The Witness Chronicles, 1/24/25

The warrantless stormtrooper raids have begun

Jan 24, 2025

people on green grass field during daytime — Photo by Matthias Mitterlehner on Unsplash

It’s Becoming Obvious Trump Enjoys Destroying People’s Lives

His first real action is causing a nationwide panic

Sociopaths don’t care about other people. But psychopaths actually take pleasure in hurting others and it’s becoming apparent that we now have one as President. The threats of deportation are spreading fear across the country. Farm laborers are not showing up for work, and they won’t be alone.

The cruelty was emphasized when he announced that churches and schools would no longer be places of sanctuary by directing ICE agents to enter any place they think might be harboring immigrants. And he is already deporting people with no due process whatsoever. It’s doubtful they are even keeping records.

This morning, January 24, 2025, ICE agents entered a seafood wholesale business in Newark, NJ without a warrant or any legal justification and went through the place stormtrooper style, taking three people away including at least one legal citizen. The city’s mayor expressed the outrage we should all feel about this police state action. No warrant, just bursting into a private business.

Paper trails are inconvenient when committing crimes against humanity. These are the actions of a police state and we are barely a week into his second term.

We are learning that the reason he pardoned all the violent Jan 6 offenders at once is he could not be bothered with working through who deserved clemency and who was dangerous. He just did the lazy thing so he could brag about getting things done fast.

The scope of this man’s anger is almost incomprehensible and the speed with which his people are tearing things apart is criminal. And we are just seeing the beginning. In his recent Hannity interview on Fox he said he would refuse disaster aid to California unless they ‘turned the water back on’. The water was never turned off. Now he is threatening to abolish FEMA and leave any relief efforts to the states.

But no one is fooled by that condition. He simply does not want to throw a bone to a blue state, more vindictive childish behavior. He does not seem to realize that the poorest states are his own red states. Actually, now that he is in power he has no reason to care about them. Or anyone else, unless they can give him huge sums of money.

Trump is far from alone in this. Mike Johnson in the House has become his largest ally, accepting orders no true Christian would ever consider reasonable or acceptable. Increasingly, Johnson looks desperate and lost and like a man who wishes he had never found himself in this position. The Dems aren’t showing much leadership but neither are the Republicans who seem helpless before Trump’s rage.

I live in a sanctuary city and Trump has vowed revenge on any place that accepts and supports immigrants, including those escaping persecution from countries like Afghanistan. If we see raids like those going on around the country there is going to be widespread fear and outrage. I can only hope it is directed at Trump and his now openly fascist regime.

Just who benefits from this hatred is not clear. For those who might think this is an efficient way to deal with immigration, you might want to think twice and maybe crack a history book. Fascism may start with claims of being efficient but it always rapidly expands into a state where anyone can be accused of anything without any due process.

Yes MAGA, they can and will come for you if we let this get worse. That is, if it is already not too late. Hitler destroyed Germany’s democratic government in just 53 days after being elected. Trump is on a faster track right now and he has a vast apparatus in place to get it done, including the immunity from any prosecution our demented right wing Supreme Court bestowed on him last year.

History will mark that court decision as the beginning of the end of the United States as we know it. I don’t know about you but I did not sign up to be a citizen of Trumplandia. If we see raids in my neighborhood like the raids in Newark and other cities (all in blue states by the way), there needs to be immediate action by local authorities and citizens. Letting this become ‘normal’ is a slippery slope.

Personal note: when I heard the news about these ICE raids I felt sick to my stomach. I seriously wonder who these agents are and why they take orders from a man who is mentally ill and destructive to our democracy. How they sleep at night is beyond me. But I’m not naive. Every society has these thugs waiting for their chance to do terrible things. Grown up playground bullies, like Donald Trump.

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