‘We are coming for you’: MAGAs on Truth Social violently support Trump’s mass deportation plan
“We are coming for you.” You read that right. These aren’t the words of an ultrafacist government drone from of an Orwellian fiction novel.
It’s not a quote from a despotic regime from the bloodstained history of the 20th century. These are words written by an average American on the conservative social media platform Truth Social. Who is the “you” in question? Immigrants, and anyone who helps them. “It’s a felony to shield or help Illegal Aliens” wrote a user Truth Social – an uncanny echo of statements made by President Trump that even features his penchant for unnecessary capitalizations. The user next statement “we are coming for you” was followed by a string of troubling hashtags: #MassDeportations #CloseTheBorder #PackYourBagsIllegals.
What disturbs me so deeply about this user’s statements is not just the hateful rhetoric they contain, but the seemingly normal person that wrote them. According to the user’s bio, she is a “Texas born conservative girl” who “escaped California.” At the top of her Truth Social page is an adorable German Shepard puppy, evidently hers. This woman paints herself as everyday U.S. citizen: a dog lover, a Texan, a Trump supporter, as if xenophobic rhetoric and American citizenship go together like ketchup and French fries.
I know what the cynic in you (and me) is thinking: they do. But do they? Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if Donald Trump is more virus than man, able to worm his way inside of normal people and turn them against other groups of normal people that they’ve never met. Consider the other mainstay of GOP hatemongering: anti-trans rhetoric. Despite making up only 1% of the U.S. population, trans people have become a public enemy number #1 in the minds of everyday conservatives. There are over 600 anti-trans bills currently working their way through legislative bodies across America. How many of these lawmakers or their constituents have ever spoken to a trans person? The majority of this hate doesn’t come from in-person experience. It is manufactured by bad faith political pundits at rallies, mega-churches and on the internet.
There are an estimated 11.7 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, more than the amount of trans people in America, and Trump wants to deport them all. He has touted his “mass deportation” plan at every gala, convention hall, and stadium that would have him, even going so far as to say that he’s willing to use the military to bring his plan to fruition. While legal experts and military officials have labeled the plan “devastating” and “insane,” everyday Americans on Truth Social have proven that they are ready to serve as a willing means to Trump’s ends if called upon. It’s a sad reality. Or rather, it is a pseudo-reality that was engineered by conservative politicians in order to gin up support. A world where everyday Americans imagine themselves to be at war with people Trump has called “criminals,” “scum” and “vermin.” It’s rhetoric that Adolf Hitler quite literally wrote the book on (or rather, burned it). Considering that book bans are another hallmark of right wing policy, as is, apparently, dehumanizing authoritarian language, I’d say the comparison is apt.
Threats of violence made by average Americans are a symptom of a social disease, one as unpleasant as one of the venereal sort. Sadly, if this particular “Texas born conservative girl” that haunts the bowels of Truth Social is to be believed, the disease appears to be equally contagious.
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