Ice and its Predecessors

by Eduardo del Buey

PODCAST:

ICE AND ITS PREDECESSORS

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

George Santayana

I'm not surprised that many dictators come to power sharing the same traits.

To consolidate total power, they need to eliminate other centers of influence to remove anyone who could oppose their ambitions.

Russia’s Putin, Hungary’s Orban, Venezuela’s Chavez, and Turkey’s Erdogan all followed the same playbook in establishing their dictatorships after being elected freely.

In the 1920s, Adolf Hitler outlined his plans for dictatorship in his book “Mein Kampf.”

He warned the world, but it ignored him.

Elected in 1933, he sparked a crisis and seized control of the parliament. He then created the SS to serve as a counterbalance to the generals he distrusted, and the Gestapo to police and control the population.

He undermined the independent judiciary and enacted NAZI law as the law of the land.

All three centers of power were loyal only to him, the Führer, and his whim was a command in every respect.

He established concentration camps to imprison those he deemed undesirable and transformed them into sites of mass murder.

By the time the world believed him, World War II had already begun, and approximately 70 million lives were eventually lost.

In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini assumed the role of Iran's supreme leader following the overthrow of the Shah.

He outlined his plans for the country in his sermons during the 1960s and 70s, and once again, the world dismissed his ideas as impossible to implement in a country that the Shah had Westernized.

He formed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a counterbalance to the army, which he distrusted for being too Westernized, along with the Basij as a police force to manage the population. Both organizations were loyal only to him and the Islamic Revolution, and the judiciary quickly faded into history.

In both cases, Hitler and Khomeini shut down the free press, replacing it with obedient media that mainly aimed to flatter the supreme leader and spread the prevailing ideology.

Over the last ten years, President Donald Trump has openly paved the way for his own power grab.

The Republican Party’s 2025 manifesto outlines its vision for a United States firmly under the President’s control, and it is slowly turning into reality.

The President has significant influence over the Supreme Court and many judges across the country.

He has fired the top military leaders and replaced them with loyalists who will follow his commands. He has also appointed loyalists to run the CIA and FBI, removing thousands of employees in the process. He is taking full control of the U.S. security forces without any opposition from Congress or the courts.

He is beginning to rewrite history to erase those whose race and gender do not meet his approval.

He is gradually choking universities and restricting their ability to freely offer an education that conflicts with his ideology and control.

He is controlling the media and making sure that anyone who disagrees with him on air or in print gets fired. He has shut down NPR and other public broadcasters that were some of the most trustworthy news sources in the country.

He is questioning why independent networks like CBS, ABC, and NBC, that don’t always agree with his policies, are allowed to use the airwaves for free – the first step toward imposing massive user fees in exchange for loyalty.

And now, he is gradually gaining control of the police in major cities, beginning with Washington D.C. Other cities are already involved.

The National Guard will assume control of key cities and assume police responsibilities without oversight.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) now has the authority to arrest and detain anyone who appears suspicious, without requiring a warrant. They can detain and deport undocumented people. In fact, ICE is detaining citizens based on race or language who go against Trump’s preferences.

The past is repeating itself once again.

Unfortunately, most can’t or won’t remember.