TPM Reader TS (Harvard sociologist/political scientist Theda Skocpol) and I often compared notes on the news of the day and I am always particularly attentive to her thoughts on state structure and power. So I asked her to write out her comments in response to Josh Kovensky’s piece on the vast expansion of ICE funded in the new budget bill. I really strongly recommend you read this, especially in you’re a government worker or elected official in state or local government.
The Trump monster bill’s huge upward rewarding tax cuts and punitive shrinking of health and food benefits are crucial, but you are right Josh that massive militarization of ICE is the real heart of this law – didn’t J. D. Vance say just that a little while ago?
Last spring, when Dan Ziblatt and I taught a comparative course on democratic backsliding, our study of the Hungarian and German (1920s-30s) cases left me slightly reassured about the United States today. Hungary is highly centralized, and in Germany the most important state transformation happened just before Hitler was appointed Chancellor, when the previous government nationalized the Prussian police and bureaucracy, removing it from Social Democratic control in federated Germany’s largest state. Not long after, unexpectedly, Hitler could easily turn the centralized agencies into his Gestapo core. I thought last year that the USA was somewhat protected against any similar coerceive authoritarian takeover by its federal structure, given state and local government rights to control most U.S. police powers (I presented this argument in my Madison lecture for the Sept 2024 American Political Science Association).
But now I see that the Miller-Trump ethno-authoritarians have figured out a devilishly clever workaround. Immigration is an area where a U.S. President can exercise virtually unchecked legal coercive power, especially if backed by a Supreme Court majority and corrupted Department of Justice. Now Congress has given ICE unprecedented resources – much of this windfall to be used for graft with private contractors Trump patronizes, but lots of to hire street agents willing to mask themselves and do whatever they are told against residents and fellow American citizens. The Miller-Trumpites are not interested only in rounding up undocumented immigrants. They will step up using ICE and DOJ enforcements use to harass Democrats, citizen critics, and subvert future elections if they can.
