MacArthur Park, Los Angeles Photo WDSU

“Everything else—the CBO score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy—is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration.” Vice President, JD Vance.

You probably didn’t see that tweet. But I did—and I haven’t stopped thinking about it. It may be the most honest and dangerous thing anyone said about the MAGA budget bill Trump signed on July 4th.

America can survive another dumb tax cut. The damage to Medicaid will be real and heartbreaking, but for most people, it’ll happen quietly, invisibly. The deficit? Just one more can kick toward the cliff, waiting for the next president—Republican or Democrat—to finish the crash. But J.D. dropped a truth bomb. This wasn’t just a budget bill. It was about power. It was about building a permanent internal army, one that answers only to the president. A force that can be aimed inward, not at enemies abroad—but at us.

Every authoritarian regime builds an internally focused army. Consider:

• China (Xi Jinping): Ministry of State Security – 110,000 to 800,000 operatives
• North Korea (Kim Jong-un): State Security Department – possibly 100,000+
• Russia (Putin): FSB – ~200,000 agents + 2,000 elite officers
• Iran (Khamenei): MOIS + IRGC – ~30,000 + 200,000 LE/security agents
• Egypt (el-Sisi): NSA – ~200,000 agents

These forces report to one man. They operate black sites, prisons, and torture chambers. What J.D. Vance is saying—intentionally or not—is that America is building its own version of the East German Stasi or the Nazi Gestapo, and everything else is “immaterial.”

In America, our internal army comes disguised as immigration enforcement. The new MAGA bill funnels $170 billion to the Department of Homeland Security—making immigration departments larger than the entire U.S. Marine Corps, and more expensive than Israel’s entire defense budget. ICE alone receives $30 billion. And here’s the trick: the $46 billion earmarked for “the wall” is completely fungible. They can spend it on anything. They are anticipating 10,000 new soldiers with loyalty to Trump being the primary vetting.

In MAGA-speak, every undocumented immigrant is a criminal. So, when Stephen Miller says, “We’re going after criminals,” what he really means is everybody. First, it’s “illegals,” then green card holders, then naturalized citizens. Those are American citizens. And if them—why not journalists? Protesters? Judges? You? Authoritarian internal armies don’t disappear when the job is “done.” They grow, adapt and find new enemies. Vance told us what’s coming. Believe him.

Professor of Government and Sociology Theda Skocpol wrote:

“Immigration is an area where the U.S. President can exercise virtually unchecked legal coercive power, especially if backed by a Supreme Court majority and a corrupted Department of Justice. … much of this windfall to be used for graft with private contractors Trump patronizes, but lots of it to hire street agents willing to mask themselves and do whatever they are told against resident and fellow American citizens. The Miller-Trumpites are not interested in only rounding up undocumented immigrants.”

We’ve already seen the outlines of what this looks like:

An Iranian woman, quietly living in the U.S. for 40 years, taken from her garden. A man with three sons in the Marine Corps, detained at a work site. In Los Angeles, Monday (Fox News embedded), masked and heavily armed officers—some on horseback—conducting a coordinated sweep of MacArthur Park. They made no arrests. When confronted by the Los Angeles mayor, Border Patrol leadership said they did it to prove they could go anywhere, anytime.

It’s not about protecting Americans. It’s about setting the terms of obedience.

My family, proudly, has 5 generations of law enforcement. I spent eight years as a public safety liaison to a city commissioner, working to keep Portland inside the Joint Terrorism Task Force. The essence of good law enforcement is a strong desire to do public service. However, there is always a dark current in some of law enforcement, a frustration that because they live the front lines, they know best. Civilian authority and that pesky constitution are unwelcome limits. You see it in Border Patrol leadership interviews. They are gleeful they “finally get to do their job.” Behind many of those menacing masks are smiles. Not because they’re proud to serve, but because they feel unleashed.

Authoritarians understand how to manipulate the culture of law enforcement. They’ve done it repeatedly. The Netflix documentary “Ordinary Men” examines how the Nazis turned everyday German police officers into roving death squads—the Einsatzgruppen. Many weren’t soldiers. They were civil police. The regime exploited their unit cohesion, their separation from civilian life, and their training to follow orders without question. 

That may sound extreme, but history is full of examples—from Serbia to Syria—where the line between policing and brutality dissolves under authoritarian rule.

Let me be clear: Biden and the Democrats left the door wide open for all of this. Remember 2016? Democratic candidates lining up on stage, raising their hands for “open borders.” I can only imagine the glee Stephen Miller must have felt. Democrats gave the far-right exactly the justification they needed. Americans believe in borders. Always have. Democratic leadership, bowing to the fringe left, forgot that.

Today, there is an authoritarian infrastructure inside the executive and legislative branches. Trump’s personal bigotry isn’t the point—it is merely a tool. I’ve read the academic philosophers of the MAGA right. They don’t see liberals as opponents. They see us as existential enemies. And they’re disciplined. Relentless. Strategic.

What we are confronting is not a political problem; it’s a moral collapse. That’s what makes it so dangerous.

MAGA leadership can no longer tell the difference between truth and lies. The Republican Party, as an institution, is gone. Its leaders fear their own base. Trump is running wild, and he’s winning. And yet—there is still hope. Millions of Americans who voted for Trump are feeling uncomfortable and we can make that feeling grow.

The Democratic gerontocracy is lost in their wilderness of consultant talking points. They seem to be stuck in the old paradigm of waiting for their next turn. The reactionary left wants to re-fight a culture war. The courts are lost. The Republican Senate majority is locked for two more cycles.

That leaves us with one last opportunity: Take back the House in 2026. If Democratic leaders, all of us, aren’t waking up every day working toward a House majority, then the American experiment—250 years in the making—is over. The fight is now. Democratic leaders need to think like a guerilla force, constantly probing for weaknesses in the MAGA defenses. Nobody really cares if they are good at making long speeches on the floor of congress visible only on CSPAN.

Here’s where we start: Democratic members of Congress—majority or not—have the legal right to inspect ICE detention centers. They need to invoke that right. Loudly. Publicly. Every damn day. If they’re denied entry, make that denial the story. Every day. These are black sites. Concentration camps. Exposed, these are places that would offend most Americans.

Sunshine is our weapon.

Call and write your representatives. Demand they do their job. Demand they expose what’s being done in our name. Tell them to form oversight strike teams and go to every ICE holding building and camp in the country. Make the revulsion you feel universal.

This is a long fight. As shocking as it may be, MAGA is just getting started. The Project 2025 checklist is not nearly complete. But we win this one battle at a time.

See you at the next protest.

Solidarity.