My view on Trump weaponizing ICE is parallel to what I thought about DOGE early on. In both cases, illegal immigration, and wasteful federal spending, respectively, there's a real, undeniable problem that needed to be dealt with. Unfortunately, the belligerent Trump/MAGA way is using a flamethrower, not a scalpel, or even a machete, to get the job done. Consequently, the entire process spins out of control, isn't efficient, ends up in many cases making the problem worse, not better.
Same situation in dealing with illegal drugs being brought into the country. The Coast Guard has full authority to board vessels and arrest suspected criminals. That effort could have been buttressed and supported, and carried out in a systematic way. But no, in Trump's world, it's letting unhinged FoxNews host Pete Hegseth run the military, blasting boats out of the water with no evidence of crimes, no names of suspects, no nothing.
The raid in Caracas to arrest Maduro is yet another example. Same set-up.. same result. We've captured Maduro and his wife, who are sitting in a jail cell awaiting prosecution. Great. Yet the entire Maduro regime has been left intact, who are hunting down Americans in Venezuela as we speak. The raid to capture Maduro resulted in over 100 deaths on the ground, a full military strike was carried out, with no plan in place in how to proceed. When has the Executive Branch ever had war powers? Now it's talk about Trump taking their oil, running the country indefinitely, wanting to rule the entire Western Hemisphere. Greenland, Canada, Mexico are being openly threatened by this administration. This is utter insanity, all of it.
This is not America. This is not the Rule of Law. It's something dictators do. The ends do not justify the means. We can't lose our sanity, and our civility as a nation, as a government, in how we go about our business. The utter failings of the Biden presidency, the ineptitude of the Democratic Party, paved way for Trump's return to power. But as bad as Biden and the Dems may be, that's no excuse to support what is happening now, with non-stop governmental overreach, a foreign policy bordering on madness, and so on. You may see it as an overreaction, an embellishment even, but I truly see signs of a push for autocracy, full top-down control, in what Trump and MAGA are currently doing, both domestically and with foreign policy.
ICE terrorizing Americans around the country, in the off chance they can nab a few illegals, is just a paradigm of a much larger problem that is playing out with this presidency. It is undoubtedly going to get much worse, before it gets better.
