"[Trump] is obliterating the safeguards in place to keep both the police and the military from turning on the public. He is taking personnel, tactics, and weapons from both institutions to create something utterly incompatible with a free society. What he’s making is more dangerous than either militarizing our domestic police or deploying the military for domestic law enforcement, and it’s something every aspiring authoritarian has done for centuries: Trump is creating his own personal paramilitary force — an amalgamation of border cops, ICE agents, Homeland Security, sheriff’s deputies, Guardsmen, and military (and probably soon, militia and extremist groups). This force is fiercely loyal to Trump, they operate in masks and unmarked vehicles, and they’re wholly unaccountable. They celebrate brutality, racism, and cruelty, and they seem believe that they’re on a mission from God."
#military #police #fascism #authoritarianism #gestapo https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-police-militarization-debate