May 29 Friday roundup

In the latest podcast episode, I talk about the Pope’s recent encyclical on artificial intelligence, another pope who brought us the term propaganda, and how propaganda itself makes possible so much of what ails the U.S. today—from oligarchs conning the public with AI to immigration detention in concentration camps, and much, much more. You can watch it on YouTube or listen on Apple, Spotify, and elsewhere. If you’d like to check out the links in the written version, you can read Tuesday’s post.

I’m on the road this week in New Jersey and New York—speaking to public school kids about ICE detention, sitting on a panel at a conference of biographers, and stopping by the New York Public Library. So today’s post will be a short one. But I wanted to take a moment to praise some public figures who have stood up for vulnerable communities recently.

I’ve been quick to criticize those politicians who oppose Trump but seem reluctant to make clear to constituents the level of threat confronting democracy in the United States today. So it seems only fair to mention some of those who are taking exactly the kinds of action many Americans have been calling on their elected officials to embrace.

On Monday in Newark, U.S. Senator Andy Kim was hit by pepper spray as he emerged from Delaney Hall Detention Center after meeting with detainees. Inside, he had spoken with a terminal cancer patient who is still being detained, a pregnant woman who said she wasn’t receiving medical care, and countless others who relayed details about the terrible conditions of detention there.

On exiting the building, he tried to defuse a standoff between protesters drawing attention to the detainees’ hunger strike and inhumane treatment by GEO Group, the contractor running the facility. But agents fired pepper balls, and several people were reportedly injured.

(Democratic Governor Mikie Sherrill also tried to enter the facility that day but was denied permission. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka is calling for an investigation into the facility.)

The situation at Delaney appears to be escalating, with the group Resistencia en Accion reporting that “ICE agents attacked the hunger strikers inside yesterday with batons and tear gas. Family members outside received calls from inside, confirming that there were people screaming, and according to their loved ones inside, unconscious detainees and blood on surfaces.”

Which makes it all the more critical for officials to continue in the roles that Sen. Kim and others have taken on, raising awareness of events unfolding at Delaney and pressing for accountability for the both conditions inside and any abuses committed by facility staff.

On Monday in Florida, U.S. Representative Maxwell Frost again visited the Everglades camp—referred to as “Alligator Alcatraz” by the administration. He came away with the news that it appears to be shutting down—not that the White House is acknowledging this shift.

“Governor DeSantis and the Trump Administration have sent conflicting messages about [‘Alligator Alcatraz’s’] closure because they don’t want to admit the truth,” he explained. “This facility should have never opened in the first place and it will forever be a stain on Florida’s history.”

Frost vowed to not only make sure that the site closes but also to seek justice “for the environmental destruction inflicted on one of the most sacred ecosystems in the world, and accountability for the misuse of taxpayer dollars to subject our immigrant neighbors to this failed experiment in suffering.”

Last September then-Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh and five others had been charged after joining a protest at the Broadview detention facility in Illinois. Footage emerged from that event of Abughazaleh being thrown to the ground by a federal officer, even though she was the one who wound up being charged in that encounter.

Since then, the group, known as “the Broadview Six,” had already seen felony counts eliminated from the basket of charges against them. But late last week, after reviewing grand jury testimony in the case, the judge found tremendous irregularities in prosecutors’ actions and in the production of the transcript itself. Government attorneys had apparently eliminated grand jurors who had not been persuaded to indict, replacing them with others who were more amenable to prosecutors’ arguments. The violation of procedure was shocking misconduct, leading the judge to shut down the trial altogether. (Read Marisa Kabas’s full account at the Handbasket here.)

Turning to the other side of the country: I’ve criticized California Democratic governor Gavin Newsom more than once for failing to stand up on behalf of homeless people and trans kids in his state. This week, billionaire Tom Steyer, running to succeed Newsom in elections this fall, did exactly what I’ve been hoping to see more candidates do: he took an ethical stand on rights for everyone, without letting any group be singled out for mistreatment or exclusion. This time the focus was on trans kids.

"I'm totally in favor of trans athletes in high school," he said on Erin in the Morning. "I think when you understand the vulnerability, the stress, the danger of being a trans kid, and you understand that almost half of them try to commit suicide. And then you think we're going to punish those kids. We're going to cut them off from team sports. We're going to cut them off from participating in the community. We're going to cut them off from fun. It's like, no, we're not. No, we're not." He went on: "As someone who played sports my whole life and loves sports and loves playing sports, there are more important things than whether you start on your high school basketball team. And that is standing up for people who are under a threat of death."

Through their recent actions, billionaires on the whole have shown themselves to be a serious threat to American democracy. I’m glad to see Steyer countering that generalization.

To be clear, in my experience, it’s dangerous to lionize people or to try to turn them into heroes. Humans are complex creatures and sometimes do the right thing for the wrong reasons, or turn out to have done unethical or unhelpful things on one front, even as they were taking admirable action elsewhere.

So this post isn’t about putting any of the above candidates or representatives on a pedestal. Instead, it’s to offer some praise for those who stand up in public, and give specific examples of the kinds of steps other elected officials can aspire to.

I also don’t mean to downplay the people around the country who have been trying to stand up for the detained and abused with much less fanfare and often at greater cost. Last night, a protester in front of Delaney Hall was apparently shoved into traffic by agents, ending up with their foot being run over.

Even more alarming, today saw a jury in Washington state return a verdict of guilty, convicting three men of a conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers or their property using force, threat or intimidation. (The defendants were alleged, “in part, to have responded to a Facebook post calling for people to block an ICE van from transporting two immigrants… who were legally in the US to an ICE detention center in Tacoma.”)

In the end, change usually comes down to these kinds of everyday people, who do the lion’s share of the work in any big social shift. And removing concentration camps from the U.S. will require just such a shift. But when elected officials show up, too—and even lead the way—it can draw even more attention to the crimes underway and increase pressure for accountability and an end to abuse.

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