Once Trump takes power, we are only a certain number of terrorist incidents away from Islamic people being forced into camps. Any act of terrorism that can be even tangentially connected to Muslims will do as justification. One big one (say, a few hundred dead) would be enough, but a few small to medium-sized ones over a short enough period of time would probably suffice as well. Trump and his personal Joseph Goebbels, Steve Bannon, will whip enough of the country into a terrified frenzy that the majority will support anything they propose to “make everyone safe.” The ratings-hungry media will be only too happy to help them. Remember what it was like right after 9/11? We ended up with overwhelming bipartisan approval for the Patriot Act and the second Iraq War.
ISIS and every other group of Islamic terrorists know all of this, and it’s their ultimate dream come true. Their recruitment would reach unprecedented levels. They WILL try to make it happen.
Yes, all of this would be against the law as it currently exists. But I have little trouble imagining Congress, driven by a panicked populace, voting to give Trump “emergency powers” to “restore order,” making it “temporarily” legal for him to do this. (Granted, a lot of them don’t like Trump, but they know it would be simple enough to impeach him and put Pence in his place.)
Once Trump’s (or Pence’s) government has assembled their force to lock up the Muslims and the camps are built, all that shit is here to stay. There’s no way they will willingly disband it . Which means some other group will be next.
I’m not arguing that this is inevitable, but it does seem frighteningly plausible. People may want to believe we’re better than this as a nation, but the Japanese internment camps of WWII and the genocide inflicted on Native Americans indicate otherwise. Not only can it happen here, it HAS happened here – and it’s never been closer to happening again than it is right now.
I don’t see any of this as happening; it would be far more cost-effective to just gun them down in the streets, leaving their bodies to be eaten by roving bands of wild dogs.
If a certain other example is to be believed, those who were ordered to do that would balk even if they don’t care about the people, because the human body does not like to be exposed to slaughter. You could, however, automate the process somehow so that the executioners would suffer less traumatic stress. I don’t quite remember if anyone’s ever done that or not.
Think that’s bad? I have it on good authority Trump has already given the go-ahead to switch on Skynet the week after his inauguration.
Just as a general observation, quite a lot of people seem to be competing to come up with the most thrilling and dramatic worst-case scenario of a Trump presidency. I of cource hope such remains fantasy, but like giving a monkey with a machine gun, anything can happen, but the odds are it’ll be bad.
Yeah, yeah. And Obama was planning on putting Republicans in them under cover of military training exercises. Nice to know that paranoid lunacy isn’t limited to just one party.
Humans have an inborn tendency to believe 'nothing ever changes, really.’ We’ve had a fairly humane democracy characterized by rule of law for ages, therefore we’ll always have a fairly humane democracy characterized by rule of law!
Ha, ha, look, some people think things could CHANGE! How can they be such idiots?!?!? We all know that nothing ever changes!!! Hahaha!
What we haven’t had before is a massively insecure bully who openly admires authoritarian rule and who has no conscience.
Y’all scoff if you like; I don’t have an attic, but anyone who does can count on me to bring supplies around now and then. We should have some kind of token so we can identify one another. I’m a bit skeptical of using safety pins; they’ve gone viral, so the shock troops will probably know to look for those. Maybe White Roses…
And when they do, I’ll be first (well, maybe second or third, I’m getting a bit slower as I age) to the barricades. But right now there’s really quite a lot of hand-wringing going on, to little effect.
Why won’t they? Fear sells. Anger sells. They will broadcast all the lies and misinformation Trump & his cronies care to feed them, because it gets ratings. Seriously, they were willing to give Trump billions worth of free airtime during the election while barely drawing attention to his countless lies and misrepresentations of the truth – why would this be any different? I’d think the runup to the 2016 election has pretty much put paid to the myth that the American media has any kind of collective conscience.
Sure, many journalists are individually liberal, but that doesn’t seem to have much overall effect on the tone of their coverage. It’s mostly a bunch of false equivalency aimed at creating a horse race to keep people tuning in. If there is a major (or semi-major) terrorist incident within the US borders, the vast majority of the media will do what they always do – fill the airwaves with anything, truthful or otherwise, that they think will keep their terrified viewers watching.
If Trump and Bannon announce “Due to this terrible tragedy, we will now begin the mandatory relocation of Muslims within the US borders to a secure location until such time as the safety of the American people can be guaranteed,” the major news networks will show a clip of Trump delivering the speech, then interview one talking head who’s horrified by the idea, interview another who strongly defends it, and then conclude that both sides “have some valid points. Stay tuned as this story develops.”
I mean, am I just being really cynical? What do you think would happen in this scenario?
Remember that more than 50% of the population voted down Trump. American’s aren’t going to sit idly by while innocent citizens are rounded up in interment camps. Taking this action based on lead to civil and uncivil disobedience against the illegal orders, if not out and out civil war.
The only scenario that I can think of that would come close to leading to this would be nuclear terrorism with hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Put it this way - when was the last time CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, The New York Times, CNN, or The Washington Post said that Trump had a valid point in banning Muslim immigration?