This analysis came out earlier this month, and it's the mother of all wake-up calls. Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" would appropriate $200 billion to ICE, which the Cato Institute has called an "unimaginable sum." Some relevant quotes:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the bill will direct an astounding $168 billion of the budget to immigration and border law enforcement, and there is even more for agencies that indirectly support immigration law enforcement.
The $168 billion is, by itself, an unimaginable sum. Without H.R. 1, Congress had already appropriated twice as much money to America’s border police as all other federal law enforcement combined. In FY 2025, immigration and border enforcement accounted for at least two-thirds of all federal law enforcement.
In FY 2025—again, before H.R. 1—Congress allocated nearly $34 billion to immigration and border enforcement agencies. That’s 36 times more than what is provided for tax and financial crimes enforcement (IRS-Treasury), 21 times more than funding for firearms enforcement (ATF), 13 times more than drug enforcement (DEA), and 8 times more than the FBI budget to enforce effectively everything else. The level of border police spending is already so extreme that it has swamped nearly all other criminal law enforcement priorities for the federal government.
The House plans to distort this wildly out-of-whack law enforcement system beyond recognition. H.R. 1 appropriates $168 billion to agencies whose primary purpose is immigration enforcement. It adds $1.2 billion to all other law enforcement for the Secret Service. This sum comes on top of the $33 billion, meaning that if this bill passes, about $200 billion will be made available for immigration enforcement starting in FY 2025.
$200 billion dollars is equivalent to 1/5th of our entire military budget ($960 billion). It's more than Russia's entire military spending in 2024 ($149 billion). To say that Trump would be creating a 7th branch of the military operating on US soil would be neither an overstatement nor a conspiracy theory.
For context, this article was published by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank originally founded by Charles Koch (among others). The fact that these guys are ringing the alarm bell should be a warning unto itself. You can read the full text of the bill (H.R. 1) here.
These numbers seem pretty high, though.
Exactly. My point is that Putin had no reason to worry about being overthrown within a year of taking power because Russia simply did not and does not have that kind of popular energy. Therefore, he could sit on his ass and be a rightwing oligarch. Meanwhile Trump is closer to the Hitler model of a fascist taking over a country with strong popular resistance. There's currently no strong popular resistance to Trump don't get me wrong, but sooner or later there will be, so he (or rather whoever is pulling the strings in the White House) needs to have Nazi levels of preparation if he wants to enforce fascism on America. It goes without saying that there will be no "we are starting to live better" under Trump. Basically I'm doubting the black hole theory because now that Trump is in power he needs to create his own SS to crush whatever resistance will pop up; right now he simply doesn't have the resources to respond if all blue states become LA.
Hitler took over in a country where his browshirts could already kill people they didn't like on the streets and the state was weak.
Strong popular resistance was driven by Nazis not even trying to take it slow, they loved demonstrative violence.
I think Trump is still more like Putin than like Hitler. He'll try to avoid significant resistance and make changes gradually. If he needs, he'll use violence, but very sparingly. Not because of being better, just because that's more effective.
There's one problem with this prediction though: Widespread violence already is part of Trump's program. He needs to deport all so-called rapists and criminals and clamp down on filthy liberals once and for all. The situation Trump put himself in gives him no option but indiscriminate violence, which will inevitably cause public uproar and galvanize resistance. At this rate a Boston Massacre is likely inevitable.
If you mean anti-migrant violence, that was so normal for Russia in the 00s that nobody batted an eye. It seems to already have become normal enough in the US. He just has to show it's still happening. No need for any further buildup.
Clamping down of filthy liberals ... it depends if doing it very slowly is acceptable for him. But he's old and demented, I don't think he'll be around for most of this process regardless if it's fast or slow.
That's where you are wrong, we live today in a world where all processes seemingly requiring indiscriminate violence work just fine with precision violence.
And when it's indiscriminate, it's not because they need it for the stated goal, but because they need, say, to ruin half a city for some future riches from contracts from people close to power. And they don't need the population around to resist or register plunder by occupying troops. Similar with murder of civilians - that's too sort of plunder, a huge proportion of the population feels something erotic from murders.
It's a bit like William the Conqueror gave lands to his Norman nobles.
Today they give plunder and future construction contracts to their herd of cronies and corrupt officials and acquaintances.
It's like in criminal groups they sometimes try, or so I've heard, to have everyone involved in a few serious enough crimes, so that they couldn't just try to leave.
In this case the general population is made dirty by economic integration with some occupied parts and making it normalized, like triangle trade. The military is made dirty by allowing and even ordering plunder and murder for fun. The "elite" is made both dirty and interested by sharing in the spoils (but notice how that's a post-success activity, so first the general population and the military are made dirty, and then people actually profiting and making the decisions ; a win-win situation). The foreign elites are too made dirty and interested by their share in the power offering of a victory (some kind of it at least).
It's sort of an unholy hybrid of cartels and feudalism.
I think that's a fair point. But I still don't think that King Grifter is going to do anything other than grift — the precarious position of his regime really would only seek to encourage graft, as he knows he won't be punished for it and he knows it can't last forever.