Littwin: Snatch-and-grab arrests, official prison propaganda videos: Is it too late for Americans to be the good guys again? ...Middle East

Who are we?

This is becoming — if it hasn’t already — the No. 1 question in America during the Trump/Musk 10-week reign of terror.

One thing we’re not is the shining city on a hill. We’re far closer to a cesspool deep in Trump/Musk’s very own DIY swamp.

We’ve given up on all pretense of being the good guys anymore, even though Donald Trump insists the vast Smithsonian Institution do away with any and all references — however accurate and however well placed in context — that might make America look even slightly bad. You know, like, our history of holding Black slaves in perpetuity or practicing genocide on Native Americans.

We don’t need the Smithsonian — an American treasure, by the way —  for that.

We’ve got YouTube, where you can watch a terrified Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts Ph.D. student who holds a valid student visa, being snatched and grabbed off the streets, Gestapo-style, by masked police, presumably from ICE, wearing no stinking badges.

Her apparent crime? Well, she has no record. She hasn’t been charged with anything. And yet she’s sitting in a Louisiana detention center, because it seems we will no longer tolerate anyone who, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio so eloquently put it, is “raising a ruckus.”

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This is terrible news for us serial ruckus raisers. Ruckus is an old-fashioned word, as Trump might say, but it’s a beautiful word. There’s also an alternate spelling, which goes this way: D-I-S-S-E-N-T. The right to express one’s opinion, which, if I’ve got my U.S. history right, is included in the First Amendment to the Constitution. And it’s not just for citizens, but also, according to the legal academia, for anyone living in America.

OK, let’s move on to the infamous puppy killer, Kristi Noem, who also happens to be the head of Homeland Security. Her self-congratulatory propagandizing visit to the notorious El Salvador prison does the job. The video, which she sent out herself, is in defiance of at least one of the Geneva Conventions — flashing her $50,000 Rolex against a backdrop of a staged group of shirtless prisoners, many of whom were half-nakedly flashing tattoos, which can apparently be illegal if you’re, say, too brown.

There’s more, of course. Lots more.

There was SignalGate, bad enough on its own, in which high-ranking U.S. officials discussed, in detail, plans on a not-exactly-secure messaging system to imminently bomb Houthis in Yemen. It was so insecure that the editor of the Atlantic, Jeff Goldberg, was accidentally invited to join the group.

This should be a firing offense all around. Instead, some in the Trump administration are suggesting Goldberg may have been engaging in treasonous behaviors because his number was somehow “sucked in” to the system. A better explanation might be that Michael Waltz, the national security adviser who unadvisedly invited Goldberg to the chat, was covering his ass, just like Trump was and especially Pete Hegseth was.

The Trump administration wouldn’t even admit to the most obvious goof-up — that the information in the chat was classified, or should have been — but did concede it was sensitive. And it was, particularly when JD Vance, not yet on his way to bigfoot Greenland, was questioning whether Trump understood the ramifications of what he was doing.

Well, there’s that. 

It seems that not everyone was sucked in, though. There are even some Senate and House Republicans joining Democrats in demanding a full-scale investigation and not a Trump-ordered DOGE Boys whitewash.

Should we go on? Because we can.

But I think we need to go back first and fill in some of the gory details.

OK, back to the Tufts student. We don’t know why she got snatched and grabbed in such a terrifying manner. We don’t why ICE, as some have suggested, couldn’t have just sent her a letter about all the ruckus making, inform her that her visa was being revoked and that she should go back home to Turkey, where ruckus making is probably a real crime.

It seems that Ozturk once co-authored an op-ed piece in the Tufts school newspaper calling for the university to divest from Israel. In case you’re wondering, the column never mentioned Hamas. Nothing in there is about violence. It was just, like, her opinion, man, which was, until recently, still allowed in America. Even the late Antonin Scalia admitted that the First Amendment applied even to immigrants without documents.

She was apparently never notified of any issue before her arrest, because, just guessing here, that would have compromised the whole terror angle. And people, including her family and lawyer, would also be terrified, not knowing where she was taken. Once again, the Trump administration ignored a federal judge’s order, in this case that she remain in Massachusetts for at least 48 hours.

When Rubio was asked at a news conference what led to the revocation of Ozturk’s visa, Rubio gave his ruckus-creation answer, in which he included her, despite no evidence, in partnering with people who are “vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings” — none of which Ozturk is accused of doing.

Now, off to prison. How bad is the El Salvador prison? Here’s the video and a description of the place via Bulwark: 

“In the background are a few dozen men, crammed into a cell. Their bunks are stacked four-high. Their heads are freshly shaved. They wear identical white shorts. They are all shirtless. Their poses are similar. Three rows of prisoners stand still in the front as Noem speaks, their hands either at their sides or clasped in front of them. The rest of them are arrayed on the bunks so as to create a visual for Noem’s use. None of these men is speaking. Or moving. Or making any facial expressions. They have clearly been posed by the jailers, forced to hold position so that they can be useful props for the American woman so that she can manufacture propaganda for her regime.”

Trump, citing a 1798 law that has rarely been cited in America and never used to good effect, sent Venezuelans there — again, against a federal judge’s orders — some who have never been charged and all without due process. And the jailers say/brag that no one ever gets out of the place. 

The Ozturk case is similar, of course, to the case of Mahmoud Khalil, who had been a Columbia student involved in anti-Israel campus protests and arrested for apparently breaking an obscure 1990 law that allows secretaries of state to determine who needs deporting. The difference is that Khalil had a green card, but now he’s also being held in a Louisiana detention center.

This is not how small-l liberal democracies work. It’s not even how illiberal democracies should work.

☀️ MORE FROM MIKE LITTWIN

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Someday, the Supreme Court will have to settle all this. And we may get the whole process jump-started because the court may soon hear Trump’s appeal to allow him to deport Venezuelans with little or no due process. The Alien and Sedition Act is supposed to be used during wartime. We are not at war, and Venezuelan gangbangers hardly constitute an invasion by a foreign country.

But I have no idea how the Supreme Court would rule. If they rule with Trump, it would be another huge setback for U.S. civil liberties and an even bigger setback for America’s fast-slipping standing in the world.

And I may have to take drastic steps. OK, we all may. But I have an idea — to  replace MAGA (Make America Great Again) wear with MAGGA (Make America the Good Guys Again) wear. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

If anyone wants to come in on the deal with me, we could start a new brand. We just have to hope it’s not already too late.

Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.

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