Like #COVID19, #MS13 & other gangs are a virus which spreads rapidly through the vacuum left when underprivileged communities are largely abandoned by authorities and social services. From Central America to any given major US urban center, these threats are of our own making.
The party line from anyone right of Mitt Romney has been that American cities--including, apparently, the one I live in--are being "destroyed," "burned to the ground," "occupied," etc by BLM protesters. This is no more true for MS-13, but fascism needs its invisible villains.
As November approaches, we're already seeing millions of peaceful #blacklivesmatter protesters called violent revolutionaries, calls for centrist police reform called lawless anarchy, & MS-13 directly equated with all Latino immigrants.
It's fascism. There's no other word for it
And I mean this literally. Read this definition of fascism from historian R. Paxton & tell me the difference between this and the #MAGA movement generally or Trump's eliminationist rhetoric specifically. It's all there, even the "uneasy colloboration" w/traditional conservatives
Remember when that Trump called people coming across the border "animals," but then clarified that this was okay because he was "only talking about gang members"? That language is now common in WH comms. It's not okay.
whitehouse.gov/articles/need-…
Now that we're used to hearing them called "animals," Trump has moved on to full-on eliminationist rhetoric. He's playing with fire here, and he and everyone around him are well aware of it.
I live in a neighborhood in which children have been killed MS-13 & represent a client base whose families have been terrorized by them at home. They are a problem, if nowhere near as large or organized as Trump makes them sound.
But that's also not the point.
I'd be happy to see the pathetic remnants of MS-13 here in Boston gone, but not at the cost of mass deportations, criminalization of Salvadoran youth, & the inevitable waves of hate crimes against Latinos who "look like MS-13." These things do far more harm than any gang could.
Trump won on fear alone in '16, & it's the only thing which could possibly give him any chance to prevail in '20. So: BLM leaders are violent revolutionaries, white allies are ANTIFA, & Latinos peacefully advocating for immigrant rights are MS-13. Stupid? Yes. Effective? Also yes
There's an incredible irony here, though! Trump supporters are happy to believe elaborate conspiracy theories about the "China virus" (up to & including Dems using it to *destroy the economy*) but simply cannot accept that US foreign & domestic policy literally created MS-13. LOL
but seriously though, we did
jacobinmag.com/2019/08/a-year…
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