Trump's Gulag-Industrial Complex Spoiler Alert: You’re Next

Let’s be clear about what Trump is saying: he wants to send American citizens to a gulag in El Salvador, a prison from which there is no escape, no hope of release, and no due process.

Trump's Gulag-Industrial Complex Spoiler Alert: You’re Next "Home-growns are next. The home-growns. You gotta build about five more places. It's not big enough." Those were the words today of Donald Trump, 47th President of the United States, to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele during an Oval Office visit yesterday from “The world’s coolest dictator.”

“The home-growns.” Let’s be clear about what Trump is saying: he wants to send American citizens to a gulag in El Salvador, a prison from which there is no escape, no hope of release, and no due process. Trump will sell this insanely unconstitutional idea as targeting American criminals, but it won't stop there. It’s not just going to be the “worst of the worst.” He’s also talking about sending anti-Tesla protestors to El Salvador’s Tropical Abu Ghraib. “I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20 year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla. Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions!” Trump's Oval Office “build 5 more” prisons like CECOT to El Salvador’s dictator Nayib Bukele was a slip of the tongue that reveals his true intentions: to target not just the "worst of the worst" but also protesters, dissidents, and anyone who dares to challenge his regime.

The Oval Office has, rather unsurprisingly, become a breeding ground for the most heinous, unconstitutional, and inhumane ideas with Donald Trump at the helm. The latest scheme to emerge from this cesspool of corruption involves shipping American citizens off to El Salvador's notorious prisons, devoid of due process, hope of release, or basic human rights. In short, we’re next.

The very notion of sending American citizens to a foreign gulag is an affront to the Constitution, a document that Trump has repeatedly shown disdain for. His Administration is pushing the Overton Window to the right with a bulldozer, crushing any semblance of democracy, transparency, or accountability. The complicity of Republican lawmakers, who cower in fear of Trump's revenge, is a stark reminder of their spinelessness. So much for the “pocket Constitution” boys of the 2010, 2012, and 2016 Senate classes. None of them dares to call this illegality what it is. Not one will blink when DHS starts Stephen Miller’s “mass denaturalization program.”

Meanwhile, Democrats are only marginally better, waiting for their "honorable Republican colleagues across the aisle" to see the light of day rather than taking concrete action to stop this descent into madness. The correct response is not to appeal to the better angels of Republicans but to slam the brakes on every appointment, budget item, and piece of Senate business. The correct response is to fly to El Salvador to demand access to the prison. It's time to grind Washington to a halt, just as Mitch McConnell would if he were in Chuck Schumer's seat.

The catalog of outrages, errors, and deliberate sabotage committed by the Trump Administration is a never-ending nightmare. The stress and fear induced by his presence in the White House are palpable, a constant reminder that eternal vigilance is the price of living under a predatory sociopath. Trump's pattern of behavior is all too familiar to those who have survived abusive relationships – a toxic mix of gaslighting, manipulation, and coercion.

The deal engineered by Marco Rubio – who makes much political hay about being the son of Cuban refugees – to pay El Salvador $6 million to hold prisoners deported without due process is a stark example of the Administration's blatant disregard for the law. The magic hook they're searching for is "mass denaturalization," a concept that is both unconstitutional and prone to abuse.

Legal scholar Steve Vladek told Rolling Stone:

“You can’t deport U.S. citizens. There’s no emergency exception, there’s no special wartime authority, there’s no secret clause. You just can’t deport citizens. Whatever grounds they try to come up with for denaturalization or expatriation, the one thing that is absolutely undeniable is that people are entitled to individualized processes before that process can be effectuated.”

Vladek's warning that "you can't deport U.S. citizens" falls on deaf ears, as the Administration asserts its authority to strip Americans of their citizenship and cast them into the black hole of CECOT. It started with the usual nods and winks, the “we’re just trollin’ the libs” wink to reporters as members of the Administration and its amen-chorus on Elon Musk’s weeping sore of an alt-reich social media cesspool, as if you say, “We’d never really send Americans to a for-profit gulag in El Salvador…we just want to see libtard progs lose their shit.” Then was deliberately slipped into Karoline Leavitt’s smirking answer to a mainstream media question over whether the Trump Administration is considering deporting American citizens: “The president has said if it’s legal, right, if there is a legal pathway to do that, he’s not sure. We are not sure if there is, it’s an idea that he has simply floated and has discussed very publicly as in the effort of transparency.”

Let’s be real: it’s a whole-of-government effort - Stephen Miller, the Heydrich of our era, is its chief architect. Tom Homan is his grunting hatchet man. Kristi Noem, its spokesmodel. Pam Bondi is a particularly pernicious and corrosive force to head the Department of Justice. Corrupt, venal, stupid, and blindly obedient aren’t the characteristics anyone but Trump would seek as Attorney General, but Bondi hits all the marks.

Her department's refusal to comply with the Supreme Court's order to return an illegally arrested and detained immigrant is a brazen challenge to the rule of law. The Administration has refused to comply with the Supreme Court’s order to return an illegally arrested and detained legal immigrant to the United States, Kilmar Abrego García.

Chief Justice John Roberts thought he could delay the Constitutional crisis a little longer, but as in all transactions with Trump, the Devil always breaks the deal. The Administration is daring the Supreme Court to act, knowing that if it declines to sanction Trump’s team of kidnappers and felons, they’re off the leash permanently.

This fight isn’t about one refugee sent illegally to a hellhole designed to trap its inmates in slavery forever. It’s an old – and somewhat apocryphal – saw that Stalin once said a single death from hunger is a tragedy, but a million is a statistic. If Trump, Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, and Marco Rubio have their way, the number of people swelling the Gulag in El Salvador will rise beyond the power of the courts or anyone else to stop it.

This crisis is bigger, more dangerous, and will, in the very near future, target more than “the most heinous criminals.” It will very soon escalate, and the people stripped of their citizenship and cast into the black hole of CECOT will be protesters, then Trump’s enemies, then anyone who dares to question this Administration.

If you believe for a moment that it stops with immigrants, I guess I’ll see you in CECOT. I get the top bunk.

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