Dr. Phil turns immigration raids into yet another Trump fascist spectacle

Trump again follows the fascist playbook

Fascists love spectacles. That dates back to the original modern era fascist himself, Italy’s Benito Mussolini. (Indeed, the word fascism comes from the Italian word “fascio.”) Mussolini like other fascist leaders would create carefully manufactured events that grabbed attention and headlines to create a sense of awe and power. Hitler infamously did the same with his mass rallies to even the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin. These flashy events also distract from the failures of the fascist’s regimes.

That is why in the lead up to Trump’s first week in office, his allies boasted that Trump would begin his presidency with a campaign of “shock and awe.” To that end, Trump signed a swath of executive orders intended to grab attention—such as attempting to rewrite the 14^th Amendment to end birthright citizenship.

From there, Trump pardoned the Jan. 6 terrorists, renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and intentionally broke the law on Friday night by firing 17 Inspector Generals –independent government watchdogs-- without following the federal law because he knew it would grab headlines. These are all fascist spectacles designed to make Trump look more powerful--and distract from rising grocery prices.

Now we have a new fascist spectacle--and that is Trump’s mass deportations complete with Trump loving celebrity, Dr. Phil embedded with the ICE raids. Why would Dr. Phil be joining Trump’s so-called Border czar Tom Homan on a raid of Chicago early Monday morning? Simple, to ensure the raids gets even more media coverage given how corporate media loves all things celebrity.

And Dr. Phil played his role exactly how Trump wanted. First, Phil recorded a video the night before the raid that aired on his own YouTube show and was released to the press where he boasted that this was a “pretty high-risk mission.” The TV Dr. then declared from the comfort of what appeared to be an upscale hotel room about the immigrants, “If they resist, if they open fire on these agents, you have to return fire.” He also warned that civilians could “get caught in the crossfire.”

Here was Dr. Phil like a professional wrestling promoter hyping the event in the hopes more tuned in. Then came the raid in the early morning hours of Monday where Dr. Phil--the pretend doctor—now pretended to be some type of sheriff as he asked a Brown man in handcuffs questions.

The detained man responded that he was not a citizen but his mother was. Then Phil asked if the man had ever been deported before? That prompted an amusing response with the man responded, “You’re Dr. Phil?!” “You look like Dr. Phil,” he added.

A visibly stunned Dr. Phil replied, “Yeah?! How do you know me?” Apparently, Phil thinks the undocumented “aliens” are actually aliens from another planet. The man responded, “I seen you on Dr. Phil.” From there Phil asked a few more questions before border dude Tom Homan interrupted.

This video has been shared countless times on social media. MAGA must love it because it’s like a white supremacist fantasy camp to go out and handcuff Brown and Black people. And Tuesday morning there were countless articles and cable news segments about the ICE arrests with pundits on MSNBC dubbing them “gestapo raids”—which is exactly what Trump wants to conjure up.

All of this was a fascist spectacle—starting with the choice of Chicago for the raid. In the weeks before Trump was sworn in, his border henchman Tom Homan repeatedly declared that Chicago was “ground zero” for mass deportations.

Why would Homan make Chicago the focal point? Was it because Illinois and Chicago have the most undocumented immigrants? Not even close.

Two of three states with the most undocumented immigrants per Pew are Texas with 1.6 million and Florida with 1.2 million. In contrast, Illinois is way down the list with approximately 400,000. And Chicago is not close to the city with the most undocumented immigrants.

There are few reasons Homan picked Chicago as “ground zero.” One, it plays great with the MAGA base which has long cited Chicago—that has a Black mayor-- as a Democratically run city filled with crime. Second, Trump and Homan don’t want to target red states and their migrant populations because it could both make the GOP governors look bad and also hurt business in those states.

And finally, Trump wants to challenge the sovereignty of the Blue states so that Democratic officials are forced to submit to Trump’s rule. In fact, Trump’s DOJ last week directed all federal prosecutors to investigate and bring criminal charges against state and local officials who don’t cooperate with Trump’s mass deportations.

On some level, Trump may actually be rooting for local officials to confront the ICE officials leading to violence. That may be Trump’s excuse to declare an emergency and direct U.S. military troops to occupy Blue cities.

Keep in mind that one of Trump’s first Executive Orders last week was to declare that our nation was under “invasion” by “cartels, criminal gangs” and others who have come over the Southern Border illegally. Consequently, he invoked the National Emergencies Act as the legal basis to order the “Secretary of Defense” to send “as many units or members of the Armed Forces” as needed to secure “complete operational control of the southern border of the United States.”

While there are--in theory--legal barriers to Trump deploying US troops in cities, we know Trump’s new Secretary of Defense Peet Hegseth would quickly comply. And Trump’s use of the term “invasion” in his Executive Order--as legal experts have flagged—"is deliberate for constitutional reasons and could be laying the groundwork for a more expansive miliary role in immigration law enforcement.” Yes, Trump is laying the foundation to employ the US military against any city that dares defy his spectacle of mass deportations.

Again, fascist love spectacles—especially shows of force. Dr. Phil helping raise the visibility of the mass deportations of Brown people is exactly what Trump wants. But what Trump truly wants is the spectacle of U.S. troops silencing Americans who dare defy him.

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