Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest is a dangerous constitutional violation, but some welcome this terrifying new authoritarian age

For the most part, people understand how the proudly racist DOGE kid.

“And this is why I voted for Trump,” writes a commenter on Donald Trump er rhetorically asked Sam Seder, “What’s wrong with xenophobic nationalism? Don’t you think that’s better for Americans in general?”

With comments such as these, every day, there is less and less reason to doubt that this is another reason why President Trump is dismantling — and wants to get rid of — the Department of Education. Also, one can only imagine Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, and Morris tossing and turning in their graves because their beloved Constitution simply isn’t a thing that is respected anymore. It’s a document that’s weaponized, twisted, and bent to fit whatever version of reality partisans staunchly believe in.

In the clip above, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) talks in hypotheticals. As of this writing, there is no proof that Khalil is in association with a terrorist organization and is not simply exercising his First Amendment rights. The Center for Constitutional Rights, which is suing the Trump istration in an effort to have Khalid returned, also cites a violation of the Fifth Amendment as a basis for their lawsuit.

Also, there’s the Fourteenth Amendment, which grants equal protection under the law and a right to due process to all people, citizen and non-citizen alike.  

Most people understand what’s happening and the violations being made to rights that should be unalienable, but others shut their brains to it. Let’s unpack that.

It’s a clear escalation towards a terrifying future

The TikToker above, @localwinemum, who’s from , puts it in quite plain : the version of “Donald Trump’s bizarre AI dream of a luxurious Gaza riviera where he may sunbathe on the beach next to Bibi is fine, apparently.

The fact that now, it’s not a so-called “illegal alien” who’s being threatened with deportation – and mocked by the White House official social media – but a green card holder should tell you enough about the escalation of political repression that’s occurring. As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) pointed out in a post: “If the federal government can disappear a legal US permanent resident without reason or warrant, then they can disappear US citizens too.”

The fact that there are people who would say “deport the wife too” is the reason why we got here. We’ve entered the regime of “everything that is not with us is therefore against us.” The wife in question is an American citizen, 8 months pregnant with her and Mahmoud Khalil’s first child.

As Drew Westen writes, when partisans encounter a conflict between their candidate of choice’s deeds and their words, their brains “manage to shut down distress through faulty reasoning,” and it does that quite quickly. In other words, as Jonathan Haidt would call it, it triggers their immediate moral intuition: “If you ask people to believe something that violates their intuitions, they will devote their efforts to finding an escape hatch—a reason to doubt your argument or conclusion.”

Words, like laws, change over time, acquire new connotations, and undergo shifts in association depending on the interpreter and their cultural or social circle. Also, words are also vehicles of manipulation. For example: Not everything that is labelled “terrorism” actually is, but because people experience strong feelings when they hear the word – particularly in the U.S.– it can trigger an almost fight-or-flight reaction that prevents critical reasoning.

The phrase “illegal protest” is being used by the Trump istration in the most purposefully vague way; any protesters could fall under that umbrella, and become subject to persecution, prosecution, imprisonment, or deportation. The open-endedness fits the Trump agenda, while completely ignoring the fact that Jan. 6 happened.

As the American TikToker above points out, “Pro-Palestine” and “Pro-Hamas” have been used interchangeably when that’s not the case. Some people have begun not to be able to tell the two apart. And that’s why they cheer for the potential deportation of a peaceful protest organizer and legal permanent citizen whose American wife is awaiting their first child in a month.

Because no change can stem from the ive feeling of hopelessness, it’d be appropriate to end on a hopeful note. The TikToker above, who shares my nationality, and my concern for what’s happening and those affected. She’s correct in her reasoning that the most vulnerable American communities should consider leaving before the worst happens to them, except for one thing: some people just can’t leave.

Moreover, if the solution is to leave every time a country’s government does a heel turn on democracy, that would be kicking the can down the road. Make no mistake: an ultra-nationalist movement has swept through America, but also rippled across the world. The solution — as the New York protesters exemplify — to be brave and speak out, to show up in favor of democracy, and to make it clear that this move toward autocracy will not go unchallenged.