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B.See

(6,963 posts)
Thu Oct 9, 2025, 12:08 AM Thursday

Are Trump's masked thugs the new Ku Klux Klan?

Are Trump's masked thugs the new Ku Klux Klan? - an op ed by Thom Hartmann - Rawstory

Masked, armed law enforcement agents who regularly violate the law and strip people of their constitutional rights is nothing new in America. They have, in fact, a long and well-documented history, including states — after years of abuse by masked men — passing laws specifically to prevent them from concealing their identities when performing law enforcement operations.

In this era, we call them Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. In the late 19th and early to mid-20th centuries they called themselves the Klu Klux Klan. They often operated with the blessing of both federal and state governments, often deputized and given badges and guns, and “enforced the law” while wearing their famous white hoods to conceal their individual identities.

ICE operates today with a level of anonymity, impunity, and intimidation that closely parallels the Ku Klux Klan’s tactics as masked, semi-official enforcers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Both used legal or quasi-legal authority, masked identities, and violent or coercive tactics to carry out their missions, all without individual accountability while targeting vulnerable minorities and subverting legal norms to do so.

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Are Trump's masked thugs the new Ku Klux Klan? (Original Post) B.See Thursday OP
Walks like duck, talks like a duck... DET Thursday #1
Not my analogy. Mr. Hartman's. Though B.See Thursday #2
Brownshirts SamuelTheThird Thursday #3
Wrong. Xolodno Thursday #4
They're closer to the brown-shirts in my opinion. It was their primary tool of oppression... pecosbob Thursday #5

DET

(2,251 posts)
1. Walks like duck, talks like a duck...
Thu Oct 9, 2025, 12:36 AM
Thursday

Personally, I think of ICE as the Nazi SS without the organization and brains, but your analogy works at least as well if not better. The underlying hatred is the same. The primary difference is that ICE seems to be motivated as much by financial gain as ideological purity. But the end result is the same.

Xolodno

(7,198 posts)
4. Wrong.
Thu Oct 9, 2025, 04:24 AM
Thursday

It's well known that several in the KKK we're involved in law enforcement. It's why they would have "trouble" finding the perp if the victim was one of color. And I imagine, it's still true today in a number of rural areas.

Gravitating to ICE just seems like a "natural" progression, but on a larger scale. They never went away (but laid low for awhile), just morphed into a different arena.

pecosbob

(8,121 posts)
5. They're closer to the brown-shirts in my opinion. It was their primary tool of oppression...
Thu Oct 9, 2025, 09:15 AM
Thursday

until the night of long knives.

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