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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

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Proposition 1: it is impossible to deport millions of people by actually catching them and deporting them.

Proposition 2: People who are afraid will self deport.

Proposition 3: We want to deport millions.

Solution: Make illegals afraid they might be caught and disappeared.

This solution would still work nearly as well if ICE just acquired a reputation of being very efficient, without the Trumpian "fuck the left" optics.

Lol, Lmao even. Why do you think ICE gets to pick their own optics? Like any federal agency, they get to wear whatever label the media slaps on them today. And the leftoid media industrial complex has decided "nazi storm troopers" is the label ICE gets to wear for the foreseeable future.

Compared to most feds, ICE seems to be undertaking an extremely difficult task, that puts them in quite a lot of personal danger, in a reasonably professional manner. That puts them in the top 5% of efficient agencies as far as I'm concerned. Lefty shitflinging will happen completely independently of how ICE is actually performing, because it mostly works at convincing the average lefty voter their country is turning into the Fourth Reich.

Because they're posting videos from their own raids, and those videos get lots of engagement, and the reactions to the videos that ICE posts is largely in line with what you'd expect given what footage ICE chooses to show and how they choose to show it.

Consider the possibility that you are in a bubble. Twitter will show you what it thinks you want to see. When I look at the last "cruel" ICE post on twitter, it shows 161k likes and 10k comments, almost all of which appear to be positive on the logged-out, incognito-mode mirror I'm checking.

I don't think faul_sname meant that the reaction is overwhelmingly negative. But if the positive reactions are along the lines of "hell yeah! make illegals afraid!" rather than "ah, normal policemen doing their work normally, how neat and orderly" then it's still support for the claim that ICE is deliberately projecting an image of themselves as scary chaotic mofos. Which they are. You might very well think that's a good thing because it'll intimidate illegals into self-deporting, but "ICE are scary goons" isn't left-wing slander, it's the image they're deliberately leaning into because that's what Trump's base wants them to do.

I think the "chaotic" you slipped in with no justification there is doing basically all the work in holding up your position.

They're projecting themselves as competent, efficient, confident, inevitable, and actually having a great time doing it.

All of those things seem pretty fine for law enforcement.

They're projecting themselves as competent, efficient, confident, inevitable, and actually having a great time doing it.

That may be what they're attempting to do, but if so, I don't think it's working. "Chaotic", in the sense of "unpredictable; not reliably constrained by rules", is definitely part of the current image - see all the hubbub about their (supposed?) lack of respect for due process. I think if you're a legal immigrant, or indeed a birthright citizen who looks superficially foreign, you aren't currently going to have absolute confidence that ICE will leave you alone - or even let you go with an apology, if they should get you by mistake. To an even greater extent, if you are an illegal immigrant, I don't think you're going to be confident that ICE will guarantee you all the protections and legal counsel that you're entitled to.

And I… don't think this is an effect of left-wing smear campaigns? I get the vibe that these are, if not objectively justified fears, then at least fears that ICE are happy to encourage, presumably because they feel like it enhances their intimidation factor. They could certainly do more to fight that impression, if it is indeed a misconception. Hence, optics-wise - chaotic, not just efficient.

see all the hubbub about their (supposed?) lack of respect for due process.

AFAICT, thus hubbub is just bad faith lies. We had a month-long national meltdown over a single missed piece of paperwork that had no material effect on the outcome. When progressives say "due process" what they mean is "continue the process until we win".

I think if you're a legal immigrant, or indeed a birthright citizen who looks superficially foreign, you aren't currently going to have absolute confidence that ICE will leave you alone - or even let you go with an apology, if they should get you by mistake.

No, I actually talk to immigrants, including illegal ones, every day. Legal immigrants think ICE is snatching anyone, legal/illegal/citizen who happens to be brown and black-bagging them to never be seen again. I have had multiple strangers tell me they believed this. This is not an even slightly justifiable belief, but it is the natural result of the relentless propoganda being pushed by progressives.

To an even greater extent, if you are an illegal immigrant, I don't think you're going to be confident that ICE will guarantee you all the protections and legal counsel that you're entitled to.

And for the last time, this is not a justified belief. All data I can find says ICE error/failure rates are lower than almost every other government agency. Maybe instead of relentlessly hammering how understandable it is that innocent people are believing these lies, you could try correcting the lies.

I get the vibe that these are, if not objectively justified fears, then at least fears that ICE are happy to encourage, presumably because they feel like it enhances their intimidation factor.

Then please justify that claim.

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