Here's What to Watch Out For

Terezin, 2013.

I cut this copy from a previous article on the Steve Bannon gang, but after Stephen Miller's performance on Sunday I no longer think it is premature. Bannon and Co. made a huge mistake arresting and deporting upper-middle class immigrants in places like JFK airport, a short ride from the media capital of the world. My real concern is what they do in out-of-the way places, where the authorities may be friendly, and where the media can be held at arm's length. 

I had actually expected Bannon and Co. to do roundups of Mexicans in Arizona or Texas - someplace where the local officials and the cops would be friendly and the network TV cameras would be far away. It's true that even poor, undocumented Mexican immigrants have smart phones and can post video online, but they don't have the connections of a Cleveland Clinic doctor and her lawyer. We're talking about a largely powerless, vulnerable group of people.

So pick a small town somewhere down by the Rio Grande. At dusk you close the roads in and out; then you encircle the town. By now you've disabled the cellphone towers, the landlines, the electricity. I suppose you could turn off the water if you really wanted to, assuming the town was rich enough to have a centralized water distribution system.

Then you go through the town, house by house, with warrants issued by a friendly judge, and you ask people for their papers. Those without papers get on the bus. If you're feeling energetic, those with papers miraculously lose them and get on the bus too. Best, really, if everybody goes.

By dawn you're gone, leaving behind a ghost town.

You'll have ways of letting your supporters know about this exploit. They'll be thrilled. But the general population won't hear much, and that will allow most of us to pretend that it didn't happen, or it wasn't as bad as people say. If history is any guide, many people will be happy to turn a blind eye.

In writing this, I was thinking constantly about certain events during World War II - the Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv in Paris and the obliteration of the Czech village of Lidice. Make no mistake. The people in the White House may be illiterate and incompetent, but they are very dangerous.