I see a lot of notices on tumblr (yes, I'm still on tumblr) about new laws that are in debate about new ways to restrict the 1st Amendment, where people call on their followers to ring up, write, email, and otherwise petition their state's senators at the federal level to reject the measure and vote it down. "If you need a script, go to 5calls.org! This needs to be stopped!" Well, hey. We all turned out in protest of Trump's sweeping anti-immigration budget reform bill and, wouldn't you know it? It got passed anyway with very little modification. It's almost as though there's something at work in American politics that undermines the democratic process; that uses a combination of money, prestige, and fear to make senators and supreme court justices alike decide in favour of the fascist regime. And there is. It's called corruption, and it's happening in such huge numbers these days, it would make Richard Nixon stop and say, "Excuse me, what the fuck?"
That's hardly the point, anyway.
As of 2 recent supreme court rulings, Trump's 3 hand-picked justices— namely, Amy Comey-Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh— along with the 3 pre-existing rightist justices from the Before Time, have hobbled the legislative branch's ability to ensure non-partisan leadership of government oversight committees and are allowing ICE troops to deport people based on confirmation bias. It is now up to Trump himself who can lead the few remaining oversight committees that Elon and the Funny Bunch couldn't simply erase from history, and it's up to a particular officer's discrimination who gets put into the paddy wagon and shipped to a concentration camp.
What I'm concerned about is the intersection point of these 2 concepts. In the United States, whenever you make a personal petition to your representatives in the federal government, you are required to leave your legal name (that is to say, your name as it appears on your birth certificate or marriage license), your home address, your phone number, and variously your gender identity, prefix, and whether you are a citizen or not. The prevailing logic being; whenever you lodge a suggestion or complaint with your congressman, your personally-identifying information gets collected and added to a database so you can start receiving, essentially, mail spam from your congressman's office. However, there are currently more fascist toadies in the legislative branch who are willing to let Donald Treason walk all over them, who are willing to let him kick them in the nards and then say "please, sir, may I have another?", than there are people who will stand firm and speak out. It stands to reason this list will be turned over to immigration authorities or some other agency, either public or not, to determine who is a political enemy and must be eliminated.
So, an interesting side-effect of ex-democratic fascism is that I am now shiveringly afraid of communicating with my state representatives. I can't afford to have them hear my complaint and reply, "How about this. How about I not do that, but I also turn your name and address over to ICE so they can shut you up permanently? kthxbai." I know my state's representatives will all kiss Trump's ass to the bitter end and will turn unto him more cheeks than anyone has ever seen before. If anyone is likely to start a compendium of Trump's political enemies in the private sector, it's these people.
The question now is, will Trump be able to expel enough Latines, Palestinians, and Southeast Asians from the United States to consider his mission accomplished in timely enough fashion to use the last of the funding to start deporting and executing political enemies in amongst the common people?
Incidentally, the United States federal government is once again on the verge of shutting down. This has only happened, what, every time Trump has held the top post?