–OpEd–
TURIN — Illegal immigrants in chains, heads down, lining up to board a plane that will deport them. In chains, like slaves on plantations, like detainees of a dictatorship, like prisoners in war.
We know nothing about these people. All we know is that they have been picked up in the roundups that Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail and they are not eligible to stay in the United States.
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They may be criminals. Or they might not be. We don’t know, and we’re not supposed to care.
They always deport them like that, handcuffed. Maybe to keep them in line, for security reasons. In chains, one guard is enough to control many prisoners. We don’t know and we’re not supposed to care.
Because in civilized countries, in democracies that are worthy of that name, there is a rule: you don’t show people handcuffed. Because handcuffs mean you’re guilty, a sign of dishonor, an infamy.
In France, the media are not allowed to show pictures of handcuffed people until they are actually convicted in a court. Same in Italy. In Japan, even the hands of the person in handcuffs are blurred in photos. In Hong Kong, to preserve the dignity of the handcuffed person, police offer a head covering or screen.
The White House, instead, displays the men in chains as a trophy, and does so from the official account on the “X” platform. The message this photo aims to send to the world is clear: there they are, we caught them, look at these criminals.
Guantanamo, no shame
The image is not one of Elon Musk‘s crazy spells or a late-night tweet from Trump. It would still be bad, but we’ve gotten used to those by now. The photo is an official image of the Trump II administration and is designed specifically to be shared and discussed.
This is how people communicate now.
This is how people communicate now: threats rather than messages, warnings entrusted to the network. Nastiness on full display.
Before, when it was done, people tried to deny it. Such an image, seized by an enterprising photographer, would have embarrassed the U.S. administration. Justifications would have been sought, excuses made, misunderstandings invoked. Remember the scandal over the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo?
Well, now it is the other way around. They are exhibiting themselves as a weapon of power.
Humiliating the weakest
In the age of Trump II, not only are terrible things said. But they are done — or attempted to be done, consistent with judges ratifying their constitutionality. And they are also then flaunted to the world as evidence of how effective the president’s actions are.
“Promise made, promise kept. Deportation flights have begun,” is the overprint. “President Trump is sending a strong message to the world: those who enter the United States illegally will face serious consequences.”
Target one to scare a thousand. This is the new philosophy of this right wing that wants at all costs to shock middle classes, to corner the much-hated political correctness, to crush the hypocritical liberal elite.
Little does it matter if in this triumphant march of brutality, with its humiliation of the weakest, exaltation of wealth as a single and universal value, where no pietas is provided, rights are trampled upon and the very foundations of democracy are undermined.
This, I have begun to realize, is itself precisely their project.
