Trump at Fort Bragg. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
Reading Stephen Miller’s Twitter feed is a useful way to see the core motivations of the second Trump term. With Miller, the mass migration of the last four years — and more generally, of the last four decades — is not another wave of immigration like all the other waves before it, just startlingly bigger in scale and pace. It is literally an invasion by a foreign force. For Miller, we are currently in the middle of a hot war, under occupation by an alien army, which is aided by a fifth column of anyone who opposes the Trump administration. In this war, there are only two sides, and only one is not treason. This is actually how he sees the world. A civil war is already under way.
The following tweets, we have to keep reminding ourselves, are not from some incel loser on 4chan. They are from one of the closest advisers to the president of the United States. “Deport the invaders, or surrender to insurrection. These are the choices,” is one of Miller’s recent contributions to the discourse.
He retweets Vance with the same “invasion” language: “We have foreign nationals with no legal right to be in the country waving foreign flags and assaulting law enforcement. If only we had a good word for that...” Miller sees this moment as existential: “We’ve been saying for years this is a fight to save civilization. Anyone with eyes can see that now.” Trump chimed in: “A once-great American city, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied” (my italics). Miller adds: “Look at all the foreign flags. Los Angeles is occupied territory” (ditto). And this was how the cabinet secretary who literally doesn’t know what habeas corpus is described sending Marines into Los Angeles:
We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.
She intends to liberate Los Angeles … from its duly elected officials. She might be talking about Baghdad or Fallujah, rather than an American city. And here’s the full summary of our current situation through the eyes and ears of Miller — a rare, unashamed, bona fide fascist in an American administration:
America was invaded by illegal aliens.
Americans voted to end the invasion.
Democrat rioters are now waging violent insurrection to overturn the election result and continue the invasion.
This is a description, it’s vital to note, of a country already in a civil war. And a country in such a war needs a president with wartime powers. That was the logic of using the Alien Enemies Act to grab illegal immigrants and random brown people and swiftly send them to a foreign gulag, without even the due process we accorded to Nazis in the Second World War. That is why Miller has openly mused about suspending habeas corpus — because wartime emergencies allow it. And it is the obvious rationale behind Trump’s eagerness to deploy the National Guard in California, against the governor’s wishes, and to get the Marines involved in domestic crowd-policing. The president will use the military against this foreign invasion and internal insurrection because, well, that’s who we use to fight wars.
And how they love the word “insurrection”. They get a particular frisson of course from the fact that this very word was previously used — accurately — to describe a mob that violently tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in January 2021. That attempt to “overturn the election result” was, however, not an insurrection in Miller’s eyes because it was in favor of Trump — the rightful landslide winner of the election. It was the Congress’ certification of that election that was the insurrection. This “insurrection” in Los Angeles? The same logic applies. It’s not pro-Trump, so we need the Marines. There is only one legitimate political party in America, and it can use the military to keep the other one in check.
And tomorrow, we are going to witness a military parade in DC that just happens to coincide with Trump’s 79th birthday and the Army’s 250th. It’s set to brandish 26 M1A1 Abrams tanks, 27 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, eight CH-47 helicopters, and 16 UH-60 Black Hawks. The last parade of this scale was almost 35 years ago, to celebrate the US victory in the First Gulf War. No such victory is now being hailed. Trump’s parade is simply another sign of his preference for the British monarchical system over the American republic. In honor of the British sovereign’s official birthday, after all, a ceremonial Trooping the Colour has been held since the 17th century. In this sense, Trump can be seen as the final denouement of the American experiment — a bookend, as it were, to the first King George III.
And this was echoed in Trump’s speech to the troops assembled this week at Fort Bragg. The soldiers were vetted so they were all Trump fans; Trump merchandise was openly sold at the military base (including faux credit cards labeled “White Privilege Card: Trumps Everything”); the speech was crudely partisan; and the president encouraged boos from the uniformed crowd as he lambasted his usual targets — behavior that violates Pentagon rules. If disgrace were a word Trump even understood, it wouldn’t adequately capture the despicably un-American spectacle. But this, in the president’s mind, is not America’s military, but his own.
And anyone peacefully protesting this grotesque cooptation of a military parade worthy of Putin or Xi? They will be met with a “very heavy force,” just as they would be in Beijing or Moscow. Yes, that’s what free speech now amounts to in this man’s America. Write an op-ed criticizing a foreign country’s mass infanticide, and you will be deported pronto. Protest this caudillo’s trashing of every American value since the Founding, and his masked thugs will arrest you, deport you, or injure you. Be a US Senator and ask a cabinet secretary some questions at a press conference, and guards will wrestle you to the ground and cuff you. This administration has now praised ICE and Secret Service violence against elected Democratic officials more than once.
And this, I suspect, is just the beginning. Just because Trump is reluctant to use armed force abroad doesn’t mean he wouldn’t love to use it at home. There is, in fact, no other logical conclusion to the rhetoric of Miller and Vance than imposition at some point of martial law. They believe we are under invasion, that the enemy is allied with a treasonous domestic opposition, and that the goal is to “overturn the election result,” i.e. regime change. If this is not the time for Michael Anton’s beloved Red Caesar — the partisan tyrantwho recognizes that the Constitution is long since gone, and he must now rule by fiat — when would be?
It’s all a fantastic lie, of course. We are not at war with anyone; there are no armed invaders in America; and no foreign government is sending them. The opposition is merely doing what an opposition is supposed to do: expose an administration’s incompetence and authoritarianism. It’s not a side in Miller’s imagined civil war.
And this hideous lurch into militarizing American politics is not even about mass deportations. They can be done legally, humanely, and expeditiously with new legislation, administrative streamlining, many more courts and judges, and e-Verify. It might take a little longer, but it’s the surest way to do it. But Trump is uninterested in that dry, difficult work. Just this week, he even praised the millions of illegal immigrants in the agricultural and hospitality sectors — the domestic industries, along with construction, most responsible for exploiting cheap, illegal labor:
Our farmers are being hurt badly. They have very good workers [that] have worked for them for 20 years. They’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be great. And we’re going to have to do something about that. We can’t take all their people and send them back ... And leisure too, and hotels.
So what the fuck is all this about really? Like the tariffs that gyrate, and the spending cuts that don’t cut spending, and the great deals that turn out to be surrenders to China, and the end to wars that never end, and the executive orders that collapse at the first judicial review, so much of this is just theater. The real goal is to find illegal immigrants who can be associated with the left and the Democrats, to gin up a conflict, and to use it to smash and intimidate domestic opposition. That’s what this is about. It’s about state terror in the pursuit of ever greater executive power.
Putting masks on agents of the state is integral to this campaign of state terror. It is unconscionable that in a free society, those with the power to arrest and detain are not clearly identifiable as such, with their full faces and names and identity visible. Protestors who wear masks are just as anathema to a liberal democracy, and wearing a mask in such a context should be grounds for arrest. But for the state to be anonymous and lethal is a mark of totalitarian societies, not democracies.
And sending masked men — like Putin’s masked agents — to grab harmless foreign students and bundle them into vans, or to raid Home Depots and car washes, is not a serious attempt to deliver mass deportations. It’s designed to tell everyone — citizen or non-citizen — that this is a police state now, answerable to one man alone, and you better keep your head down. This applies even to judges who can be grabbed, handcuffed, and perp-walked; and US Senators, who can be tackled by Secret Service goons if they dare interrupt Kristi Noem, the wannabe Only Fans model now cosplaying as DHS Secretary.
They are not intending to deport ten million people in four years. They are attempting to use the purported deportation of ten million people as a way to attenuate liberal democracy, the separation of powers, and limited government — and to replace it with one man’s authoritarian whims. If they can goad the left into rebooting 2020 and initiating a long, hot summer of violent riots, they will achieve this much faster.
That’s why taking the bait is so dangerous and counter-productive. That’s why failing to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants — as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass did this week — or going on about “racial profiling,” is so helpful to Trump. That’s why her statement that “Peace begins with ICE leaving Los Angeles” is a politically catastrophic statement. And it’s why Governor Newsom’s insistence that everything was under control until Trump commandeered the National Guard is also clueless.
There is nothing illegal or illegitimate about ICE enforcing immigration laws. There is plenty to criticize in how Trump is enforcing those laws — violating the Constitution, ignoring courts, commandeering the National Guard, sending in troops — but not the enforcement itself. But the Democrats still can’t make that distinction. Worse, their opposition is in acute danger of giving us BLM-style riots and rallies across the country, attended by the usual suspects, flying foreign flags, that will only rekindle memories of 2020 and remind many of us why we despise the Democratic left’s racism, contempt for law enforcement, and endorsement of looting.
By far the best policy is to let the Trump goons do their hideous, authoritarian worst (they won the election on the promises, after all), watch them fail to match the deportation numbers of Obama or even Biden, and then run hard against their authoritarian incompetence in 2026. The last thing we need is an excuse for Trump to ramp up the repression even further.
So expose the departure from American norms and values, spread the word about the abuse, defend the Constitution and the rule of law, and keep arguing for American values against this deeply anti-American president. But don’t defend illegal immigrants. And don’t give Trump a way to distract from his flailing on the debt, tariffs, and foreign policy. And if the Democrats really want to beat him, unveil your own program of legal, humane, expeditious, and constitutional mass deportation as a foil to this authoritarian mess. Show you can deport millions the right way.
And never, ever forget again that if liberals and conservatives don’t enforce borders, fascists will. Which is why fascists like Miller now are doing exactly that — and may do far, far worse in the near future.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: a long chat with Chris Matthews on living through political history; a quick note on the Israeli strike on Iran; many dissents over my latest column on the kid killing in Gaza; 15 notable quotes from the week in news, including two Yglesias Awards over the LA clusterfuck; 16 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of topics; a Mental Health Break for a classic rock anthem; a beach window from Tanzania; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
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I know it sometimes gets to you to receive all this criticism, but hang in there. Many of us appreciate the Dish’s independence and its refusal to join a tribe and be “popular”.
Israel First
The surprise attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is so new and fresh that it’s wise, I think, to refrain from commenting until we understand events more clearly. But a simple, preliminary point: in a grave moment like this, it is clear that American interests are irrelevant. The superpower follows the lead of its “ally”, and not the other way round. As that junior partner launches yet another of its many Middle East wars, while it is also ethnically cleansing the West Bank and near-starving, terrorizing, and obliterating the people of Gaza, we are beside the point. The Israelis tell us what they are about to do, and even a president as egotistical as Trump accepts it, even if it blows a hole through his previous policy of negotiation. Would he respond to any other country abruptly up-ending his diplomacy this way? I doubt it.
The whole world sees this. I wonder when MAGA will begin to see it too.
New On The Dishcast: Chris Matthews
Chris is a TV broadcaster and author. During his political career, he was a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter and the chief of staff for House Speaker Tip O’Neill. In journalism, Chris was a columnist with the San Francisco Examiner and then the Chronicle, the host of “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” and the host of “The Chris Matthews Show,” where I was a frequent guest. He’s also written nine books. He’s currently a professor at Fulbright University Vietnam, and he recently revived “Hardball” on Substack — check it out.
Chris was his usual gregarious, loquacious, opinionated self. We had a blast. Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — memorable quips from world leaders, and debating the legacy of JFK. That link also takes you to commentary on our recent episodes on President McKinley and Bill Buckley. We also air more reader debate on the war in Gaza and the transing of kids.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Batya Ungar-Sargon on Trump 2.0, Walter Isaacson on Ben Franklin, Tara Zahra on the revolt against globalization after WWI, Paul Elie on crypto-religion in ‘80s pop culture, Thomas Mallon on the AIDS crisis, Arthur Brooks on the science of happiness, and Johann Hari coming back to turn the tables and interview me for the pod. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
I generally admire your work, but I was frustrated by your piece about “infanticide” in Gaza. It never addresses Netanyahu’s primary argument for why he is continuing the war: no matter how weak Hamas is at this moment, if Israel stops now and Hamas is re-supplied by Iran, we will return to the pre-October 7th status quo very quickly. Hamas will strike again, killing many more Jews; Israel will counter-attack, killing many more Gazans. More lives will be lost that way than if Israel pursues its current course.
The Israeli plan is to hold territory to allow local leaders to consolidate control of Gaza and finally have an alternative to the disastrous reign of Hamas. Perhaps you think it won’t work; perhaps you think Netanyahu is insincere. But this is the stated plan and the rationale for it, and I am disheartened by so many good people who write as if it didn’t exist.
I think the answer is that we don’t believe that Netanyahu is being sincere — and neither do many Israelis. And that even if he is insincere, it’s impossible, without murdering almost everyone left in Gaza.
An important update:
The poll you cited in Haaretz arguably paints a misinformed picture of Israeli public opinion. Haaretz wrote a follow-up against that poll, showing how it was poorly put together and doesn’t reflect anything like actual Israeli public opinion. Israelis are being painted the world over as genocidal maniacs, and while the conduct of a not insignificant minority of Israelis is indefensible, the average Israeli remains a much more thoughtful and nuanced thinker than the poll — and your piece — paints.
Relieved to hear it and happy to add more context. Many more dissents are over on the pod page. As always, please keep the criticism coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as ICE in LA, Bluesky, and NIMBY on the left and right. Below are a few examples, followed by a brand new substack:
Jim Cramer worries the US “doesn’t have the cards” when it comes Trump vs. Xi, namely on rare minerals.
Here’s Jeff Asher on why the murder rate “has been falling at the fastest rate ever recorded.”
Here’s a list of the substacks we recommend in general — call it a blogroll. If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday at 11.59 pm (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month sub if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the VFYW). Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. From last week, here’s one of the films highlighted by our cinema sleuth:
Mike Judge’s Office Space (1999) is one of many movies that just swoops in to shoot a single scene and then split. So normally it wouldn’t even rate a mention here. But that single scene — the last one in the movie — follows the further adventures of the movie’s best character, Milton Waddams, who is “enjoying” a “well-earned” post-conflagration vacation at what seems to be a Mexican beach resort.
The scene was filmed a thousand yards from The Whistle Bar on a tiny private island named Sunset Key, accessible only by boat or by ferry from Mallory Square. The resort, Sunset Key Cottages, puts on an air of exclusivity, so I can’t help but imagine the other cast members feeling a bit of resentment toward Stephen Root for being the only one of them on call for that day’s shoot (not to overlook Rupert Reyes, who played the waiter).
Criminally, the only decent quality version of the scene I’ve managed to find is somehow flipped horizontally (which is why the slogan on his shirt reads backwards):
