In Abroad Daylight
After 100 days of jackhammering America’s norms, values, laws, finances, allies, and what’s left of the psyche of the average news curator, it’s hard to narrow things down to Trump’s worst affront so far. But there is one transgression that seems to best encapsulate where we’ve been dragged: The sending of potentially innocent Venezuelans to a gulag-like prison in El Salvador. The story includes the simultaneous disappearing of people and due process. The glad-handing, jubilant Oval Office meeting with a leader who has referred to himself as “the coolest dictator” by an American president who said he’d love to send American “homegrown criminals” to a similar prison abroad. The ignoring of a series of court orders and the wanton flouting of a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling. The presidential displaying of a clearly doctored photo that makes it seem like Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a man sent to the CECOT terrorism confinement center by mistake, was a member of a dangerous gang. The firing of the Justice Department lawyer who made it clear that Garcia’s fate was due to a clerical error. The sadistic photo ops from the US head of Homeland Security posing in front of CECOT prisoners. The ceding of America’s high ground when it comes to due process and the rule of law. The refusal to apologize for any mistakes. The refusal to rectify any of those mistakes. The celebration of cruelty. And, like any terrible scandal, the more we learn about the story, the worse it gets. “New details deepen questions about the deportations, showing that El Salvador’s president pressed for assurances that the migrants were really members of the Tren de Aragua gang.” The NYT (Gift Article): Behind Trump’s Deal to Deport Venezuelans to El Salvador’s Most Feared Prison.
+ NYT (Gift Article): Trump Says He Could Free Abrego Garcia From El Salvador, but Won’t. “Mr. Trump’s comments not only undermined previous statements by his top aides, but were a blunt sign of his administration’s intention to double down and defy the courts.”
+ The Verge: Donald Trump might actually believe these Microsoft Calibri labels are real MS-13 tattoos. (He fabricates so much, even he’s bound to be fooled by some of the lies…)
+ There’s one more aspect of this story that encapsulates our American moment. Some of our fellow citizens are loving every minute of it. “At his rally in Michigan, Trump played a propaganda video of prisoners having their heads shaved at the Gulag in El Salvador to big cheers from the crowd and U-S-A!’ chants.”
