Laura Ingraham’s Angry Rants at Dem
on Fox Reveal MAGA’s Dark Endgame
An Arizona Democratic congresswoman
shoved the Fox host’s talking points back in her face Tuesday night. Why can’t
more Democrats do that?
Democrats
have long intensely debated whether to appear on Fox News. Going on Fox risks
providing a sheen of legitimacy to a propaganda outlet. But not going on risks
leaving Republican news consumers—and even some GOP-leaning independents—even
more out of reach in an undiluted, impenetrable information universe where
contrary facts and complicating nuances are rarely permitted to penetrate.
Fox
News host Laura Ingraham’s long segment with Democratic Representative
Yassamin Ansari on Tuesday night makes a strong case for Democrats to go on Fox
and mix it up with those bozos a good deal more. Critically, repeated
descriptions of Trump’s lawlessness and outright defiance of the Supreme Court
managed to reach the eyes and ears of Fox viewers.
How
often does that happen on Fox News? Approximately never.
A
basic fact about this whole saga has gotten lost: President Donald Trump
is already defying the Supreme Court. This is not some
theoretical final showdown that may or may not happen later. It’s upon us right
now. It’s happening the way experts say such
lawlessness takes root: insidiously, almost imperceptibly but, over time, very
consequentially. The high court has pronounced Kilmar
Abrego Garcia’s rendition to a Salvadoran prison “illegal” and directed Trump
to “facilitate” his return. Trump refuses.
During
this segment, Ansari managed to tell Fox’s audience that Trump is currently
defying the Supreme Court around five times. Ingraham barely bothered to
contest this claim. That’s remarkable, but ominous. Indeed, the whole
segment—which you can watch in this link—also shows how MAGA personalities will
help soften the ground for Trump to engage in rampant lawlessness on an even
larger scale.
What
angered Ingraham was Ansari’s attempt to visit Abrego Garcia—an “illegal alien
gangbanger,” as Ingraham put it—in El Salvador this week with other House
Democrats. Senator Chris Van Hollen already went there and found Abrego Garcia
in decent shape. Why go again? “It seems like a political stunt,” Ingraham
seethed.
In
response, Ansari noted that what’s at issue here is whether Abrego Garcia will
get due process under U.S. law. “If this could happen to someone without due
process, tomorrow it could happen to a U.S. citizen,” Ansari said. “We are
turning into an authoritarian country.”
How
many times have Fox News viewers been told those things?
Ingraham
settled on what’s become the go-to for Vice President JD Vance and others in
defending the indefensible.
“I
am very interested in Democrats caring about ‘due process’ for illegal aliens,”
she said archly. “What process do you think is still due an individual who two
courts found had [reason] to believe he had an affiliation with MS-13?”
“That
needs to happen in court,” Ansari replied.
This
is a sleazy trick from Ingraham (and Vance, who also pushes it). The claim
involves the 2019 proceedings that granted the Salvadoran Abrego Garcia
“withholding of removal” to El Salvador (which Trump has now defied). Abrego
Garcia was initially denied bail when a judge deemed claims of MS-13
affiliation moderately credible. That was upheld on appeal. Thus his gang ties
have been litigated, and Trump has no obligation to return a confirmed public
safety menace.
The
answer to this nonsense is straightforward. The denial of bail was based on the
“confidential source” of a Maryland cop. His evidence of MS-13 ties was laughably thin, and the
cop was subsequently suspended and indicted for
serious misconduct. The source and the cop were never cross-examined.
It’s an absurd basis for declaring MS-13 affiliation as fact.
What’s
more, there is no mystery about what process is now due to Abrego Garcia. What
triggers the need for due process now is that the government affirmatively
acted—illegally—in defying the previous court’s “withholding of removal”
directive. Trump should bring him back, and if he wants, he can recontest
Abrego Garcia’s “withholding of removal” status or attempt to deport him to a
third country. When Ansari told Ingraham that this can be returned to court,
she’s correct.
Ingraham
also offered an irritable riff on the idea that if Abrego Garcia were
returned, he’d be deported again. She noted that Democrats like Ansari would
oppose this outcome. Yes, it’s true that Democrats don’t think longtime
nonviolent residents should be deported and should gain a qualified path to
legalization instead. So what? Democrats can hold that position while also
insisting that Trump should follow lawful processes, even if their end result
doesn’t prove to their liking.
Ingraham’s
kill shot—or so she imagined—was to bring up the horrific case of a woman
murdered in Maryland, allegedly by another
migrant. “Do your constituents care about those victims?” Ingraham asked
angrily.
“I’m
appalled by any violence that takes place in this country,” Ansari replied.
“That’s why this case is so important. That’s why I believe in the rule of
law.”
Here’s
the rub: We need due process for people like Abrego Garcia precisely
because it will settle who is guilty of violent or murderous crimes like those
and who is not guilty of them. Abrego Garcia was never even charged with
any gang-related crime. He deserves due process again because the government’s
rendition of him to El Salvador is illegal. Reopening his case in the U.S.
would allow for formal scrutiny of the government’s claims against him.
This
is the very thing Trump doesn’t want, which is exactly why Trump won’t bring
him back. Trump telegraphed the long game on Tuesday, declaring flatly that
“you can’t have a trial for all of these people” and that he’s “entitled” to
remove them without one:
The
endgame is to dispense with due process for migrants entirely. Ingraham’s
segment shows how MAGA will build this case: Migrants are “illegal alien
gangbangers” simply because Trump declares them so. That unlocks Trump’s power
to declare thousands or millions of migrants to be dangerous criminals by
definition. Lawful processes will not remove the dangerous criminals fast
enough; therefore let’s dispense with those processes to the greatest extent
possible.
Where
this circular argument leads is obvious: deportations of those with other types
of lawful status—those awaiting asylum hearings, those with student visas,
those with other temporary protections against removal—also with no due
process. On the chopping block here is the very bedrock ideal that all people
in the U.S. deserve due process regardless of status. This is Trump’s true
project. It’s lawless to its marrow.
As political theorist Kevin Elliott notes at Liberal Currents,
the mass removals of undesirables has historically been key to the fascist goal
of purifying the “Volk” of contaminating elements to bring about
“national rebirth.” We’re now seeing an effort to erect a new legal order in
which migrants simply cannot contest their designated status as dangerous
criminals in any sense, which in turn makes the leader’s declaration of that
status by fiat unalterable and supreme. To use Trump’s language, he is
“entitled” to simply decree untold numbers of migrants to be contaminants
sapping our national renewal—which is basically what “MS-13” has come to
mean—making them subject to expulsion outside of any legal constraints.
Democrats
need to get in there and disrupt these declarations-by-fiat, and expose the
lawlessness at their core, wherever possible.
