The Abominable Sadism of “Alligator Auschwitz”

The Floridians know what it is to wait for weeks or months to help the government after a natural disaster. But surprisingly, Governor Ron Desantis worked with federal officials to create an outdoor and outdoor -based detention camp in the Everglades that State officials proudly call “Alligator Alcatraz”. They will probably end this concentration camp for 3,000 migrants detained, with showers this week. It should cost around $ 450 million a year and will be funded with FEMA funds.

A few hours after the first reports, the people of Bluesky called him “Alligator Auschwitz”. We must not minimize the cruelty of a Nazi death camp. But both have more than a little in common.

People who find themselves there will be mainly chosen by ethnicity and will be almost certainly found guilty of crime. The objective of the legislators is not only isolation but of suffering. At least, the poor souls who found themselves in Alcatraz, the famous prison on the island of California, obtained regular procedure. They were dissuaded from escaping by freeing the cold waters and the rumor of sharks; These prisoners will be in swamps infested with mosquitoes surrounded by alligators and pythons. (Trump wanted to reopen Alcatraz, who was transformed from a prison to a museum about 40 years ago; now he obtains his own version.)

But the Republicans boast of their cruel ingenuity and use it as a fundraising tool. Florida’s Republican Party sells a swag “Alligator Alcatraz” (I don’t bind; believe me). The camp, without air conditioning, should open this week, while temperatures exceed 100 degrees.

While the Americans come together to celebrate their freedom on July 4, they can be proud that the Alligators of the Florida Everglades protected by the environment maintain them safe (with around 100 troops of the Florida National Guard, and this number will climb).

The progressive representative of Florida, Maxwell Frost, denounced it as a “cruel spectacle”. This type of performative fascist cruelty is not new or unique at the reign of Donald Trump. Remember the sheriff of Arizona Joe Arpaio, who built tent prisons in the heat of the flamboyant desert and made male prisoners carry pink underwear, a nice emasculating touch? (Arpaio immediately approved Trump in 2015.) But Maga Republicans perfected the art of cruel spectacle: migrant children torn from their parents and living in cages, toddlers wandering alone, crying for their mother, at Trump’s first mandate. More recently, the very public humiliation of central and South American men detained, chained and squatting while their heads were shaved in a notoriously cruel Salvado prison. Then placed, shirtless, stacked on top of each other, for a photo with the interior secretary Kristi “Cruella” Noem. It was cruelty.

“Alligator Auschwitz”, however, could be a new summit of public sadism.

I guess we will see Noem there too, and perhaps the Sadism Secretary, Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff. Miller seems to be an engine of very public kidnappings of mothers and fathers, torn by their children by masked men pretending to be ice and other scenes of desolation: a truck of Taco formerly abandoned, his rotten food under the sun of Los Angeles; Empty agricultural fields in the California central valley also serve. “In the fields, I would say that 70% of workers left,” a farmer from the County of Ventura of sixth generation told Reuters. “If 70% of your workforce does not appear, 70% of your harvest is not done and can go wrong in one day.”

All this is likely to worsen: broken families, rotting foods, deliberate public shows of cruelty. The seditionist condemned on January 6 and the founder of Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, named “Icerad Czar” and called to enlist his members to help deportations. For the moment, he peddles an application that allows his supporters to point out that the people they suspect are illegally to freeze and reward themselves in a sort of cryptocurrency. But it is not difficult to imagine legions of proud boys, known for their violence, personally helping ice agents – who have already been criticized for having carried blankets and facing blankets, making the difference between them almost imperceptible – stop people suspected of being illegally. (Trump, you will remember, forgiven Tarrio and released him with a 22 -year -old sentence.)

Unsurprisingly, Trump is expected to attend the opening of his “Alligator Alcatraz” on Tuesday. Fortunately, a large coalition of Florida environmentalists, Indian tribal leaders, immigrant activists and clergy should be in force, despite the marshy heat. We cannot be engaged in the complacency by the constant assault of indecency. We are entering a new area of ​​cruelty porn.