Luke Thomas: Trump’s vision of “real policing” helps explain the ICE brutality, surveillance dragnet, and the escalating talk around the Insurrection Act and elections. The throughline is not just immigration enforcement. It is power, force, and setting new norms for what the executive branch can do to people in public.

This breaks down how years of pro violence policing rhetoric turns into a federal paramilitary posture through DHS, where aggressive tactics are treated as identity, not exception. It also digs into the modern toolkit behind the crackdown: biometric readers, license plate scans, bulk data, and the growing ability to route around traditional safeguards. The broader concern is that today’s targets are a test of capability and tolerance, and that the scope can widen quickly when institutions normalize overwhelming force.

The conversation also pivots to cultural deterioration and low information politics, including how distraction, anti learning sentiment, and screen habits shape public vulnerability to manipulation. Finally, it touches on historical immigration restriction and the costs of shutting doors, including how policy choices can backfire economically and socially.

Listen to the full conversation over on Luke’s Substack: https://lthomas.substack.com/

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Chapters

00:00 Trump remarks and ICE violence

01:00 Policing as violence ideology

02:00 DHS force and weak constraints

03:00 Surveillance dragnet and data tools

04:00 Insurrection Act and election fears

05:00 Reading decline and phone culture

06:00 Low info outrage politics

07:00 Incentives and online pile ons

08:00 Immigration restriction history

09:00 1924 Act and economic damage

10:00 The open door myth