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Ah, Republicans.
Finding the bottom of human depravity and continuing to dig.
As usual.
In case you missed it, or were too distracted by some of the other fronts on which the GOP is waging their culture war (against a mermaid), then allow me to fill you in on some of the details regarding why the title is written as it is.
Ron Desantis, with the helpful support of just about every single one of his Republican colleagues, as well as every idiot you went to high-school with, has devised a "solution" for border states dealing with the "caravans of illegal immigrants" that Fox news has convinced half the country of being a real big problem every election cycle.
Governor Desantis used his political power to push federal funds received for Covid aid towards his Immigrant Relocation Program, which allocates tax dollars, millions in tax dollars, to charter flights from a state that does not border another country, to a state with a sanctuary city, in order to relocate migrants who have showed up in..... Texas. He is doing this with the specific intention of creating bombastic tweets, as well as headlines on Fox News, that he is "fighting against Joe Bidens ineffective immigration program".
In other words, prominent members of the Republican party are proudly announcing on television and social media that they are more than happy to join hands with the industry of human trafficking, as long as the trafficked humans double as soundbites and performative political theater in advancement of Republicans careers.
Think that sounds awful? We haven't even started.
Rachel Self, an attorney in Marthas Vineyard, broke down exactly how 50 people, consisting of entire families, adults and children, ended up in Marthas Vineyard via privately chartered plane from Texas, sponsored entirely by the Governor of the State of Florida.
According to Rachel; "there was a surprise present waiting for them. There would be jobs and housing waiting for them when they arrived. This was obviously a sadistic lie. Not only did those who were responsible for this stunt *know* that there was no housing or employment awaiting the migrants, they also very intentionally chose not to call ahead to any single office authority on Marthas Vineyard so that even the most basic human needs arrangements could be made."
The idea behind this stunt (besides shifting the media narrative away from MAGA representatives who want to nationally ban abortion and demolish social security), was to simply prove that the existence of sanctuary cities is nothing more than Democratic political posturing, and that they didn't actually believe in helping immigrants.
The entire reason that Ron Desantis tricked 50 Venezuelan people to get on a plane was not because the state of Florida doesn't have the resources to help them, and they know that progressive cities do. They were not trying to help these people at all.
They don't even refer to them as people. They are "illegals". They are less than human.
So that's the state of affairs in regards to MAGA voters, MAGA representatives, and the concept of who is worthy of humane treatment, and who is not.
Continuing on with the statement from Attorney Self: "Assuring that the migrants were not going to met with any help at all was the entire point. They were provided with a cartoonishly simple map of Marthas Vineyard (pictured below) and the United States, and a brief brochure containing snippets from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts website...."
Imagine getting an Uber somewhere, and the driver drops you off in a completely random location that you did not expect to arrive at. You do not speak the Uber drivers language. You give him a puzzled look, and he gives you this map, and drives off.
Real helpful.
The last snippet of Attorney Selfs statement I'm going to cover:
"They were given instructions to change their address via USCIS when they were re-located, which is especially troubling considering the USCIS is not the agency they would have to contact in order to change their address's, and has nothing to do with their cases in any way. It is clear that this was an intentional attempt to ensure that these migrants were moved in absentia when they failed to change their address with the proper agency".
So, just to sum this up: 50 migrants from Venezuela arrived in Texas, were cherry picked by someone hired by the Governor of the State of Florida, to be boarded onto a plane under the false pretense of arriving into a turn-key American lifestyle in a city that had no idea they were arriving in the first place. They gave these migrants false information about how to register as a citizen legally, with the intention that this would result in said migrants being deported, which Desantis could then turn into a segment on Fox news about liberal hypocrisy. This was crafted specifically for the purpose of using live human bodies to perform a political stunt in an attempt to shame MAGAs sworn enemy: sanctuary cities.
MAGA is so desperate for narrative control that human trafficking is now in their tool kit.
The MAGA voters?
They are ecstatic. Falling over themselves. High fiving each other in dive bars and clinking their PBR's to the National Anthem. They finally got to experience the government doing the only job they believe the government to have: hurting their perceived enemies.
As Jim Wright states on a semi-regular basis, "the cruelty is the point". It's the only point. It's always been the point.
My last essay covered the language of MAGA, and how it ties into historically fascist ideologies that utilize dehumanizing language in order to convince large swaths of voters that there are people in this world who are alright to abuse. Encouraged, in fact. It's alright for MAGA politicians to load human beings onto a plane and fly them anywhere they want for political stunts, because those human beings are not American.
They are "illegal".
They are "migrants"
You will not see MAGA voters or MAGA politicians, in any capacity, refer to immigrants as human beings. The reason for this is so that when stunts like this happen, they are socially acceptable in the MAGA sphere. The government is hurting the right demographic.
For MAGA, there is no reason not to celebrate this act, as they are already conditioned to believe that the migrants are not people, therefore any treatment they receive is the treatment they deserve.
Historically, this leads nowhere good.
"It's been 36 straight hours of people who cannot view other humans as people being incredulous that liberals can"
-Elie Mystal