It’s Not Even About Deportation

The Alex Padilla incident, and the threat to “liberate” Los Angeles from its lawfully-elected leaders;
Trump always thinks protestors are paid demonstrators; why cannot he conceive that people disagree with him on principle?
And bonus items!

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Because deportation is a legal process, which Trump and ICE are ignoring. It’s actually a racist, xenophobic drive about routing the nation of non-Whites, by any means. They don’t do “due process.” They just *know* that non-Whites are bad and must be expelled from the country. Or removed from the room.

You can get away with a lot when your fans apparently don’t realize what they’re seeing, even when it’s right in front of them. This has happened before in history; why aren’t more Americans alarmed by this??

Now a US senator — who happens to be brown-skinned — was forcibly removed from a press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (she of brown hair carefully arranged over her shoulders for every photo op) and handcuffed.

LA Times, Gustavo Arellano, 13 Jun 2025: Sen. Alex Padilla’s crime? Being Mexican in MAGA America

When U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a news conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, it was almost as if Donald Trump’s most well-worn talking point came to life:

A bad hombre tried to go after a white American.

All Padilla did was identify himself and try to question Noem about the immigration raids across Southern California that have led to protests and terror. Instead, federal agents pushed the senator into a hallway, forced him to the ground and handcuffed him before he was released. He and Noem talked privately afterward, yet she claimed to reporters that Padilla “lung[ed]” at her despite them being far apart and video showing no evidence to back up her laughable assertion.

I watched a clip of the incident, and at worst Padilla took a step forward as he asked his question.

An initial report, from Thursday.

Slate, Ben Mathis-Lilley, 12 Jun 2025: U.S. Senator Thrown Down, Handcuffed as DHS Secretary Announces “Liberation” of California, subtitled “We are entering uncharted territory, folks.”

This includes the video.

And this:

Kristi Noem: We Are Staying in L.A. to ‘Liberate the City from the Socialist and the Burdensome Leadership’ of Mayor Bass and Gov. Newsom

*Excuse me*?? Who are they to think that — on the basis of a few hundred people protesting ICE tactics of kidnapping people off the street and disappearing them — think that California needs “liberating”? This sounds a lot like failed attempts by the US in past decades of thinking various people’s need “liberating” from their governments — and like Putin’s claim that Ukraine needs “liberating” from their supposed Nazi leaders.

Naturally, right-wingers, including Fox News (and Jon Voigt), create their own spins on these events. I do see some of these on Facebook. Once again, I think reactions like these, which typically align with conservatives, result from the inability to sense proportion, and the inability to understand nuance. The three burning Waymo cars, shown over and over in photos on TV from different angles, do not mean the entire city of LA is burning down, or that Trump and his thugs are entitled to “liberate” the state from its lawfully elected leaders.

Two more items about this.

Media Matters, Matt Gertz, 13 Jun 2025: Fox parroted DHS claim Padilla “lunged toward” Noem. Video debunks it.

and

Boing Boing, Carla Sinclair, 12 Jun 2025: Sen. Alex Padilla handcuffed while talking to Kristi Noem — L.A. will be purged of its “burdensome leaders” she says (video)

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Stepping out toward the bigger issue.

Salon, Alex Galbraith, 11 Jun 2025: “Who is funding these protestors?”: Gabbard, Trump spread conspiracy theory about paid demonstrators, subtitled: “The director of national intelligence pushed the idea that Los Angeles demonstrators were paid to protest”

At this point I think we can assume that if Trump accuses someone of something, it’s because he himself has done it. Let that sit for a moment. Then: What is also revealed here? Setting crude cynicism aside (i.e. they don’t believe what they’re saying but are only playing to the crowd). Can Trump and Gabbard honestly not conceive that some people honestly disagree with what they’re doing? (Because honest disagreements come from principles, and Trump thinks only in terms of power.)

Salon, Heather Digby Parton, 13 Jun 2025: Worse than Orbán: Trump is trying to bring his opposition to heel, subtitled “In Orbán’s Hungary, it’s “respectable fascism.” Here in the U.S., it’s something else”

And a bigger picture in another dimension.