The point is that you should try to be factually correct without worrying about what it means you're defending. (Well, you don't have to if you don't want to, but it's at least a reasonable way for someone to behave.)
It's weird to write this in June of this year (giving the author his edit).
> then eventually we escalate all the way to the point we actually escalated to, where people have said in all seriousness that Trump might try to put minorities in camps.
If this was on my 2025 bingo card I think we could have crossed it off a few times with ICE detention facilities and the prison in El Salvador. I don't think it's a requirement that you round them all up, it's plenty enough to simply target someone because of they're in a minority group which is what's happening. He did try to do that, the courts intervened. It's not a lie to not accept someone's framing or motivated reasoning on an issue.
I'm sure you can find plenty of outlandish things said about this admin, why pick the one that, to the people saying it, already happened?
"Well that's not EVERYONE, like someone said it was"
"Yes, I concede, it was only like dozens of people, you certainly have the high-ground in this debate about why we shouldn't have all these dead people"
... I feel the author has missed the point, which has led to an argument that is horrible and, I would say, wrong. Fact-checking is important but, to most people, whether it was 6 or 10 people murdered is not the substance of the debate - the original point is that we probably shouldn't have this guy going around murdering people.
If you then wade in to the debate and your only contribution is to try and make that argument X% less strong then yeah, that really is pretty cringe. If the purpose of the debate is to convince people that Joe Criminal is a horrible rotter that should never again see the light of day, and your aim is to make that argument less persuasive, then you are literally defending him. You may even be right to do so (say, if 10 murders leads to a punishment of horrible tortures and 6 just hanging), but don't pretend that's not what you're doing.
> If this was on my 2025 bingo card I think we could have crossed it off a few times with ICE detention facilities and the prison in El Salvador.
Isn't this the motte and bailey thing though? "Putting minorities in camps" has the implication that they're being put into camps because they're minorities. It's meant to invoke the thing the 20th century fascists did where if you're a member of the group you go to the camps, and moreover if you go to the camps you never come back.
Meanwhile ICE is detaining people because they're suspected of being in the country illegally, and then deporting them.
They suck at it, as usual, so some of the people aren't actually in the country illegally, but most of them are, and then when the government screws up the courts slowly get around to sorting it out. Which is a process that has maybe been in need of reform for quite a while now -- in particular it would be nice to see the government paying for its mistakes more often, and for the "unscrew this up" process to take less time -- but those aren't novelties only now being introduced, they're longstanding problems.
> "Putting minorities in camps" has the implication that they're being put into camps because they're minorities.
Right, and how do you do this and get away with it? In every single circumstance in history, how was this done?
You accuse them of some crime, skip the "prove they did it" part, and then put them somewhere where they can never contact anyone ever again.
Okay - now what is the Trump administration and ICE doing? Because, to me, it sounds a lot like that.
Now, I will admit - there's some plausible deniability here. You're correct that ICE is ass and they make mistakes.
What, I think, takes it over the edge is the hostile and adversarial approach of the Trump administration. The DOJ has refused to comply with some orders (lawful orders!) and the administration has doubled-down when they've made mistakes. Trump has even joked about having the power to bring back people from El Salvador, but choosing not to use that power. When you accuse random people of being part of MS-13 and just kind of shrug when courts say "no, bring that guy back" it gives the impression that you're intentionally trying to ruin people's lives.
There's tolerance for mistakes built into the mind's of Americans, but when mistakes are constantly underplayed, rug-swept, or outright lied about, we all get a little nervous. If the Trump Administration wasn't so hell-bent on burning as much good will as possible, we wouldn't be having this conversation on if people are being disappeared.
> You accuse them of some crime, skip the "prove they did it" part, and then put them somewhere where they can never contact anyone ever again.
And then the US courts tell you that you can't actually do that.
> The DOJ has refused to comply with some orders (lawful orders!) and the administration has doubled-down when they've made mistakes.
Yeah, they're schmucks. They make some argument where the plane is already outside of the US and claim that's outside the court's jurisdiction, and then some appellate court has to decide if that argument is BS or not.
But here's the thing that doesn't happen in Nazi Germany: If the appellate court decides that argument is BS, those government officials can be subject to criminal penalties. Especially if they continue to do it even after the court has ruled against them.
> Trump has even joked about having the power to bring back people from El Salvador, but choosing not to use that power.
That one's actually a hard problem. One of the things that is pretty clear is that US courts don't have jurisdiction over El Salvador. So what happens if the person is already there and El Salvador is refusing to release them? Does Trump actually have the power to bring them back? Are the US courts going to order the US to send Marines into a foreign country to extricate this person? What are they even supposed to do at that point?
> If the appellate court decides that argument is BS, those government officials can be subject to criminal penalties. Especially if they continue to do it even after the court has ruled against them.
Well, this is the part that remains to be seen. Is anyone going to go to prison? For my money, no. But I'm cynical. We'll see what happens. But, I think merely a theoretical rule of law means nothing. I'm sure Nazi Germany had many laws on the books that were broken and subsequently ignored.
I don't understand the contention as I don't participate in the disinformation. ICE kidnaps people without showing documentation on who they are or why they're being kidnapped. They quickly move the people they capture to another facility in the US hundreds of miles away. Then, they send them to El Salvador, a hostile place, or a country they've never been to. This process occurs without seeing a judge to even double check the abducted person is who ICE claims they are. Let alone any actual due process. What's the contention?
Also, despite the insane cruelty that seems to be the process, both Obama and Biden deported more people than Trump.
> then eventually we escalate all the way to the point we actually escalated to, where people have said in all seriousness that Trump might try to put minorities in camps *and murder them*.
I think the author is fair to say that that's an exaggeration of what most people suggested Trump would do.
