His targeting of foreigners with residencies or work visas was inevitable: to achieve his aims, more and more people must be disenfranchised The imperial boomerang effect is the theory that techniques developed to repress colonised territories and peoples will, in time, inevitably be deployed at home. Repressive policing, methods of detention and controlling dissent, forcing humans to produce goods and services for overlords in the metropolis, or even mass enslavement and killing: all “boomerang” back into that metropolis. First, they are used against those who are seen as inferior; then, they are deployed even against those citizens with full rights and privileges if they dare to question authority. In short, the remote other eventually becomes the intimate familiar.Donald Trump’s second term has so far been a case study in how systems built for those whose rights have been diluted or taken away eventually devour those who were assumed to be safe from such violations. There are thr...
Nesrine Malik argues that Donald Trump's policies, designed to target foreigners and those with diluted rights, are now eroding the rights of individuals who previously believed they were safe. This is occurring through the creation of a domestic caste system where dissenting views, particularly on issues like Gaza, lead to the disenfranchisement, detention, and deportation of permanent residents and visa holders. These individuals are effectively treated as subjects of American power, their rights deemed conditional and easily revoked.
