“Day One” Dictator & Trump’s Monstrous Mass Deportation Plans

Episode 227 “Day One” Dictator & Trump’s Monstrous Mass Deportation Plans

Sun, Nov 24, 2024 6:49PM • 1:14:19

Sam Goldman  00:22

Welcome to episode 227, of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes, analyzes and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States, a mission whose, we can all say, urgency and import has exponentially increased since Trump won the election.

Now, fascism isn’t just a really hard hitting insult, something that you say about someone you don’t like. Fascism isn’t even just one or two or even the sum of many horrendous, deadly policies. It is a qualitative change in the form of governance, and this whole show aims to draw that out. Fascism foments and relies on xenophobic nationalism, racism, misogyny and the aggressive reinstitution of oppressive, “traditional values.” Fascist mobs and threats of violence are unleashed to build the movement and consolidate power. And here’s what’s crucial to understand: once in power, fascism essentially eliminates traditional democratic rights.

With that in mind, today’s episode features two interviews that originally aired June 2 of this past year, episode 204, that I think as you listen, you’ll see the relevance. First, you’ll hear from Emmanuel Guerosli, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at the New School, where we discuss Trump’s “Day one dictatorship.” And then you’ll hear my conversation with Francisco Goldman. Francisco is a novelist and journalist, and in in our conversation, we focus on the border in a fascist America, Trump’s nightmare vision of mass detention and deportation.

Because it’s so rare to find a resource that doesn’t seek to pacify you or help you accommodate to the fascist new norm, or support you in making your best life that you can within this fascist horror show that is heading back to the White House, because you want a show that challenges you and empowers you to see that We, rejecting fascism together, are our only hope. I hope that, because of that, after you listen to the show, you’ll help be a part of sharing it with many others. Click the Share button in your app to send this episode to a friend or ten, or let the world know why you listen by rating and reviewing on Apple podcast, or your listening platform of choice, to help reach people at this crucial time before Trump takes power, when refusing Fascism is needed more than ever. Get inspired by how simple it is to write a review.

Here is a review that we got this past week on Apple podcast. Indian Girl 5110, wrote a review, titling it Highly Recommend, gave us five stars, thank you, and wrote: “If you must know what is happening and why, this podcast is for you.” I hope that you’ll be like Indian Girl 5110, and write a review and help us reach more people. We read every one, and they really do make a difference. You can also support this pod and help us grow this audience by becoming a patron. Join the community for as little as $2 a month at Patreon.com/RefuseFascism. We also have shirts with our core slogan and pledge: “In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America.” You can also get it printed as a sweatshirt, and it’s available along with our classic Refuse Fascism shirt, so I hope that you will grab yours, gift one to your friends and family.

As always, before we get to the interview, I’ll do a little recap of the fascist defcon level and share some of what’s needed from those of us who do not want a fascist America, but first a shout out. I want to shout out Evan Greer for their righteous disruption of anti-trans bigot, Representative Nancy Mace, [who] has made it her mission, in concert with House Speaker Mike Johnson, to prevent Sarah McBride, the first transgender member of Congress, from using the women’s bathroom in Capitol Hill.

She introduced a resolution that prohibits people from, “using single sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.” She did this on Transgender Day of Remembrance — yeah, disgusting. She also did a totally gross ode to segregation, putting a makeshift sign reading the word “biological” above the women’s sign for the bathroom. Musician and activist Evan Greer attended the Summit on the Future of the Internet event hosted by Project Liberty at Georgetown University the following day, November 21, and with great courage and conviction, disrupted the event. Give a listen: 

Evan Greer  05:21

[Speaker: “but we have a lot of responsibilities too. Ro, and I…] I’m sorry, we’re living with that in real time right now. This is ridiculous. It’s the day after Trans Day of Visibility. We have had dozens of trans people die this year because of the hate and lies that you are spreading. And if we want an internet, are we building an internet with free speech for everyone or just the privileged few? Are you going to stand up to the lives of trans people, Black and brown people? Are we fighting for justice, or are we fighting for big tech freedom? [other speaker Nancy Mace? “I love him. I love him, but his penis isn’t going to be in my bathroom. So at any rate, but we have a responsibility….”]

Sam Goldman  06:03

So we’re sending so much love to Evan for this! That’s fucking hero shit! While I’m glad folks in the crowd booed instead of clapping for Nancy’s bigotry, y’all needed to do more than boo. We need to join Evan. It can’t be the trans community fighting for themselves on their own. Also, anybody who talks about bathroom bills being a distraction from real issues: Do you think it’s an issue to try to wipe a section of humanity out of public existence? We do. Fight for the lives, rights and dignity of our trans siblings as Christian fascists advance their genocidal program, aiming to wield the power of the state and fanatical thugs to commit atrocities against trans folks. Let’s be real, silence is complicity.

Sam Goldman  06:45

Now, we need to talk some about this cabinet of horrors, the revengers, if you will, that Trump has assembled. Trump’s goals, and the party that backs him, have a clear, public, consistent mission to unleash the full power of the state to exact revenge on all who are perceived to have wronged them, and all they hate — ardent loyalists only — those unbound by any so called norms, constitution or rule of law. This week, Trump named a whole new round of picks to his cabinet of ideological fascist science deniers, accused rapists, perpetrators of sexual violence against women, TV personalities and Project 2025 contributors as his picks to lead federal agencies, staff the White House and execute his horrific vision.

Last week, we provided context for his appointees, why they are dangerous and what they tell us about the strategy at play, and we gave highlights from the first round. I encourage you to go back and listen. Much can be said about this putrid assembly of misogynist pigs, white supremacists, Christian fascists, war hawks and xenophobes. What’s key here, though, as revcom.us pointed out, is that Trump is pulling together a legion of loyalists to implement his nightmarish fascist program in the U.S., and to reassert even more violently, the global dominance of the United States.

This week, I just want to highlight three of the new picks, Russell Vought, Brendan Carr, and Sebastian Gorka. Russell  “Is there anything actually wrong with Christian nationalism?” Vought has been picked to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Russell Vought has been plotting openly for some time the unprecedented consolidation of power across all branches of government for the installation of Christian nationalist rule, with an emphasis on empowering the unitary executive — basically giving the President as much power as possible.

He is one of the very few first term Trump officials expected to return to his position this time around. Since 2020, Russell Vought has been a key contributing author to Project 2025, not only co authoring the 900 plus page book, Mandate for Leadership, not only serving as Vice President of the Heritage Foundation’s advocacy organization and president of the Christian nationalist think tank, the Center for RenewingAmerica, but involved in the second phase of Project 2025 — 350 detailed handbooks, including video presentations for the Cabinet members and appointees of a future Trump administration on how to concretely implement their deadly vision in every sphere of government.

Russell Vought and his assistant were caught in leaked video detailing these operations and how they were being kept secret, while ProPublica released details of the secret videos. We dug deep into this and provided more resources to understand this in episode 213, of this show. During this time, as Trump was vociferously denying any knowledge of or partnership with Project 2025, and the media was largely giving him a pass on that, Trump brought Vought in as one third of the team writing the GOP platform for the 2024 convention. From his position in the Office of Management and Budget, Vought will be able to implement one core feature of their program, once again outlined explicitly in Project 2025 — to obliterate the federal bureaucracy, which was one of the most significant objective obstacles during Trump’s first term.

Last month, ProPublica and Undocumented released another series of videos and reports detailing what Russell Vought and Project 2025’s vision is where Russell Vought says a Trump administration will seek to make civil servants miserable in their jobs, “in trauma,” so that they leave. In private speeches, he laid out plans to use armed forces to quell any domestic “riots,” read as: protest — read as: any dissent against Trump — and he likened the country’s moment now to fractious periods in American history, 1776 and 1860. The ProPublica resources are in the show notes. 

In this position, he will be able to actually implement many of the ridiculous notions surrounding Elon Musk’s as of now, not actually real, Department of Government Efficiency. The plan is to remove protections for federal employees, to simply remove the great majority of staff from agencies and departments that provide services and implement regulations rendering them inoperable and to replace the staff of agencies they deem useful with political appointees from massive lists of Trump loyalists already vetted by the Heritage Foundation. Though tasked with deeply cutting the federal government’s funding of social programs, Vought is not merely a “fiscal conservative,” he is animated by Christian theocratic beliefs. 

One document drafted by CRA (Center for Renewing America) staff and fellows, includes a list of top priorities for CRA in a second Trump term, “Christian nationalism” is one of the bullet points. Others include: invoking the the Insurrection Act on day one to quash protests, and refusing to spend authorized congressional funds on unwanted projects, a practice banned by lawmakers in the Nixon era. Russell Vought has advocated an immigration agenda with Christian belief as a core criteria for whether people should be allowed into the country. We have more in the show notes, but it’s clear when they talk about doing away with bureaucracy and agencies, they are doing away with defunding and reducing any ways in which this society works to meet people’s needs.

Next, there’s Brendan Carr. Carr is Trump’s pick for chairing the FCC. Conveniently, Carr was the author of the Project 2025’s section on the FCC. His chapter employs “free speech” and anti-corporate messaging to demonize the very idea of pluralist democracy. They aim to enforce state censorship on social media platforms and major broadcasters alike, while simultaneously preventing these entities from banning or demonetizing fascist content and fascist content creators. He plans on imposing Musk’s destruction of Twitter on a society wide scale. 

To this end, Carr, along with Trump himself, has advocated revoking the licenses for major broadcasters for airing content that fascists don’t like, or not airing content that they do like. Likewise, they are taking aim at net neutrality, which prohibits internet providers from boosting or downplaying content, ostensibly evening the playing field of the internet. They take pains to specifically target efforts to fact check or combat disinformation, interpreting the equal time doctrine to maximize Trump’s capacity to lie unchallenged to the public, legitimizing their “alternate facts” and their entire alternate reality.

Another returnee from Trump’s first term is arch Islamophobe Sebastian Gorka, being given the role of Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counter Terrorism. British Hungarian American radio personality Gorka has served in the fascist regime of Hungarian strong man and key Trump ally Viktor Orban, and he is proud of his association with the literal World War Two Nazi ally organization, the Order of Vitez. Many Democrats, along with (Republican) John Bolton, have decried Gorka as inexperienced and unqualified, but the fascist logic is bulletproof — they know that their fascist ideologue can hire and direct as many experienced and qualified subordinates as they like to carry out their fascist program, but anyone who carries those qualifications would never hire a wild-eyed fascist like Gorka.

These appointments are being rammed through using every means at their disposal. The speed at which these are announced are undermining the FBI standard efforts to check the backgrounds of presidential appointees and the Ethics Office standard review of conflicts of interest and other concerns. Trump seemingly is relying on this blitzkrieg approach to overwhelm these agencies’ capacities so that these mechanisms can be manipulated or thrown out altogether once Trump has control of the Justice Department. While some of these picks, like Gorka, don’t require congressional approval, Trump is lobbying his MAGA Senate and House leadership to enable recess appointments, bypassing congressional hearings and votes altogether.

This is where we sit eight weeks before Biden hands the keys of the strongest military power in the history of the world, over to Trump and this whole project goes into overdrive, wielding control over any ostensible check or balance. With that, here is my conversation with Emmanuel Gersoli.

Sam Goldman  12:11

Emmanuel is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at the New School. He’s working on a book on how colonial legal systems and racialization processes framed the legal architecture of the War on Terror. Together with Federico Finkelstein, he wrote the essay the “Day One Dictatorship; On the Law in a fascist America,”for the New Republic’s June magazine issue, American Fascism: What Would It Look Like?” which is the topic of our discussion. Welcome. I’m so glad to have you on Emmanuel, thanks for joining us.

Let’s go back in time. In 2016, Trump came to power with what, I think we can agree, was very little strategy to implement a relatively vague vision. There was “Make America Great Again,” but it was pretty amorphous. Today, he has one of the two major political parties in this country and a vast dedicated movement of tens of millions and an army of loyal strategists, including legal scholars and experts. And I’m wondering if you could talk about, what difference does this make, that he has this whole apparatus that including a clear vision that he didn’t have in 2016 and even has advanced, since 2020?

Emmanuel Guerisoli  16:33

So, I think that it makes a lot of difference. It’s not good for a possible outcome of a Trump presidency. They have experience. First of all, they have experience in government. And by that, I mean not only Trump, but the Trump loyalists, the ones that were perhaps marginalized or set aside during not only during the first term, but perhaps during the first three years. We should remember that the first three months of the Trump administration, you have many people that were, if not fired, let go, or that had to leave their position, of course, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, those are the ones that today are the most loyal to Trump.

But I think that what you mentioned about the party is perhaps the most important element of a second Trump presidency. The Republican Party in 2016 was not entirely sold on the idea of Trump. Perhaps not even Trump was sold on his own idea, because this is my own perception. I don’t think that they expected to win, or at least they didn’t expect to win in that way. Not even the Republican Party expected to win the presidency. But today, if not the majority of the Republican Party, at least half of the Republican Party, and by that, I mean both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives at the federal level, are really pro Trump.

Just look at 2021 when they have to go certify the 2020 election, I think, is 120 Republicans that actually vote against the certification of votes because they consider an election was stolen. That is a huge deal. Besides many Republican representatives or senators that are pro Trump, you also have, well, the supporters and the voters that if they were perhaps, I wouldn’t say marginal, but they were voting for Trump, perhaps because they were against Clinton, or because they were against Obama, or because there was a perception, particularly in the Midwest and in the Rust Belt, that they were forgotten by the elites.

Now is a completely different game. It seems that Republican voters and supporters of Trump, many of them, the majority, believe that the Trump actually won the 2020 election and it was stolen from him. And they also believe, or they follow many of his and their ideas, not only Trump, because it’s not just Trump, clearly, but he’s just a figure that engulfs everything.

Sam Goldman 19:03

I think about how even people who didn’t like Trump the person, and who in fact despise Trump the person, have gotten on board with Trump the program, who continue to see Trump as the vehicle to despite what they would have liked to happen, this is the way that they’re going to get back into power. He’s going to be there. And I think that there’s still an idea that the Republican Party will somehow be able to work around him, or they’ll be able to get their agenda through because of him. And so I think that there’s that people are will continue to be shocked, like, how can Nikki Haley, who said all these things, still turn around and tell her people that she’s gonna vote for Trump? It’s like she was always gonna do that.

Emmanuel Guerisoli  19:52

Yeah, I mean, of course, because there is party loyalty, also, if they see a gain for themselves. I doubt that Nikki Haley will have any type of position in a possible cabinet. Let’s just remember the Utah senator, Mitt Romney. So Mitt Romney also tried really hard to have a position in the first Trump cabinet, and he was completely marginalized. So I think that Haley will have the same fate. What has happened many times in 2016, the idea was that, okay, he will be president, but the Republican Party, not even the deep state, the Republican Party, will actually rein him in.

As history shows us, many fascist leaders. They are not only fascist leaders. They have many radical ideas, extremist ideas. They campaign on extremist ideas. But then when they get to power, they either don’t have the opportunity to enact those ideas, or they will be limited by either the state apparatus or by the party apparatus. And I think in this case, Trump had both the state apparatus and the party that didn’t allow him to put into motion his most extreme ideas, though they clearly tried and because they have gained experience, and also they have gained legitimacy, which is even more important then the second time around, they will be able to enact the most extreme ideas, or part of them.

Sam Goldman  21:14

I agree that that legitimacy piece is essential and also deeply, deeply disturbing, that they’ve been able to garner as much legitimacy as they have, for instance, the fact that it wasn’t totally the end when Trump declared the dictator for a day, statement, that that wasn’t just the end. Instead he goes, I think a lot of people liked it. You know, the journalist for Time magazine tells that many people are disturbed by this. No, a lot of people really liked it. And I don’t think he’s entirely wrong. I don’t think it’s the majority that really like it, but I do think he has his finger on something, that there is not just a fascist movement within those who seek to rule, but there’s also a fascist base in this country.

I wanted to move to something that you walk people through, along with Federico in your piece for the New Republic, which was about this dictatorship for a day where Trump declared he’s going to be a dictator for a day if he wins, and he’s made clear that he won’t respect the results of an election that does not declare him a victor. Much is said in the media and in public discourse about constitutional and legal provisions that are supposed to act as guardrails for American democracy, but it seems there are constitutional and legal provisions that can also enable Trump’s fascist transformation of government and society.

For example, Article II of the Constitution and a significant number of emergency power clauses. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about what powers does our system grant the president and how could they be used by a fascist like Trump, or in this case, fascist Trump, to subvert the rule of law and consolidate fascism.

Emmanuel Guerisoli  23:09

The article that we wrote with Federico, at some point with Federico, we were afraid that is this a recipe they’re going to follow? Are we actually providing a road map? They already know what they have to do. But this is also a warning, not only for Trump, but just for any president. I mean, abuse of power at the executive level is not just a type of an exclusive fascist characteristic. However, we have people like Ronald Reagan or Bush Jr. or Bush’s father, but neither of them campaign or even said at any moment, that I remember, at least, not even Nixon, if I recall, they never said, I’m going to transform, or I’m going to try to have a dictatorship, or I will be authoritarian in some ways and maybe not in others.

In this case, we have Trump that on a discursive level, has said, I will implement a dictatorship on day one. He has not said for what, although he has implied, mostly to persecute his political opponents, but also we have had the precedent of him trying to reverse the election results in 2020. That is already a huge red flag. Now, unfortunately, the Constitution of the United States does provide the executive, and by this I mean the US president, we a lot of power, even if the US Constitution was designed in a way to have a separation of power and checks and balances that would try to minimize the power of the executive through the 200 plus years of U.S. history, the President has abrogated, and both U.S. Congress and the Supreme Court have recognized, some type of power that is inherent in the president because of the idea of sovereignty, and in this way, the idea of a type of almost absolute power, particularly in the foreign relations of foreign affairs realm and almost everything related to national security.

Article Two of the Constitution principally says that the executive power is vested in the President, and this means that it’s up to the President to execute the laws of the country. Now the President doesn’t make laws. That is the role of Congress, although the President has the power to enact certain type of executive orders or presidential decrees. So already, in Article Two, the President, the executive, could abuse that power by completely eradicating any type of autonomy over the different agencies that depend on the executive power, like the FBI, or the different secretaries or departments like the Department of Defense or, very importantly, the Department of Justice.

This has been not something that either Federico, or I are saying just by ourselves, but it has been said that Trump would actually order FBI and the Department of Justice to start persecuting his political opponents or journalists, Joe Biden, or the family of President Biden, by directing the Justice Department and the FBI to start investigations against them, that, of course, would be an abuse of power, because even if the President legally can do that, normally, the President does not tell the Justice Department how to start or where to start an investigation. It’s up to the Department of Justice to start one, and then, of course, the US Attorney General can stop that investigation or not. But normally it should be autonomous, or have some degree of autonomy.

There is the other type of presidential powers that Trump could actually abuse in a much more serious way as Article Two, which is the emergency powers. Most republics, most liberal democracies, have certain type of contingencies in the case of war or internal strife that allow for what is called martial law or the state of siege or a state of emergencies, that what they do is to limit certain type of civil liberties, or in the case of the U.S.,augment the power of the executive, particularly by avoiding certain type of proceduralism that would actually require extra steps on normal times.

So for example, when there is a hurricane, normally, there is a declaration of a state emergency, and that allows certain agencies like FEMA to provide assistance without all the necessary normal steps that it will actually require to do in normal times or without an emergency. One thing is a hurricane. Other, there are other situations, particularly related to foreign threats, but also internal threats that would allow Trump to declare a national emergency and then use that emergency to, for example, freeze the bank accounts of many individuals in the U.S. to control the internet, to impose some type of censorship over the press.

This, of course, depends on the type of declaration of emergency that is declared, and the different laws that that declaration of emergency that are going to be categorized and that then they’re going to be triggered by the emergency. There are around 140 to 150 different statutes that in case of an emergency, can be automatically triggered and that provide the President with enhanced authority. Now the issue here is that there’s no law that defines what constitutes an emergency, so it’s up to the president to discretionarily declare one just like Trump did when, for example, he declared an emergency regarding immigration in order to construct and to have the funds to build the wall in the border with Mexico.

There is even some disputed Supreme Court decision cases when there is a limited judicial review on the power of the president in declaring an emergency. So there it will be, perhaps up to Congress, also up to the Supreme Court to intervene in order to limit the powers of the presidency during an emergency. But it’s really tough. There are not many precedents.. Normally, they take their time to actually be enacted.

Sam Goldman 29:17

If you’re relying on the Supreme Court that Trump played a large role in stacking to be the guardrail. I think that that’s really flimsy, just given who those people are and what they’ve already done. I think that what you’ve pointed to, it’s like, Well, okay, if he could do those things, like, who could stop him? Like, if he’s able to declare an emergency, shut down all of those things, get rid of agencies that he either doesn’t like, like the EPA or wants to transform, like the Department of Justice. Are there ways to stop that? 

Emmanuel Guerisoli  29:55

He could actually do that without even declaring an emergency when he wants to gut or eliminate the EPA. He can do it without even doing that. He could actually disband the FBI. Of course, it will be difficult, because once you build a bureaucracy, it’s very difficult to dismantle one, but it’s something that legally it could be done, well, it depends also what type of Congress we have, but Congress would normally intervene. What will happen is that in the case of emergencies, Congress could declare that the emergency, and in fact, Congress tried to do this when Trump declared the emergency on the border with Mexico.

What Congress did was to pass a law declaring this emergency void, declaring the emergency not to exist anymore, or to never have existed. Trump vetoed it, and then it goes back to Congress, and then Congress needs to override the veto with a two thirds majority. That’s very difficult to happen. And the Supreme Court tends to declare, or tends to, by jurisprudence, to say that emergencies are a political matter, and this is vested within the executive power. This doesn’t mean that the President can do, or the executive power could do whatever they want during an emergency. So it will be up to Congress and will be up to the judiciary to limit Trump. But again, this would depend on the composition of Congress and the political ideology of many of the members of the judiciary, both at the court of appeals level and in the Supreme Court,

Sam Goldman 31:22

Everyone remembers Trump telling the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by. Besides the mechanisms that you just described, I was hoping we could talk a little bit about the possibility of therisk of far right militias being legitimated as paramilitary organizations if Trump or someone else that was a fascist was to re seize the White House.

Emmanuel Guerisoli  31:48

Unfortunately, it’s amazing that the U.S. has a long history, even to colonial times, regarding militias, and this is very ingrained in not only U.S. history, but in U.S. culture. Of course, it is very much related to settler colonial logic against Native Americans to assert property rights and to protect also certain communities from raids from different tribes. But mostly to also legitimate expansion of those communities. Then many of the militias also started in order to apprehend fugitive slaves that they were trying to escape from the South to the North. And of course, then militias like the KKK that tried to reimpose a type of racial order, or racial hierarchy.

Eventually, Jim Crow post reconstruction in the U.S. But the existence of militias is very ingrained in the type of Frontier border culture, not only in the U.S. but in the U.S. case. And it’s quite amazing that I don’t know how many militias are in the US, around 300 or something like that. They’re legal. I mean, in the sense that they’re not prohibited by U.S. law, unless, of course, some of them could be designated a foreign terrorist organization, but clearly none of the militias, particularly far right ones, will be at any point. The Supreme Court has actually declared that it can exist legally. But I digress here.

The issue is historically, for example, the Border Patrol that emerged in the 1920s in the U.S. actually was instituted by the federal government by recruiting the Texas Rangers that were a paramilitary (still are), a paramilitary organization that was patrolling and protecting the U.S. border from raids coming from Mexico. At that moment, Mexico was under a civil war, and particularly they were protecting against so called Mexican bandits like Pancho Villa and others. At that moment, during the 20s and 30s is when the US starts to create these federal type of police organizations like the FBI and the border patrols and the youth they actually recruit from paramilitary organizations.

In the case of Trump, what’s striking is that Trump has used paramilitary organizations, or has, well, clearly, he has legitimated them, but also has used them for political goals, first in the Mexican border, against the southwest border by legitimating what the Minutemen and others have done in protecting the U.S. borders from irregular migrants, particularly from traffickers. But then Trump, during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, and not only Trump, also different U.S. governors and others, legitimated the role of far right militias and vigilantes in protecting private property from looters and rioters. 

The Kenosha case is a paradigmatic one in 2020 and then we get to the presidential debate where Trump he says, okay, Proud Boys, stand down. Stand back. What’s incredible is that there he was a normal person would have said, No, I’m not the leader of this. This disgusting organization, or I’m not the leader of this organization. He, of course, doesn’t say he’s the leader, but he kind of, like gives an order. He just acts like, Okay, I will tell them to not do anything. But eventually, many of them go on January 6, and they try to clearly ease an insurrection.

I believe that Trump was trying to orchestrate a coup d’etat, perhaps not the most well organized one they can experience now. And what’s striking is that clearly it seemed that it was not a coup, but that’s another matter. But it’s amazing that this is still disputed. There are precedents when the federal government has recruited has formed even new type of security agencies or police agencies from paramilitary organizations, would not surprise me, either if Trump loses or in a second Trump presidency, that he would use the support of far right militias or paramilitary organizations, for example, either protecting again the U.S. border with Mexico, or to support ICE in deportation or rounding up of migrants in sanctuary cities, particularly if he doesn’t want to federalize the National Guard, or if the National Guard or the Armed Forces refuse or are reticent to follow his orders, he can use paramilitary or far right organizations to do something like that.

It has happened even in other countries, but even the 30s and 20s in Germany, in Italy, even in Chile in Argentina. But it would be the national police were actually paramilitary organizations that were whitewashed into the National Police. It’s something that has happened in the past. Today will happen in a different way, not the same way, but there are precedents, and it’s not out of the realm of possibilities.

Sam Goldman  36:50

Is there anything that you think people should be aware of from maybe other historical examples from other countries in terms of if Trump loses, the possibility of utilizing the militias, and not just militias, but the armed mob that he commands, the people who, like the Proud Boys, for instance, thinking about that debate, when that happened, they immediately made jackets saying Standing By. They knew that the message to them was sent, was be ready, and then they were. The fact that that time they weren’t successful isn’t actually what’s essential here.

It’s that there is a force, I don’t want to speculate on size or abilities, that is gunning for a go to be that retribution or whatever, whether it’s going after perceived political enemies or whatever they might be asked to do. The scariest, honestly, to me, is that he wins outright, and there’s no struggle, no nothing. Those in power like Yes, this is how democracy works, end up just handing it over without any struggle. So that is my biggest fear. But I think all your fears, teasing it through, I think is important, because if people don’t confront what we really face, and the fact that this isn’t a joke, this isn’t just some clowns, they can be clowns, and they can be super dangerous, that’s a terrible segue.

But I hope, as we close out the conversation, if there was anything more from the history of fascist takeovers, or want to be fascist takeovers in Latin America or in Europe, or anywhere else that you want to speak about that you think are relevant to January 2025, or even that you think are relevant to like this election period for people to know about.

Emmanuel Guerisoli  38:47

So in popular culture, there is this idea that both Hitler and Mussolini were elected democratically to lead their respective countries, and this is not the case in neither of them. Mussolini tried to orchestrate a coup against the Kingdom of Italy. He succeeded in the way that the king of Italy asked him to form a government, and then eventually, between two to three years, refurbish the entire the Italian state, completely destroyed the rule of law and founded a fascist Italian state.

But there was never an election, and the election that actually happened in, I want to say [1923] 2023 there was an election that was, first of all, there was a lot of fraud, but also, as you mentioned before, there was a lot of intimidation. There were fascist groups not allowing people to vote or violently suppressing the vote. And the same thing happened in Nazi Germany. Hitler was again invited to form government by the President Hindenburg. At that moment, in 33 there was a huge level of internal violence between communists and Nazis in both cases, in Italy and Germany, the conservatives thought we can control these people and. The conservatives actually also welcomed them, because it was a way for them to go against the socialists or the communists and even the liberals.

In the case of Nazi Germany, what eventually happened was that there was the Reichstag fire that the Parliament of the German government that was blamed on a communist and that gave Hitler the opportunity to declare a state of emergency and from there on, constitute a Nazi state with no rule of law and banning all political parties. And we know what happened later, but again, he didn’t win any election. In fact, even at the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship in 1933 with a state of emergency, with civil liberties already suppressed, and even the freedom of speech and freedom of the press suppressed because of the state of emergency. Even in 1933 there is an election, and the Nazi do not win. They have a majority. They win most votes, but they do not win the majority.

Also, many people didn’t vote because many were already detained, many were intimidated, and many were completely violently suppressed from going to vote. The idea that, like you said, Okay, this democracy, well, it’s not really, historically, wasn’t democracy, because then later orchestrated a dictatorship. If these people win, if Trump wins, is through violence. It’s not through a democratic movement. It’s through violence. It’s through intimidation, through a lot of fear, and particularly, he would not be the only politician to do this, through a lot of lies. This is something that Federico Finkelstein talks a lot about, fascism lies, well, fascist lies matter a lot.

We know what happened in 2016 I think, or 15, when this guy tried to storm the place where the pizza gate was happening because he actually believed this. And in January 6, many people actually legitimately believed Trump and company that he had actually won the election. I’m not justifying what they did, of course. But again, if they win, it’s not because of their ideas, although some people actually believe them, but it’s because of intimidation, fear and violence and lies.

Sam Goldman 42:06

I want to thank you so much for coming on and sharing your expertise, your perspective, your time with us. We’re going to link to the quote, unquote day one dictatorship on the law in a fascist America. That is in the June issue of the New Republic. If people want to read more from you, connect with your work. Where do you want to direct people to go?

Emmanuel Guerisoli  42:32

I normally post everything I write, or I try to write on Twitter at Emma Gary soli, and they can go to the new school website to look for me, and they have their many of my readings and courses and interests and stuff like that.

Sam Goldman  42:45

Thank you so much. Emmanuel,

Sam Goldman  42:52

The symbol of Trump’s first term was the border wall. What will be the symbol this time? Razor wires surrounding massive concentration camps, battering rams used to break down the doors of homes, workplaces, churches and his barbaric raids, his core promise is to carry out the largest mass deportations in history? This plan for unprecedented mass deportations is a potent Totem and instrument of terror that concentrates the shattering of old norms and cementing Trump’s new order of America First, Make America Great, No, White Again. Right now, Trump and the Republi-fascists are slated to forcibly deport at least 11 million undocumented people, locking them in concentration camps until they can be forcibly removed.

Trump has confirmed his intent to use the military to carry this out in a post on Truth Social in the early hours of Monday morning, Trump simply wrote all caps TRUE, at least three exclamation points, in a repost of someone saying that there have been reports suggesting his administration was, “Prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion.”

Just think of the violence necessary to carry out such a campaign, raiding homes, workplaces, places of worship, destroying communities, ripping apart families, rounding up anyone suspected of lacking documentation, putting whole communities in dismal camps. We refuse to accept this. Texas Land Commissioner, Republican Don Buckingham, has offered Trump a 1400 acre property in the Rio Grande Valley to make one such concentration camp real with the scale of what has been proposed, some 28 million people could be at risk of family separation in 2025. We refuse to accept this. Trump has said that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. His so called border czar, Tom Homan, who is responsible for his family separation plan, his. Family separation atrocities in Trump’s first term.

When asked if there was a way to deport 11 million people without again separating families, Homan shot back. “Of course, there; is families can be deported together.” He promises shock and awe. Day one of the Trump presidency. We refuse to accept this! Recall just some of the atrocities Trump inflicted on immigrants in his first term, the “border wall,” the Muslim ban, the separation of thousands of children from their parents, just to name a few, that he plans to repeat and surpass. We refuse to accept this! They pledge to go after immigrants with legal status by doing away with birthright citizenship, where people born in the US are bestowed citizenship regardless of their parent’s status, by canceling temporary protective status, TPS, in order to deport over a million legal immigrants, particularly from Haiti and Venezuela, by abolishing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, and expanding the circumstances that allow for denaturalization. We refuse to accept this! 

Trump and the Republi-fascist plan to seal the border to prevent asylum seekers from even entering. We refuse to accept this! They are aiming for a full out ethnic cleansing of Latino and African immigrants and citizens. And we can already see who’s lined up behind Trump and Vance to carry this out, the entire GOP, ICE and Border Patrol, the actual military, fascist police and so called constitutional sheriffs, deputized militia and modern Klan forces, young white supremacist men willing to follow the marching orders of the fascist movement, all nourished and strengthened by a persistent diet of immigrant bashing and lies about, “migrant crime” and “eating pets” from Fox News Joe Rogan and Elon Musk’s X.

We refuse to allow them to genocidally terrorize, round up and deport our immigrant siblings. We refuse to sit by as they prepare for an ethnic cleansing. And if you think, oh, Sam, you are being hyperbolic. Sure, it’s bad, but you can’t go around calling it a program of genocide and ethnic cleansing, I gotta ask you, what else do you call the criminal notion that where you are born, the color of your skin and the language you speak should define whether you are regarded as human or not, whether you live or die? What else do you call the view that any crime can be committed against those who are deemed, “Less than human” in the name of protecting the real white native born Americans, “real white native born Americans.”

Meanwhile, the U.S.can invade, torture and even nuke other countries at will. We often wonder how the Germans allowed mass deportations, concentration camps and later, death camps of millions, how such demonization of people was tolerated as people just went on with their daily life, and I gotta ask what the F we doing now, as Trump has broadcast his blueprint and told you clearer and with more detail than the Germans ever received? To be honest, as horrified as I am and as outraged as I am about Trump and company’s horrific plans, my deepest fears are about the intolerable lack of vocal defense of immigrants, let alone commensurate resistance.

I’m honestly sick of hearing people talk about how we survived worse. We got through Reagan and Nixon and Bush and Trump before. Right now, migrant communities are filled with fear as families and immigrant advocacy organizations work frantically to create emergency documents for their children. Should their children be ripped from their families again? Families wondering if it’s better to self deport and others terrorized and going further underground, we need to build vehicles to protect and defend migrant communities and support networks now, not waiting for the horrors to unfold and starting yesterday, we need to create forms for mass disruption and disobedience against their efforts to round up, detain and deport.

No more, sitting back and begging politicians to “Do something!” Immigrants are full human beings, not criminals to be demonized, hunted down, terrorized, locked up and thrown out. Now, not waiting for once that is already underway or for someone to stand up first, we must show our determination to stand up for our immigrant siblings, whenever and wherever their lethal, vile anti immigrant bullshit gets spewed. We gotta shut that shit down. This is an all hands on deck moment where with courage and conviction, we work together to defend immigrants so that it’s clear that immigrants and refugees are welcome, and it’s the fascists that must go on the defensive.

With this inauguration just two weeks away, now is the time to be mobilizing to defeat Trump’s plans for mass deportations, which we should be prepared for to barrel down on people, blitzkrieg style, come January, 20. Millions are depending on us. What we do or fail to do, what we normalize and what we put our bodies on the line to reject, will decide the futures of millions. Counting on the Democrats to be the resistance to this atrocity? You mean the same Democrats who have deported more in their last term than Trump did in his first? Who have sustained dangerous slums of asylum seekers in the Mexican side of the border, who have pushed desperate people to cross at ever more deadly sections of desert, who didn’t do shit when the state of Texas filled the river with razor wire and commandeered sections and clear violation of federal law?

The Democrats whose whole reason for being is to try to stabilize a system which destroys oppressed countries around the globe, which requires a permanent underclass of super exploitable workers, and which decides the fates of billions of human beings based simply on imaginary lines they were born between? Counting on the courts to save immigrants? Let me ask the ones stacked by Trump, or the ones he will stack, or the court that already told him that he can get away with anything. It’s time to wake up and take this mango hewed motherf’ing fascist seriously and literally.

So recognize the fascist base and movement in this country for whom hunting down and locking up millions of human beings in cages solely because they were not born here, because their skin is darker than theirs, or because they disagree with their leader, seems like a great idea. To recognize this isn’t to stare into the abyss, my friends, but an act of hope that we can fight for a future free of fascism. We’ll be discussing this more fully in future episodes. So stay tuned.

Next my conversation with Francisco Goldman. I’m honored to welcome on novelist and journalist Francisco Goldman to discuss his essay, from Texas to Massachusetts on the Border in a fascist America, which is featured in the New Republic, What Would American Fascism Look Like? Issue. Francisco’s most recent novel, Monkey Boy, was a finalist for the 2022, Pulitzer Priz for Fiction, and I just want to welcome Francisco, Thank you. Thanks for coming on.

Francisco Goldman  52:08

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor.

Sam Goldman  52:11

Let’s start with what are the plans that Trump has announced already for immigration in his second term. If he were to be back in power, what does he hope?

Francisco Goldman  52:27

You could go through a whole list of plans from things that we heard from before in the last administration, you know, like cancel DACA, make it impossible to apply for asylum, close the border, eliminate birthright citizenship, make the so called Muslim ban, expand that to include, I think he said people from Gaza. To me personally, the thing that I think has frightened people the most, and the one that goes most to the heart of us. Is this really possible? Is Trump just being rhetorical and trying to attract attention, or does he mean this?

That’s an important thing to touch on, is that he says he’s going to deport up to twenty million people, that every single undocumented immigrant in this country, some of them who’ve been here 20,30, years, even longer, working, paying taxes, living in American neighborhoods, in American cities, in American rural areas all over the country. He’s going to round them all up and deport them all. Anybody who’s curious about this should find on Google the Charlie Kirk podcast with Stephen Miller, his immigration guru, where he really lays out these plans.

They talk about creating a vast, militarized infrastructure down on the border of vast warehouses, air strips, everything that you would need to just collect people and immigrants would lose, for instance, their Fourth Amendment rights against illegal searches, ICE agents. Maybe he would even put out the National Guard, use the army. Everything seems possible. How are you going to round up twenty million people? People will be able to go right into houses and take whole families, transport them down to these vast warehouses.

The way I picture them is like sort of enormous, you know, Amazon warehouses, or huge IKEA stores or something that look more like airplane hangars and just stuff all those people in there, so that they’ll be out of sight, out of mind, and without due process, send them back to the countries they fled, in many cases, countries they barely remember anymore. They’ll be sent with families because people won’t always have people to leave children behind with. Send children back to countries they don’t even know anymore.

Send people back to places that they fled because their lives were directly threatened, say by gangs or Narco cartels, families that have been shown in the past, when people have been deported having fled those very circumstances, they’ll go back to places where the cartels, for example, in Mexico or the gangs in Central America and cartels in Mexico City had directly threatened them and their families, and when they get sent back, they are. In fact, killed. They have long memories. It’s inconceivable that this could actually happen.

On his podcast, Stephen Miller uses the most extraordinary language. He says that this will be like an American, United States achievement on the order of building the Panama Canal. That’s what he actually compares it to, which is really crazy. A war-like action against civilians in this country to cause that much suffering, so massive, so cruel, to compare that to a gigantic feat of engineering, is extraordinary. And then you just have to hear the way he talks. I mean, this man incarnates in the 21st century, ridiculously mundane way, that banality of evil like nobody you’ve ever heard, and that thin, little insipid voice he has, he literally says, “this will be so wonderful. It will be so joyous. People will be so happy.”

He claims white Americans will be so happy to see all these people deported, which, of course, isn’t true. No, these people are the neighbors of all of us. They live with us, work with us, whether they’re people who are employed alongside us in businesses or study alongside our children in schools or take care of our children. In some cases, they’re just massively interwoven into daily American life, and the idea that all Americans are going to think it’s so wonderful, so joyous to see them all rounded up and deported in this massive Nazi like way. You know, that’s only thing you can really compare it to, right? It’s really similar the plan put them in warehouses, you know, camps, and deport them, and many cases, to their deaths. It’s pretty appalling.

Now, is it just a rhetorical ploy? I’ve been reading in the newspaper every day, Trump always means what he says. He is an authoritarian. And he said he wanted to do a Muslim ban, and 2016, he did. He said he wanted to build a wall. He did. He said he wanted to stop asylum by 2020. They effectively had. People couldn’t apply for asylum in an effective way down on the border anymore. It seems likely that it’s very possible. It’s not just a rhetorical ploy. He really thinks that would be his Panama Canal, or his moonshot or his Normandy invasion. You know, it’s completely lunatic and vile. You just have to think what would happen to U.S. standing in the world. 

Sam Goldman  57:28

You know, one of the things that you had said that I think is on people’s minds a lot is this notion that, oh, it’s what he wants, or oh, it’s what he says, but it’s just not possible. It couldn’t happen, or he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t see it through. And I think that it’s worth reflecting on how much he already changed what was normative and what was possible in his first term, where those things that people thought, Oh, you couldn’t mobilize, that you couldn’t utilize this in this fashion, he went and was able to undermine and challenge immigration policy and asylum in his first term. I think there’s this political amnesia, that

Francisco Goldman  58:20

There’s a political amnesia. And also, you know, if you talk to people who the lawyer, Heather Axford, I speak to my piece who, you know, understand immigration law and what actually happened, they learned slowly how to work the system. Attorney Generals can do a lot of damage, like Attorneys General Sessions and overturned a lot of most important principles of asylum law, but it was just personal decisions of theirs that when the Biden administration got back and they were able to reinstate.

So we didn’t see the complete consequences of if they had managed to codify these thing as law. And what human rights lawyers know now is that they have all that stuff ready to go the minute Trump gets back in because they have a supreme court that’s on their side, many of the courts are on their side. They may very well control the legislature. They’ll have no problem codifying these things as laws, saying that you are no longer allowed to apply for asylum because you’re fleeing narcotic cartels or gangs. You are no longer allowed to apply for asylum just because there’s a death threat hanging over your whole family. 

Those things will become U.S. law, and which will make it very hard a very long, slow, years long process to overturn those if we ever even get a chance to do that again. So I mean, they are ready. We remember how incredibly shocked the American conscience was not everybody’s, but such a great many, huge percentage of Americans were struck by child separation. By separating families at the borders, in many cases, into the Biden administration, they hadn’t managed to track down and reunite those families, children torn away from their parents and locked up the parents might be in the detention center in Alabama, and the kids might have been sent to one in Arizona, and they would lose track of where they were. 

Aside from just the trauma that’s caused to families, that was finally somewhat restrained because the courts stepped in, and there were so many legal challenges, but when Trump gets back in and these people, they are ready to do that again and codified it and make it the law. And the courts are now, because they’re so stocked with people that they put in there, especially the Supreme Court, it’s much harder to say what will happen. The other one that was like Trump wanted to do was he asked that he could militarize the border and have soldiers shoot at the legs of migrants approaching the walls Migrants approaching, basically just asked for asylum and wanted to so just shoot at their legs? 

If he were to give it an executive order saying that armed border security authorities are now allowed to do that? Would any court overturn it? And DACA? Think of DACA when people want to feel incredibly gloomy about what’s been done in immigration policy over the last I don’t know how many years, they can look at DACA as at least one thing that gave us some sense of like fairness and security to young immigrants who were brought here [not] by their own volition, but because their parents were in most cases of Central America, fleeing the Central American wars that we were sponsoring.

I have a friend who is still here in Mexico, who was brought to United States when he was one year old and he was 32 I think, already raising a family, working as an IT specialist, though still undocumented, but a kind of genius IT person who Just because of a fender bender in one of those Republican Long Island towns where very anti immigrant police officer immediately called ICE on him over a little fender bender, on an icy suburban road when, after he had dropped his children off at school, they took him right to the police Station and deported him to Guatemala. He wasn’t even allowed to say goodbye to his family, and he got to Guatemala, and because Hurricane Mitch had completely destroyed the archival offices in the part of the country where he’d been born, there was just no way for them to give him a record of his birth. He was terrified.

The gangs in Guatemala immediately picked up on him as a vulnerable person who they could try to either threaten and try to bring him in and make him a member of the gang. He fled to Mexico. He tried to cross back one time, and he was attacked. He was left for dead on the border. Border people found him unconscious in the desert. Border Patrol people took him, shipped him right back into Mexico. This is a person who was brought to United States when he was one year old. Did not speak a word of Spanish. He was brought just by his mother. This is the kind of thing that can happen. It’s terrifying.

Sam Goldman  1:02:53

It’s horrifying. And that’s one example. And then you you multiply that to a scale that really is, it’s depravity.

Francisco Goldman  1:03:02

Did you hear what Trump said after he got out of the courtroom today? Here he has this moment. All the TV cameras are on him. He’s just been convicted from 34 felonies. And what does he start to rave about? He starts to say that the country is filling up with what he calls them, illegal immigrants who have been let out of prisons and mental institutions. He says, insane people are flooding into the country. I mean, this incredible kindness blasphemy.

You just can’t believe anybody would stand up there and say anything so crazy and so ugly. Imagine that you are a hard working immigrant family, mother and father, you make the mistake of turning on the news at home at night, you’re there your children and you’re migrants, whether you’re undocumented or not, and there’s this former and maybe future president of the country talking about people like you that way. What do you say your children? It’s just beyond vile. It’s just so evil.

Sam Goldman  1:04:00

it’s beyond vile and it’s incredibly dangerous, because there’s people that hang on every word and completely divorced from reality and believe what they’re being told, that is incredibly dangerous.

Francisco Goldman  1:04:16

And you know what happens if you demonize people in that way, if you dehumanize people in such an ugly way and basically completely deform the image of these human beings in the minds of other people who perhaps they don’t even really live around them. You create this fantasy demons in their mind and strip these people of human qualities. What kind of violence are you inviting against them? You know, history has taught us what happens when you do that. Obviously, Americans are so ahistorical. They get told that all the time.

But just look through the 20th century, where we had plenty of governments and fascist dictators who presided over these kinds of campaigns of hatred and violence. Violence which either caused like genocides or mass movements, mass imprisonments of people, and all kinds of suffering, which is the kind of thing he’s calling for. And how did they all end? Every one of them destroyed their own country and ended up either in prison or dead themselves or completely dishonored or history’s biggest, most despised, to use a word Trump likes to use to designate people, losers.

He’s trying to convince people that he’s doing something good for the United States by following in the footsteps of these kinds of authoritarian or fascist or dictatorial figures that we grew up understanding represented evil. And how’s he doing this? How is he appealing to so many people? It’s so sad. It’s really troubling, because this is not the United States any of us for all its troubles, for all its historical problems, but this is not the country any of us ever thought we were growing up in, where appeals like that could be made. I’m just so haunted by it. It’s just really troubles me all the time.

Sam Goldman  1:06:00

It’s extremely haunting. Trump and Stephen Miller have been whipping up their fascist base against immigrants. One of the things that we’ve talked a lot about is that the attacks on immigrants really are a linchpin and battering ram for this whole fascist movement really a vehicle to do away with civil and democratic rights overall, if they’re able to re seize and consolidate power. If there was anything else that you think people need to be aware of, in terms of what Trump and Miller have been saying, in terms of brainwashing their followers to believe? You mentioned what Trump said in terms of just after the verdict about what he said about immigrants,

Francisco Goldman  1:06:54

You have Stephen Miller saying, “It’s going to be so wonderful and people are going to be So so joyous,” they’re completely disguising and misleading, just hiding the damage this is going to do to the very people they claim to be making life better for. The damage this is going to do to the economy is just going to be incredible. It’s not just because the Congressional Budget Office and so forth said that so much of the robustness our economy and the projected robustness of economy seven, ten, twenty years down the road depends on immigrant work.

Anybody who has their eyes open can see how it works in the communities they live in, especially if they work in big cities or rural working class, everywhere. Now I used in my piece the example of New Bedford, Massachusetts, because my novel is set there, and so I spent a lot of time there. It’s the most historically rich community in New England, I think in the whole United States. That’s where Moby Dick begins. Of course, it’s where Frederick Douglass came to live after he escaped from south at one point, the richest city in all of the United States of America, because of the whaling industry and then textiles.

Now it’s fell into a kind of post industrial economic ruin, but it’s starting to revive now, and especially remains the number one fishing port in the United States. No commercial fishing port is more important or brings in more money than New Bedford. And all of you eat seafood. You’re often if it’s not imported, but even sometimes, if it is imported, it’s been processed in New Bedford, and you look at how that business works, it would not work without immigrant labor.

Sam Goldman  1:08:27

I know most issues, most presidents advance their program through advocacy and working with the legislature to implement new laws. But on immigration, the executive branch has almost absolute power in Trump, based on both what we experienced last time and in all the planning and work that both agenda 47 and project 2025 have outlined, Trump doesn’t wait as we move to close out the conversation. I was just hoping you could remind us what mechanisms you see Trump being able to use unilaterally to change policies on day one, if he’s given the opportunity to do so.

Francisco Goldman  1:09:15

He’s already said he’s gonna be a dictator on day one, and among the things he’s gonna do on day one as a dictator is, in fact, reinstate the Muslim ban, an expanded Muslim ban. He’s going to say that any foreign student who participates in a pro Palestine protest on a college campus will immediately be deported. He’s gonna do that in day one. He’s probably gonna, day one, do it executive orders, if he can, to say that birthright citizenship should be canceled. He’s going to revoke DACA, which immediately hundreds of thousands of young migrants who’ve never known any other home are suddenly going to find themselves undocumented without the protection of the law.

He’s going to revoke instantly, all the other immigration laws that have provided temporary protections to migrants from certain countries, like from Haiti, Honduras. Instant, instantly. In many cases, people have been here decades, under those he’s going to revoke those. His attorney general is going to instantly a lot of these regulations that we were talking about earlier that are ready to be codified into immigration law by the government itself. They don’t have to go, I believe, for the legislature, which will instantly end the right to asylum, and he’s going to announce that he’s going to militarize aspects of the society, get rid of Fourth Amendment protections, whether it’s through expanding ICE, whether he’s going to use the military, whether he’s going to find ways to employ police forces to round up migrants and begin work on what’s going to be his own great achievement, comparable to Panama Canal, Moon landing or whatever, which is going to be to deport twenty million undocumented migrants.

I think he can do all of that, pretty much from day one. And that’s what he’s promising. That’s what he’s running on. And he’s going to buttress up that. He’s going to prepare us non stop. He’s already doing it with just a relentless bombardment of really despicable, racist, xenophobic, monstrously inhuman, dehumanizing of good, hard working people.

Sam Goldman  1:11:15

Well, Francisco, I want to thank you so much for joining me for sharing your insights and perspective and time, and we’re going to link to your essay in the show notes. If people want to read more from you, connect with your work, should they find you on the site formerly known as Twitter or somewhere else? Where do you want to direct people to?

Francisco Goldman  1:11:41

Twitter I basically use to help my friends in Guatemala on political things, because in a lot of those categories of Guatemala, Twitter is a journalistic information tool that isn’t here. I really hate Twitter, but I know it’s useful in Guatemala, but for my own personal stuff, Instagram, Francisco Goldman, you can find me on Facebook even, or, you know, buy my books Monkey Boy, on Amazon. Say her Name, a good independent bookstore, especially if maybe they’ll have it. Sam, it’s been such a pleasure, Happy I got to talk about this.

Sam Goldman  1:12:13

wonderful meeting you.

Francisco Goldman  1:12:15

Thank you.

Sam Goldman  1:12:17

Thanks for listening to Refuse Fascism. Got thoughts or questions off this episode? We want to hear them. Ideas for guests or topics?  Yes, please. Send them to us. Have a skill you think could help, like graphic design, translation. We want to know all about. Find us on social media @refusefascism. Yes, we are on blue sky too. If you want to reach me, you can do so at the site previously known as Twitter, @ Sam B Goldman, or drop me a line at [email protected], I’m also on the tiktoks @SamGoldmanRF. Also love to hear from you via voicemail, so see the show notes for that button.

Want to support the show? Amazing. You can do so by getting a t shirt and or hoodie, which support the show and spread the In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse yo Accept a Fascist America, or the classic refuse fascism design. Become a patron to support our pod and content creation to help people understand and act to stop this fascist threat. Join at patreon.com/refusefascism. And if you can’t give monthly, we totally get it. Make a one time donation via Venmo at refuse fascism, or visit refusefascism.org and hit the donate button. And if you can’t give now, share the show with others, rate and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen, or comment on our socials or YouTube. It makes a difference, and is so appreciated.

Thank you to Mark Tinkleman, Richie Marini and Lina Thorne for helping produce this episode. Thanks to incredible volunteers, we have transcripts available for each show, so be sure to visit refusefascism.org and sign up to get them in your inbox. Until next time. In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America.