SILENCE COULD BE DEADLY

Although identifying parallels between the Trump administration's approach to the power of government and Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany may have been overdone, however, some elements of their respective strategies are unequivocally and appropriately comparable. During his campaign, President Trump made a point of promising some radical policies. Mass deportations of undocumented aliens, abolition of D.E.I. (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs, and simplifying gender identification were just a few. Within weeks of taking office, the Trump administration deployed 5,000 active troops and national guard members to the Southern border. Thus far, I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) personnel carried out between 20,000 and 23,000 arrests. Its goal is to deport one million undocumented immigrants during the administration's first year. Locating, processing and deporting such a sizable target population has proven to be challenging. To handle this many migrants the administration is developing a deportation hub at Ford Bliss near El Paso, Texas, which could house up to 10,000 inmates as they go through the process. This facility is supposed to serve as a model for more internment camps on military sites across the country. For the time being, a 30,000 internee facility at Guantanamo Bay was scrapped because of the cost. Meanwhile, Republicans across the country are looking to implement a hardline immigration agenda that aligns with President Trump's vision of tougher measures in support of his core immigration policies. Much of this support focuses on helping I.C.E. identify suspected deportation candidates. Similar to a system Nazi Germany developed, which paid bounty hunters to inform on Jews hidden from the Gestapo, unscrupulous citizens are now ready to embrace the opportunity to earn some extra income. Missouri State Senator David Gregory recently introduced a Senate Bill which establishes an anonymous tip line allowing individuals to report suspected illegal immigrants. If their information leads to an arrest, the informer could receive a $1,000 reward. Mississippi is considering a similar compensation structure. Not to be outdone, Texas Governor Greg Abbott would also not rule out using bounty hunters to apprehend illegal migrants in his state. This strategy of incentivizing the search and seizure of suspected illegal immigrants without rhyme or reason promises to spread a growing apprehension among non white citizens, legitimate or not. The promise of potential rewards might become too strong for unscrupulous bounty hunters to care about evidence. Among other core elements of the administration's objectives are expeditiously implementing the abolishment of anything resembling D.E.I. (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion); delegitimizing transgender individuals struggling with gender identity issues, and reclassifying thousands of career civil service employees into a category that would eliminate their civil service protection. D.E.I. everything has been an overwhelming target from the beginning. On his first day in office, the president signed an order directing federal agencies to terminate all "equity related" contracts, grants or programs. He required federal contractors to verify that they don't promote D.E.I. Efforts to increase diversity have long been under attack by Republicans who contend the measures threaten merit-based hiring, promotion and economic opportunity for white people. The administration is eliminating the concept from the federal lexicon to an extreme degree. References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the "Enola Gay" aircraft which dropped an atomic bomb on Japan, and photographs of the first women to pass marine infantry training are among the more than 26,000 images marked for deletion as the defense department works to purge D.E.I. content and change history. One official reported that the purge could remove as many as 100,000 images and posts all together. Noticeably, all targeted historic content portray non-white, male, heterosexual representations. (To highlight the idiocy of this project: the "Enola Gay" bomber was named after Enola Gay Tibbits, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbits.) The entire project displays the administration's racist inclinations. Mr. Trump's loyalists like to suggest that they are replacing D.E.I. with meritocracy. The underlying assumption appears to be that minorities and women are less competent. Transgender people are being erased as well. Donald Trump, playing God, ordained that hence forward we will recognize only two genders: male and female. Consequently, the Defense Department announced that the estimated 1,320 to 6,630 transgender individuals in our military will be removed. This scary scenario appears to be expanding unchallenged at an accelerated pace. While Trump sets the policy, many of his executioners exhibit their ignorance. Loyalty to the extreme leader appears to remain the only attribute required for survival at the pinnacle of our national government. Our tendency to not question these developments amount to legitimize what should be roundly rejected. What comes to mind is a powerful poem created at the end of World War II by the German Lutheran theologian Martin Niemoler: - First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist; - Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist; - Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew; - Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me. Niemoler initially supported the Nazi movement. He ultimately became a staunch opponent of the regime, and spent years in a concentration camp. His poem is about the silent complicity of German intellectuals and clergy following the Nazi's rise to power and subsequent incremental purging of their chosen targets. His words are a reference to the Holocaust. They are also, however, a warning about the ease with which such an event could occur again if we of the present allow ourselves to become ignorant of the lessons of the past. Theo Wierdsma