Abrego Garcia Was Beaten and Tortured in El Salvador Prison, Lawyers Say

Which explains why the administration has acted the way it did.

What has the US become? I am not surprised by the fact that Trump is a fascist, this is a thing I knew in 2016. What surprised me is how little popular resistance he has gotten and with which ease the US population gave away its rights.

I remember a time where americans scolded me online for my countries laws preventing certain types of speech (related to nazi insignia and Hitler), you guys do realize that if your government can just make up bullshit about you and send you to a torture camp abroad without due process, that free speech is no longer free?

Back then you people were adamant that your second amendment was there to protect free speech. But my suspicion back then was that this was mostly a thing guys who grew up in the comfort of a first world civilization would say to come across as tough and manly. And guess what.

I think this will be a veeeery unpopular opinion on this site. But I think the simple reality is this is the natural end state of unchecked capitalism.

The entire model the US has been on since Reagan has been a rapid, uncontrollable concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer. The reality of that is of course, wealth translates (roughly) to power

On the reverse, in an authoritarian state you need to concentrate power in the hands of as absolutely few as possible. The loyal ones who keep the empire running

Of course you also need to convince the working class to "play along" with your game as you fleece the blind. So you enter the role of the fourth estate, particularly after Nixon. You just have to convince enough percentage of the population that you're "fighting for them"

So you create enemies. "The Gays" "The Trans" "The Browns" and all other cornucopia of manufactured enemies. Anything to divide and conquer and prevent the proles from rising up and obliterating your empire

I was about to remind the person you replied to that we are on hacker news.

Judging by the name you'd think it would be a place where hacker ethics are prevalent (which would be most close to libertarianism in the original leftist sense, or anarchism). But of course we know that that's not the case, given how the site came to be and who runs it.

Personally I believe that the situation the US is in can largely be attributed to the failures of the democrats. When, due to material conditions, the voting population increasingly becomes accepting of more progressive ideas but instead gets neoliberal pseudo-progressives like Hillary Clinton as possible president, they become disillusioned with their party.

If you live in another country, let it be a lesson that neoliberalism can help the convergence to fascism by dismantling the leftist counter balance needed to be in place and try to stop it while you still can.