[Varelion]

This process has been carried out, publicly, a few times. Every time the results not only fail to support the current regime's narrative, they actively goes against it. So, the question becomes: "Who is getting kickbacks for this 'deal'?"

More importantly, how in the hell it this under the purview of ICE? Agencies and units have strictly outlined mission statements they are not supposed to go outside of. What kind of secret police nonsense it this?

EDIT: Word choice & spelling

[imglorp]

They are trying to confuse voter fraud with election fraud so they can justify ICE election interference in November.

There are only a small handful of voter fraud cases per year: someone tried to vote for a dead relative or whatever. Never enough to change an outcome. https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/how-many-cases-of-...

On the other hand, potentially far more impactful is election fraud and election interference. Tampering with voting machines (Coffee GA, Tina Peters etc), paying voters (Musk in PA), asking a state to "find more votes" (GA), ...

[Varelion]

I can't believe this is how the guise of democracy in this country dies.

[joquarky]

The past decade has forced me to accept that nothing lasts forever.

I just hope something in my backlog of eastern philosophy will at least delay my descent into complete hopelessness.

[baranul]

> guise of democracy

That's a very appropriate term. There has always been various forces who either believe the majority of citizens don't deserve democracy or that they are above it.

[Henchman21]

I hate to break it to you, but it was never real. It’s always been a sham, a charade, a farce. We’re not even remotely honest with ourselves about much of anything in public… So IMO we get what we deserve.

[jfengel]

It was always a sham, but it used to be possible to think that it was gradually getting better. In the 20th century, we extended voting rights to women and 18 year olds, and we put measures in place to protect black voters. The moral arc of the universe did seem to bend towards justice.

It has been really disheartening to find that it can also bend away. Voting was always going to be at least something of a farce, but it genuinely seemed to be better than the alternatives. Now, it's not clear that it is.

[morkalork]

I'm still suspicious of actions like this: https://abcnews.com/US/dominion-voting-systems-sold-company-...

[actionfromafar]

Yes. When they say *"historic move to transform and improve election integrity", you better believe it. They will "improve" it.

[opinion3k]

Because he's turned them into his own secret police - they even wear masks to hide their identifies. Fun fact - ICE has only been around for a little over 20 years. It's not some sancrosanct entity that couldn't have its necessary functions moved to entities with some sort of actual oversight and eliminated.

[joquarky]

Anyone else remember when defenders of the PATRIOT Act said it would only affect terrorists?

[shalmanese]

ICE was a reshuffle of the INS and a few ancillary departments but the core functions are continuous. It's like saying Meta has only been around for 5 years, most of the engineers were doing their previous job unchanged by the rebrand.

[dd8601fn]

Anywhere you move it, it's executive branch stuff.

I'm not sure what a bureaucratic shuffle would buy you in today's environment.

[dylan604]

well, in theory, Congress funds executive branch stuff. So if Congress had a spine and actually behaved the way it is meant, it could stop funding executive branch stuff it doesn't like. It could also pass laws limiting the stuff it didn't like. Man, those were some crazy people often known as founders for having such idealistic notions like that. They just were not able to think past their recent experiences of fighting a war to free themselves from the king to think that enough time could pass that the slippery slope could hit bottom to allow for the modern day results

[halJordan]

They were certainly able to think far enough past their recent experiences to anticipate this could happen. They talked about it. They're conclusion was "If they don't want democracy they don't have to have it. We can lead a horse to water but not make it drink" This isn't the fault of the founders. They defeated the factionalism of their time.

[dylan604]

Didn't think the /s was necessary, but of course that's what happens since I assumed it. To be clear, I do not think the founders were crazy.

[preg_match]

ICE has been basically transformed into the FBI but mostly targeting American citizens. The goal has been, for a while now, to develop a domestic military and intelligence apparatus that can be used against the American people where they are - in their cities, in their states.

The police largely failed this job. Too local, too much accountability if you can believe it. The government really wants a federal force, beholden only to the desires of the dictator. The constitution gets in the way a bit, as you can't just deploy the military domestically against the US people. So ICE it is.

[prmoustache]

In a world where most people blindly accept answers from machines and never care to verify from actual sources the simple announcement effect followed by lies and accusations of fraud relayed repeatedly is enough. The whole mode of operations of extreme rights all over the world is to repeat lies ad nauseam until people unconsciously surrender and accept them as facts.

[kstenerud]

They don't need to prove that it's true. They just need to get it repeated enough, with some officialdom thrown in, for it to enter the public consciousness as "true".

The next step is to go dark on data about ICE, immigration, and voter fraud so that nobody can prove the opposite anymore.

This is a very old playbook, and it works extremely well.

[pstuart]

ICE is Trump's private army, and their only loyalty is to him (and Stephen Miller, who's actually the puppet master here).

All of this is a painful lessons that institutions are not things, they are agreements and if someone with enough power does not agree than the institution is reshaped by that disagreement.