Now that Bari Weiss has made sure we're all talking about CECOT again, this seems like a good moment to re-post an old thread on the through-line that connects Bukele's triumphant promo video (boosted by Trump) with ISIS propaganda and the Abu Ghraib torture photos.
We are ruled by sadistic freaks who just keep telling us that they're sadistic freaks.
quotingI’m not saying that ICE is the same as ISIS, but they do seem to be connected to the same PR team.
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I’m not trying to be cute here or to downplay the gratuitous, theatrical cruelty with which ISIS has murdered people. It’s one thing for a state (or a would-be state) to take prisoners, but to my knowledge it’s not exactly standard practice in the US to turn that into slick, deliberately shocking images for mass consumption in a sadistic expression of power. In that sense, the Trump administration [edit: and its allies are], in fact, replicating ISIS practices here.
