The MAGA movement isn’t shy about its slogans. By now we’ve heard the classics “Drain the swamp,” “Forgotten Men and Women,” and “Never Surrender.” By design they exist as fragments to represent a man whose game is avoiding coherent sentences suggesting a motive. I’d add, “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” Rather than ashen faces there’d be some toothy grins in the room. I say “Comrades, this may not be the best message to start the party but it’s the message of the party.”
ICE is the most salient MAGA messenger, and now the most funded federal agency. The vanity project has become a necessary enforcer and mirror. Its purpose isn’t to complete a singular mission and dissolve but rather to turn a corner and always see itself. This characterization of ICE often is labeled a woke liberal’s maligning of what the Right believes is a necessary taskforce designed to solve a problem. The alleged problem is that immigration is responsible for America’s economic woes. But immigration isn’t the problem; it’s decades of lobbying by powerful businesses to line the pockets of politicians on both sides. The result is that all the wealth which would make life more affordable has been systematically siphoned away from a bipartisan working class. ICE is prohibitively expensive to operate. In a previous article about invading Venezuela I asked what the financial return would be for the American taxpayer. Weeks later I’ve heard no mainstream conversation about how expensive that adventure will continue to be. Foreign war is expensive but not less than unending civil unrest caused by ICE.
This cash burn is seemingly justified if ICE deports everyone they can find. Yet they’ve found they can no longer do the job without being both Gestapo and a militia. To them or Trump there’s no acceptable number of living Renee Good’s. ICE only reaches its peak sense of purpose when the opportunities for violence they create for themselves exist. MAGA simply needs to persuade the public that ICE isn’t promoting these situations.
The sin of omission about mass deportation is that there’s been no mention of how much money this saves the taxpayer. The opportunity is ripe for Trump to fabricate: “By 2027 when we deport all of the illegals the economy will rise by 201%, like nothing you’ve ever seen.” There are self-anointed Republican fiscal hawks who regularly review tax breaks and yet they haven’t asked to see the cost-benefit analysis of how much money is lost versus gained in the overall economy by mass deportation.
I attended a peaceful ICE protest last weekend in Morristown, NJ. The police department watched but didn’t interfere. There’s a large Latino community here, comprising about 30 percent of the population. In a restaurant on a well-trafficked corridor of Latino-owned businesses, I sat with my partner, our protest signs in view. This place is like any number of Colombian eateries my parents brought me to in 1980s New York. Over a plate of fried plantains I thought about an alternative history. If the regular clients who eat here are deported the restaurant will struggle. They’re then left to court a non-Latino clientele who feels out of place, not so much because of ignorance, but because of a uniquely American barrier to multiculturalism. The restaurant would shut down.. The only person willing to take over would likely be a restaurateur or franchise owner. The place becomes another Edison bulb gastropub with a mediocre $25 burger. Yet people will go because that sort of place is a byword for feeling like you’re eating your way out of the class you’re told to stay silently trapped in. When we paid the check my empanadas were about $2.50 each. I needed only three to feel that I ate well.