Category: The American Spectator
Civil war chatter rises when Democrats fear losing power for good
Barack Obama used the same U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics as Donald Trump. During his eight years in the White House, his administration deported more illegal aliens than Trump has.
Yet the Obama years did not feature mass protests over deportations. No governors or mayors compared ICE to the Gestapo, a comparison so obscene it should end careers. No district attorneys vowed to “hunt down” ICE agents for doing their jobs. No late-night comedians insisted that ICE agents ranked “worse than Nazis.”
Democrats once drove the country into a civil war to protect slavery. Today they court conflict to protect power.
That backlash became routine only after Trump. Two factors explain why.
First, the left hates Trump to the core. Not as a political rival, but as a personal and moral affront. This visceral, uncontrolled hatred has swallowed identities and replaced judgment. It fuels social media tantrums, office politics, family feuds, and the constant need to punish dissent. Among allies, people congratulate each other for hating the right man. For everyone else, they virtue-signal.
This hatred will not fade with time. It will persist after Trump leaves office, and it may even outlive him. Ronald Reagan hate still lingers decades after his death. Trump hate runs hotter, deeper, and more irrational. It will not burn out on schedule.
Second, the immigration fight has turned strategic.
During the Obama years, the left had not yet internalized two tactics that now help it hold power.
Once Democrats win office, many push policy as far left as state and federal constitutions allow: higher taxes, soft-on-crime governance, heavier regulation, and soaring costs that punish families. That agenda drives productive citizens out of blue cities and blue states and into red states. Conservatives hold few truly red cities now; the activist class has captured many local institutions.
Red states gain taxpayers and workers. Blue states lose them.
Democrat leaders have chosen to replace the citizens who leave, but not with similarly productive citizens. They replace them with illegal aliens.
That strategy helps explain Joe Biden’s first-day border reversals and the torrent of executive actions that followed. The signal was plain: Enforcement would relax, entry would rise, and the federal government would look away. Millions came, many without legal status. Many settled in blue jurisdictions that offer sanctuary policies and advertise benefits.
Politicians sell those benefits as “free”: child care, health care, schooling, housing programs. Taxpayers pay the bills. Debt fills the rest.
California offers the clearest example. The state has lost large numbers of residents to Texas and Florida. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) does not treat the exodus as a crisis. He treats it as ideological sorting. If taxpayers leave, he can replace the head count with people who will not challenge his machine at the ballot box.
Illegal aliens are not allowed to vote. They still count. Biden made sure of that.
The census counts residents, and those numbers drive seats in the United States House of Representatives and votes in the Electoral College. Add population, gain power. Lose population, lose power. Democrats understand the arithmetic, which is why they fight enforcement as fiercely as they fight elections.
RELATED: ‘This isn’t organic’: Joe Rogan says Minnesota’s anti-ICE protests are ‘coordinated’ to induce chaos
Photo by Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images
Then comes the long game. Children born here can vote. Democrats assume those children will vote Democrat for life. They are building a future electorate while padding current representation.
Trump’s deportation strategy threatens that structure. Democrats have already watched citizens flee Illinois, New York, California, and other strongholds. If deportations also shrink the illegal-alien population those states have absorbed, Democrats lose House seats, Electoral College strength, and national leverage.
So they raise the temperature. They smear ICE as “secret police” and dare Trump to enforce the law anyway. They bait confrontation because chaos can create a veto: If streets burn long enough, Washington may flinch.
If Trump refuses to flinch, they reach for the next weapon: the camera. A clash becomes a “crackdown.” An arrest becomes “political persecution.” A dead protester becomes a martyr, and the headlines write themselves. The moral damage does not scare them; it serves them.
Democrats once drove the country into a civil war to protect slavery. Today they court conflict to protect power. They do not need tanks to do it. They need prosecutors, mayors, and media partners willing to treat law enforcement as evil and disorder as virtue.
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‘No one is illegal on stolen land’: Grammys audience goes wild over anti-ICE speeches
The 2026 Grammys seemed like a political rally at times as the audience screamed and cheered over anti-government sentiments.
Simple statements garnered standing ovations as some award winners specifically condemned Immigration and Customs Enforcement in their remarks.
‘Um, f**k ICE is all I want to say. Sorry.’
After singer Billie Eilish won Song of the Year, she told the crowd that “no one is illegal on stolen land.”
This statement brought the house down, as attendees rose to their feet and nodded along with impassioned fervor.
ICE-capades
“It’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now,” the 24-year-old continued. “I feel really hopeful in this room, and I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting, and our voices really do matter, and the people matter.”
“Um, f**k ICE is all I want to say. Sorry,” she added as the crowd went wild.
The audience similarly cried out like victors of an intergalactic war when Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny accepted the award for Best Urban Album, which was called “Best Música Urbana Album” by the Grammys.
“ICE out,” he began, garnering huge applause. “We’re not savage. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans. And we are Americans,” Bad Bunny strangely said, given that ICE works to enforce immigration law.
What did not receive as much raucous applause was when the singer asked the audience to “be different. If we fight, we have to do it with love.”
“We don’t hate them. We love our people. We love our family. And that’s the way to do it, with love. Don’t forget that, please,” he said.
RELATED: ‘This isn’t organic’: Joe Rogan says Minnesota’s anti-ICE protests are ‘coordinated’ to induce chaos
Pop-star punditry
According to Variety, Eilish was joined by singers like Justin Vernon and Jack Antonoff in wearing “ICE Out” pins to the ceremony. Also included in that group were Justin and Hailey Bieber, although the singer looked incredibly unhappy to be at the event while on the red carpet.
Singer Jelly Roll was asked why he has been silent on political issues, to which he replied, “People shouldn’t care to hear my opinion, man. You know, I’m a dumb redneck. I haven’t watched enough. I didn’t have a phone for 18 months. I’ve had one for four months and don’t have social media.”
However, he went on to say that he is going to have “a lot to say” in the next week, and audiences will hear him “in the most loud and clear way I’ve ever spoke in my life.”
Shut up and sing
Comedian Ricky Gervais made a simple remark on Monday morning, mocking the celebrities for their political speeches.
“They’re still not listening,” he wrote on X, with an attached quote of his remarks from the 2020 Golden Globes, which reads: “If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world.”
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