Fear Of America

And: Liberal Elites Face Civil Rights Laws; Nihilism Retreats; Christians & Migration

“Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.” — Solzhenitsyn

In 2019, when I went to Russia to research Live Not By Lies, I took the advice of a friend who used to work at the US Embassy in Moscow: I took a cheap burner laptop, and left my smartphone at home (I couldn’t afford both a burner laptop and a burner phone). Why? Because, he said, the Russians are known to use sophisticated surveillance equipment to suck data from them at a distance. (“We have the same capabilities,” he told me.) It’s not that I had anything useful to the Russians on my equipment, but it was the principle of the thing.

Now it’s European officials doing the same thing regarding us:

U.S.-bound European Union executives will be given burner phones and laptops to mitigate the risk of espionage, a strategy usually reserved for officials headed to China and Eastern Europe. Ahead of important annual meetings next week in Washington, D.C., there is real fear that the U.S. government could infiltrate European Commission devices, according to sources who spoke anonymously to the Financial Times.

“They are worried about the U.S. getting into the commission systems,” one official told the newspaper.

The European Commission is the executive branch of the European Union, which President Donald Trump has butted heads with over tariffs. One official went so far as to say the tariff fallout and current jumpiness about possible espionage means “the transatlantic alliance is over.”

Over the weekend, I spoke to a British acquaintance — a conservative Christian writer — who was denied entry by US immigration authorities on absurd grounds, and left with a status that dramatically damages this person’s professional and personal life. This person was also treated in ways that bring to mind the Soviet Union, and I’m not exaggerating. (“My God,” responded a prominent conservative American journalist with whom I shared the information.) I tried to convince this person to go public with this outrage, but they declined, fearing that it would only make things worse.

This person, whose name some of you would know, is no enemy of the United States. Quite to the contrary, they are pro-American, and are — or were — pro-Trump. Still, this is what happened. If the story ever goes public, it’s going to be headline news over here in Europe.

What the hell is going on? Our government is treating our own friends and allies like this. And for what? Why this cruelty? As I’ve mentioned here recently, it is now common for me to be asked by Europeans if it’s safe to travel to America. They’re not kidding. They are afraid that immigration authorities might detain and imprison them on false charges. You might laugh at this, but it’s not funny to them. They are asking questions that no European ought to ask about visiting the United States.

Fear of America is not the same thing as respect of America.

The White House is now claiming that Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran illegal immigrant now held in the Salvadoran supermax prison, was involved in human trafficking. Really? This is new. What’s their evidence?

Look, if the administration had simply deported Abrego Garcia, this would be something of a non-story. Yes, it’s sad that he has an American-born son, and two disabled stepchildren, but he came here illegally. True, he had the protection of a federal court order blocking his deportation, and that matters. That would still be an issue, and rightly so, as a rule-of-law matter. But this case is worse than that: deporting him to the Salvadoran supermax amounts to a life sentence. It shocks the conscience. If Abrego Garcia really was a member of MS-13, that might — might — be justifiable, at least emotionally. But he has denied he was in MS-13, and the evidence came from a single confidential informant, who placed Abrego Garcia as part of the New York MS-13, though Abrego Garcia has never lived in New York.

Life imprisonment in a supermax prison for being an illegal migrant. In what moral universe is that just?

When Trump spoke on camera to Nayib Bukele about the prospect of deporting “home-growns” to Bukele’s supermax — meaning American-born criminals — I thought he was just trolling. Nope — Trump told Fox’s Spanish channel that he is looking into sending hardcore US criminals to El Salvador. His press secretary affirmed this:

In that Fox clip I linked to, Trump said he is talking about really violent US criminals. Personally, I don’t care what happens to scum like that. But I very much care that the US president is considering sending American citizens — even the worst of us — to a foreign prison, from which he has already claimed that the US has no jurisdiction to retrieve them if ordered by a US court. Once the principle is established, what’s to stop the line from being moved from the most violent criminals to those not so violent? After all, if you are bad enough to be sentenced to prison in the first place, what’s the stopping point? And, once jailed in a foreign country, no US court can compel the US government to retrieve you, even if evidence comes out that you are, in fact, not guilty?

This is police state stuff. This is un-American. If Trump wants to get tougher on violent criminals, great, I’m all for it. Then build more prisons here in America, and toughen sentencing laws. But it crosses a big red line even to speculate about transporting US citizens beyond the reach of US laws (according to Trump’s legal theory, which the courts do not recognize, but as the Abrego Garcia case demonstrates, Trump doesn’t care what the courts say).

We aren’t there yet, but the president said yesterday on Fox that he would like to go there. You’re okay with that?

Most Americans are pleased with Trump’s hard line on illegal migration. So am I! But this is taking it way, way too far. It’s outrageous that this or any US president would be looking into the prospect of sending American citizens to permanent foreign exile in a prison — even convicted violent criminals — is jaw-dropping. Again: should the principle be established that such a thing is possible, what would the limiting factors be? What happens if America elects a hardline left-wing president, who decides that America can only be safe if those guilty of “violence” — we well know that many on the Left define words that sacred victim groups deem hurty as “violence” — are sent away forever to a foreign jail?

Solzhenitsyn warned us that yes, what happened in the Soviet Union could happen here too. It could happen anywhere on earth. The great Russian also said, “To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good.” I never imagined that we would be compelled to consider Solzhenitsyn’s warning because of the words and actions of a right-wing American president. But here we are.

Now, I expect that we can and will discuss this issue in the comments without personal insults. I love y’all, but I will send your remarks to Substack supermax if you cross the line. I know that some of you hate it when I criticize Donald Trump, but you don’t subscribe, or shouldn’t subscribe, because I’m going to agree with you all the time. I’m going to tell you what I really think, even if I’m wrong. I wouldn’t respect myself if I didn’t, and I like to think you wouldn’t respect me for being dishonest out of fear of offending subscribers. I lost a number of subscribers yesterday for criticizing Trump on Abrego Garcia. I supported Trump’s re-election, and still do. Most of what Trump is doing is important and necessary. But that does not oblige me to be silent when I see him doing something I believe to be wrong. I welcome your criticism, but will not tolerate personal insults of me or anybody else in the comments forum with whom you disagree, no matter what your or their politics are.

I wrote Live Not By Lies, and worked on the new documentary film based on the book, because I believe standing up for the truth against abusive power is vitally important. That abuse comes mostly from the Left these days, but if that abuse comes from my own side, then I am morally obliged to say so. You should expect nothing less from me, after what I’ve seen and heard from the courageous dissidents who spoke out against Soviet power, and paid a price. If I’m wrong in my judgments here, then talk me out of it. I try to be a reasonable person. You should try to be as well.

That’s what America is all about, right? Right?