While our eyes are on the welfare state's destruction, Trump is building a police state [View all]

We are watching Trump turn the US into East Germany as Musk fires essential workers but not any worker “necessary to meet law enforcement, border security, national security, immigration enforcement, or public safety responsibilities.” Red states are following his lead. Alabama is trying to prosecute anyone who helps a woman get an abortion in another state. Other states have tried to set up tracking mechanisms to police women’s actions. The East German Stasi relied on snitches to keep people in line. Texas has already created a law for snitches. Other states will follow as they fire workers and hollow out services for citizens so they can spend more money on their police state tactics.

“While we’ve had our eyes on the wrecking ball–Doge pulverizing social services, environmental protection and scientific research, we’ve hardly taken notice of what is being constructed. In the footprint of the already shabby, now half-demolished US welfare state, the Trump administration is building a police state.

In spite of Doge’s cuts to the FBI, the agency’s director, Kash Patel, is gearing up to turn the agency – whose job has always been to spy on US citizens, including enemies of the state as identified by the government in power – into Donald Trump’s personal secret police. At the state level, lawmakers are compiling their own enemies lists and filing bills to reward those who snitch on abortion seekers, transgender people, undocumented immigrants, and school librarians suspected of harboring the wrong books.

The Republican House budget includes $300bn in new funding for defense and border control. Among the Senate budget committee’s announced priorities are finishing the border wall, increasing the number of immigrant detention “beds”, hiring more border patrol agents, and investing in state and local law enforcement to assist in “immigration enforcement and removal efforts”. While no figures are provided in the attached budget, the Senate budget committee assures Americans that any new spending will be offset by reductions.“

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/05/trump-welfare-police-state-government-layoffs