America is in danger of becoming numb to violence

Since its founding the United States has suffered from eruptions of political violence from time to time We are now in one of those periods The vicious murder of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk on Wednesday is just the latest in a series of killings and attempted assassinations of political figures on both sides of the aisle and we re having to deal with it as the Trump administration and establishment institutions under its control are becoming more radical with each passing week With passions running so high the nation could use a president with a unifying voice and steady hand to remind us of our better angels Instead we have Donald Trump This is the president who sent troops into the streets of Los Angeles for months and who has deployed the National Guard along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to rid Washington D C of crime which is at historic lows in the city Last week he informed he would rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War and effectively declared that the U S military has the right to murder suspected drug runners anywhere in the world Trump proved his intentions by ordering the Navy to blow up a Venezuelan boat in the Caribbean with people on board Turning his sights to Chicago he posted a meme based on the film Apocalypse Now that threatened the city with war and then reported he was sending in the National Guard But the fear multiple Americans have isn t coming from street crime or even from the horror of gun violence to which we have all become sadly accustomed It s coming from the ruling body and with good reason But the fear multiple Americans have isn t coming from street crime or even from the horror of gun violence to which we have all become sadly accustomed It s coming from the executive and with good reason In the wake of Kirk s assassination on the campus of Utah Valley University Trump has vowed to crush what he calls the radical left Several right-wing influencers are encouraging him to target the news media liberal organizations and the transgender district Based on his record over the past nine months he could very well follow through with their wishes During the presidential campaign Trump promised to enact a mass deportation activity and delegates and attendees joyously waved signs and posters His executive order then came as no surprise The Department of Homeland Precaution promptly began abducting college students who had protested against Israel s war in Gaza or in various cases merely written editorials in their aspirant newspapers and holding them in far-flung detention centers to await deportation International travellers were detained in holding facilities for failing to properly fill out paperwork Scientists were suddenly denied entry because they had written something critical of Trump Related After Charlie Kirk s murder what lies ahead could be terrible Even now having lived with these actions for months it s shocking to write that such things have happened in the U S But they have What had been promised as a activity to rid the country of hardened criminals was right out of the gate proven to be a sham Ratcheting up the terror the authorities ordered a series of deportation flights to a notorious prison in El Salvador Chilling videos showing shackled prisoners having their heads shaved and being manhandled by uniformed guards were circulated to the apparent delight of the MAGA faithful Majority of the prisoners it was soon determined had no criminal record they had just been swept up and deported on the basis of tattoos and other physical characteristics Last June DHS unleashed ICE on L A to conduct raids in search of allegedly undocumented workers for immediate deportation The move shocked the city to its core immigrants from all over the world but especially Mexico and other parts of Latin America as well as all across the Pacific Rim are part of the fabric of southern California People protested in an area around the downtown detention center which became a flashpoint for a couple of nights It was nothing the Los Angeles Police Department couldn t and does handle with various frequency Want more sharp takes on politics Sign up for our free newsletter Standing Room Only written by Amanda Marcotte now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts But Trump used it as an obviously planned excuse to declare yet another bogus urgency Against the wishes of Democratic Gov Gavin Newsom he called up the California National Guard and then deployed active-duty Marines to quell a non-existent riot and initiate the new reality of soldiers on the streets of America Even after the troops have gone ICE has continued to terrorize the immigrant neighborhood Its agents often wear masks and weird quasi-official garb drive unmarked cars and violently disappear people off the streets without any probable cause other than that they look like they might not be citizens but numerous of them are Agents staged highly performative shows of force and rampaged through fields and factories gathering up everyone they could find The lower federal courts have stepped in to stop these actions and the cabinet usually complies But ICE will likely be back at it before too long Multiple suspect that the Supreme Court will soon use its urgency or shadow docket to allow them to proceed Those rulings are the majority often given without explanation but when one is offered it s usually to explain that the executive would suffer irreparable harm if it isn t allowed to proceed A multitude of legal scholars are astonished at the court s behavior in these last meager months which has included appeals court judges being rebuked by the high court for totally following precedent and then left without any guidance as to what they are supposed to do differently We need your help to stay independent Subscribe in contemporary times to promotion Salon s progressive journalism Last week the Supreme Court did it again After suffering through a harrowing summer L A was definitively able to relax a bit when a judge blocked ICE s method of roving raids all over the city The Marines and National Guard had left and things had more or less gone back to normal But then the Supreme Court once again stepped in to allow the Trump administration to menace communities by allowing agents to resume random stops based on racial profiling As Mother Jones pointed out in an arch headline The Supreme Court says ICE can consider race but colleges can t ICE the establishment announced would flood the zone with enforcement Now L A is once again under siege Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that people who are here legally have nothing to worry about that being stopped and sought for your papers is a minor inconvenience But of curriculum it s not especially when citizens and legal residents are being stopped at gunpoint and dragged from their cars Violence takes several forms As we careen from one horror to another from assassinations to violent arrests and deportations I fear we are becoming numb and losing the quota to feel just how terribly painfully wrong all of this is Read more about this topic Why is it so hard to stop Donald Trump Trump s stain on America may be permanent DC now faces all-out assault from the House GOP and requirements a fighter The post America is in danger of becoming numb to violence appeared first on Salon com