DCUM Weblog

This is a particularly bad time in the history of the United States. Every day provides more evidence of how far our country has moved from the values that we were taught were fundamental to its existence. America was once portrayed as a land of liberty, free expression, and democracy. Today, it is a country in which universities collaborate with the President to suppress the speech of their students. It is a country in which innocent people are grabbed from sidewalks, homes, and even courthouses by unidentified masked agents and shoved into unmarked vehicles, vanishing into detention centers both within the country and abroad. America has become the type of country that we were once warned about and taught to fear. But, in the midst of all this, I have found one simple reason for joy. One of my favorite bands, the Dropkick Murphys, has unexpectedly — at least to me — gained viral popularity as a voice opposed to cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump and his MAGA cult members.

Part of what cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has done, either intentionally or not, is to flood the zone with steps towards autocracy. He and others in his administration take so many actions that it is almost impossible to keep track of them all. Therefore, today I am going to list a few of the more recent autocratic moves that may otherwise go unnoticed.

First, I want to start with an update on the Kilmar Abrego Garcia situation. Abrego Garcia, as most of you reading this blog are probably aware, is the Maryland father who was removed to El Salvador in error. Federal District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered that discovery begin to determine whether the federal government should be held in contempt for failing to obey a Supreme Court ruling that the government should facilitate Abrego Garcia's release and return to the U.S. The government was also required to provide daily status reports on its efforts. On Tuesday, in a strange occurrence, government lawyers submitted their status update under seal, meaning that it was withheld from both the public and Abrego Garcia’s lawyers. We don't know what was in that report, but yesterday the government submitted a motion to delay both discovery and the status reports for seven days. That motion was also filed under seal, but was apparently shared with Abrego Garcia's legal defense team. Abrego Garcia's attorneys responded also under seal. Then Xinis issued an order granting the seven-day delay and saying that both sides had agreed to it. To be clear, we don't know what occurred here other than that the government asked for a delay, Abrego Garcia's legal team agreed to the delay, and Xinis approved it. My hope and guess is that the government is trying to work a deal for Abrego Garcia's return and is afraid that publicity will upset the negotiations. My further speculation is that these negotiations are not taking place between the U.S. and Salvadoran governments, but rather between various components of the U.S. government. Trump's advisors are probably busy jangling keys in front of his face like parents trying to distract a child having a tantrum and don't want him further upset by comments coming out of Xinis' courtroom. No guarantees, of course — again, this is speculation on my part — but I have some hope that Abrego Garcia could be returning to the U.S. within a week.

For the most part, in these blog posts, my intention is to focus on moves towards autocracy and the attendant corruption that normally accompanies such efforts. But another common characteristic of autocracies is incompetence. In a way, this is counterintuitive because one of the primary justifications for autocratic regimes is that they are effective and can get things done. In reality, this is often not the case. Contrary to popular belief, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini did not make the trains run on time. During his rule, Italian trains were just as likely to be late as during earlier periods. He was, however, successful in creating this myth. Similarly, cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has been considered a strong leader on economic issues and good for the economy. Supporters cite his background as a businessman and a very rose-tinted-glasses view of his first term. While I believe that former President Joe Biden did an objectively good job with the economy, inflation that persisted throughout his term (though reaching manageable levels in the latter part) convinced most voters otherwise. Indeed, the price of eggs became one of the major talking points of the Trump campaign. However, as things have turned out, much like Mussolini's railway timetable skills, Trump's alleged economic accumen has turned out to be nothing more than myth.

I have found Molly White's "[citation needed]" newsletter to be an essential source of information about developments in the cryptocurrency industry. Last week, she titled her newsletter, "Trump’s newest grift: Building a cryptocurrency empire while destroying its regulators" and devoted the entire publication to the involvement of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump in various aspects of cryptocurrency. I imagine that few understand exactly how involved Trump is with crypto or the corruption that goes along with it. As such, it is probably worth providing an overview of White's report.

What White documents is essentially a crime spree. On the one hand, Trump has used his authority within the government to remove the few regulations and regulators that existed with regard to cryptocurrency. On the other hand, Trump has exploited nearly every opportunity that the new "wild west" crypto environment provides. As White writes, Trump and his family are "set to profit precisely because Trump is gutting the regulations that would normally constrain it". She then goes on to say:

A common technique of novelists is to begin with what appear to be separate, unrelated, storylines and, as the story develops, merge them into a single drama. To some extent, our current reality is much like this, only based in fact rather than imagination. As such, current events can be explained much like a novel.

It may not have been a dark and stormy night, but in the lobby of the New York City building in which Mahmoud Khalil shares student housing with his American-citizen wife, a group of law enforcement officers surrounds him and takes him into custody, refusing to identify themselves or explain what will happen to him. He eventually surfaces in a detention center in the state of Louisiana. The next week, after leaving work and picking up his son, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is stopped by Department of Homeland Security agents. Three days later, Abrego Garcia is flown to El Salvador, where he is imprisoned in the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). Two days after that, Badar Khan Suri, a researcher at Georgetown University, is arrested at his home in Roselyn, Virginia by masked agents. He is moved to a detainment facility in Texas. Not long after that, masked agents seize Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk off of a Somerville, Massachusetts street, forcing her into an unmarked car. She will eventually surface in another detention center in Louisiana. Days later, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stop a car driven by Alfredo Juarez, a labor activist who has worked to organize farm workers, smash his car's window, and drag him out onto the pavement. He ends up in a processing center in Tacoma, Washington.

Because writing daily posts about the authoritarian takeover of America is depressing, I have been hoping to use Fridays for more lighthearted topics. Unfortunately, reality has been intruding on that desire, as it has today. There have been important developments involving the subjects of earlier posts that I think are important enough to put off my plans for a less serious post. Fortunately, not all of those developments are necessarily bad.

I'll start with the good news. Yesterday, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen was able to meet with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father who was wrongly transferred to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). We now know that Abrego Garcia is alive and appears to be in good health. The photos of the meeting were staged by the Salvadoran government and, as such, things likely look much better than reality. Van Hollen said that he would have a fuller report after he returned to the United States. El Salvador's President, Nayib Bukele, later mocked the meeting as "sipping margaritas" and implied that Abrego Garcia would not be released from prison.

I have written several posts about attempts by the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump to remove international students from the United States. Initially, this was advertised as a policy aimed at students who had participated in protests opposing Israel's genocide in Gaza or who had displayed antisemitism. However, the administration's actions have been heavy-handed and, as is typical of this administration, frequently incompetent. After the initial removal attempts, the effort has grown much wider and ensnared many students who have had nothing to do with protests or antisemitism. Moreover, it appears that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have behaved deceptively at times in an effort to essentially trick students into leaving the country.

Today I am going to do something a bit different from my previous posts. I am going to focus almost exclusively on an article published by National Public Radio (NPR) titled, "A whistleblower's disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data". The article and the accompanying radio story were the work of Jenna McLaughlin and detail the experiences of a whistleblower named Daniel Berulis who is an information technology specialist at the National Labor Relations Board. According to Berulis, members of a team from the U.S. DOGE Service, after disabling security mechanisms, may have exfiltrated sensitive data from the NLRB. Exactly what data and for what purposes it may have been removed is not clear, but Berulis paints a very troubling picture.

This morning I want to cut right to the chase. Admittedly, I am not a historian, I am not a politician, and I am not some special font of wisdom. I own a website that affords me a small platform to spout my opinions. Nothing more. But, with those caveats in mind, I think that yesterday marks a turning point in U.S. history: it was the first day of fascism in America. The United States is no longer a country that abides by the rule of law. Our system of three co-equal branches of government has failed. The reason that I believe this transition from democracy concluded yesterday is because, yesterday, the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump openly ignored two court rulings and clearly telegraphed its intention to ignore court rulings with which it disagrees. Congress had already become little more than a rubber stamp for Trump's preferences. Now Trump intends to treat the judiciary branch as little more than an advisory council. As a result, we have rule by Sharpie as Trump scribbles out executive orders that are clearly unlawful, but are treated as if they have the force of law.

One of the first victims of autocratic regimes is the free press. Autocrats detest criticism, preferring a controlled media that toes the government line. Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump seems to have a love/hate relationship with most of the media. Reporters are one of Trump's favorite targets of attack — he frequently refers to reporters as the "enemy of the people" — and is routinely critical of the mainstream media. Simultaneously, however, Trump loves media attention and has a penchant for playing the media like a fiddle. He has house-trained mainstream reporters such as Maggie Haberman — who knows not to risk her access with hard-nosed reporting and to save her best scoops for a book in the future — and, more recently, started surrounding himself with bloggers who are essentially MAGA cult members. Trump's effort to neuter the media is wide-ranging and multifaceted. But it is an important element of his emerging autocracy.