Salvador.”

No, it’s not.

That money bought influence. That deal bought leverage. And that ruling from the Supreme Court? It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a legal obligation. Trump doesn’t get to ignore the law just because he’d rather play dictator than president.

To be crystal clear – this is not about national security. It’s not about crime. Kilmar Abrego Garcia wasn’t a threat. He was a man living in Maryland with his wife and child. He was denied asylum, yes, but was protected by a standing court order that recognized the danger of sending him back. Trump’s team knew this. They did it anyway.

Now a government refuses to return him. And the president of the United States acts like his hands are tied. When they came up with the talking points together.

Trump is not just responsible. He is liable. This is abuse of power. This is obstruction of justice. This is cruel, intentional, and impeachable.

Congress: do your job. Draft the articles today.

– Beth McDonnell
“Trump Broke the Law. Now a Man Is Missing.
This Is Recipe for Impeachment”
BethMcDonnell.substack.com/
April 14, 2025

What happens when the Constitution becomes optional? When checks no longer check, and balances collapse – not all at once, but through a thousand acts of cowardice? When rights become conditional – granted to the loyal, denied to everyone else?

We’re not theorizing. We’re living it.

Trump’s second term isn’t governance – it’s performance. His campaign wasn’t a platform. It was a ritual. A mass spectacle of grievance, loyalty, and vengeance. A public vow to purge, punish, and consolidate. And while his base clings to the Second Amendment as a shield against tyranny, they ignore what every autocrat understands: the armed citizen isn’t a symbol of freedom – it’s a threat. Trump doesn’t want militias. He wants obedience. And if that falters, it won’t be Democrats at your door – it’ll be his enforcers, badges optional.

Now in power again, Trump is taking a wrecking ball not just to federal agencies, but to the Bill of Rights.

The First Amendment is being gutted. The press is “the enemy.” Journalists face threats and lawsuits. Public broadcasters are targeted. The goal isn’t just to silence dissent – it’s to shame and punish it. Speech is still “free,” but only if it flatters power.

Protest is no longer seen as participation – it’s treated as provocation. Demonstrators are surveilled, prosecuted, discredited. The state doesn’t need to silence everyone. It only needs to make people hesitate. When fear replaces speech, the work of repression is already done.

The Fourth Amendment? Gone in practice. Trump’s use of unidentified federal agents in unmarked vans to detain protestors wasn’t a misstep. It was a show of force. A message: we don’t need permission. We don’t need to explain.

Due process has been replaced by rituals of domination and cruelty. Family separation wasn’t a bureaucratic failure. It was a ritual display of power. Children were taken not to deter migrants, but to show what the state could do to those without voice. That same logic now drives mass deportations. It is made visible in the new detention centers being built on military bases. These are not just facilities. They are zones where a person’s legal rights are suspended – spaces of un-rights.

The Sixth Amendment is under siege. Trump mocks judges, threatens prosecutors, and undermines juries. Trials still take place, but justice is no longer the point. Verdicts have become performances, scripted to reward loyalty or punish enemies.

Cruelty is not a byproduct – it’s a strategy. Migrants held in freezing cells. Children on concrete floors, denied soap, medical care, even daylight. The system isn’t failing. It’s working exactly as intended. Pain is the message.

And the unpredictability? That too is the design. Like tyrants before him, Trump’s most chaotic decisions are not signs of instability – they’re tactics. Think of Caligula: a ruler whose violence was erratic, whose decrees were inconsistent, and whose punishments seemed arbitrary – yet all of it served a purpose. When law is unpredictable, fear becomes the only rule. In Trump’s America, legal chaos becomes political order, and cruelty becomes the choreography of control. The result is not confusion, but obedience.

Equal protection? Not for all. Trump casts the state as the protector of “real Americans” – and everyone else as a threat. Immigrants are “animals.” Protestors are “terrorists.” Opponents are “traitors.” Lines are drawn not by law, but by identity. Charlottesville wasn’t an accident. It was the blueprint.

Voting rights are being hollowed out. Trump spreads lies about fraud to justify real suppression. Campus polling stations are disappearing. Early voting is being cut. Laws target students, young people, and communities of color. The vote still exists. But it’s harder to reach. And easier to discard.

The Twenty-Fifth Amendment? Dead. After the January 6 attack, some Cabinet members considered removing him. He fired them. Now, no one dares.

And the insurrectionists? Pardoned. Not quietly, not regretfully, but proudly. Their violence wasn’t forgiven – it was validated. In Trump’s America, political violence isn’t punished. It’s rewarded.

Even the Twenty-Seventh Amendment is mocked. Trump turned public office into a private business. Foreign dignitaries booked rooms at his properties. The presidency became a loyalty program with luxury perks. Corruption isn’t hidden. It’s advertised.

This isn’t just a list of violations. It’s a transformation.

Trump has revived Schedule F to purge the civil service. He’s threatened to use the military against Americans. He governs by spectacle, fear, and revenge – not law.

This is how democracy unravels. Not in one blow, but through the repetition of small betrayals. A silencing here. A firing there. An agency shuttered. A right revoked. Until what once felt impossible becomes normal.

This isn’t just another presidency. It’s the construction of a regime.

And if we accept it – if we adjust, excuse, adapt – we won’t just lose an election.

We’ll lose the republic.

– James B. Greenberg
via social media
April 14, 2025

The Wild Reed

Monday, April 14, 2025

“This Is How Democracy Unravels”

No comments:

About Me

Translate

Blog Archive

Most Popular Posts

From the Archives . . .

Search This Blog

Labels

Essential Reading from Around the Web

.

Film

The Sufi Path

Readers write . . .

Followers