Yucking it Up at the Alligator Alcatraz Concentration Camp: Trump, DeSantis, an the Florida GOP outdo Hitler and Himmler

While we were traveling last week Gauleiter Rick DeSantis announced that he was opening what he calls a “temporary detention” facility at a former airfield in the Everglades for up to 5,000 prisoners rounded up by ICE which DeSantis nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz. The facility will consist of tents in the middle of Hurricane Season, and be guarded by more than 3,000 men and women housed in much superior facilities on the same site. The facilities are being paid for by nearly a half-billion dollars of FEMA money which has been allocated to assist Florida residents in dealing with hurricane damage and the loss of their homes. DeSantis even said how the tents that will house the prisoners were previously meant for hurricane victims.

Well, Gauleiter DeSantis, “Der Führer” Donald Trump, and “Reichsführerin” Kristi Noem toured the site DeSantis has named Alligator Alcatraz. Trump couldn’t have been prouder. It was the highlight of his week. He got to yuck it up by joking about the conditions faced by the inmates.

Those unfortunate people, who will include citizens, and immigrants legally in the United States who have not committed any crimes, but now by a decision of the Supreme Court can be imprisoned and even deported before their cases are adjudicated by courts. However, that won’t matter if they die in Alligator Auschwitz. The conditions will be horrendous. First the is the nearly unbearable heat and humidity of the Everglades. Then there is the fact that this is hurricane season and that the Everglades are prone to flooding, even without high winds and mass amounts of rain. Then, as Der Führer joked about the place is filled with snakes and alligators. He even joked about how he wouldn’t want to hike there and giving advice to people trying to outrun an alligator.

The Florida Republican Party was quick to try to profit from this by offering Alligator Alcatraz t-shirts and beer couzies emblazoned with the phrase upon them.

Even Hitler never visited a concentration camp. However, Himmler who did visit them didn’t want them spoken of to the German public. In fact. Himmler told senior SS and SD Leaders that what they had done and were doing was not something that they could openly speak of, much less brag about. In early 1943 Himmler told those Leaders:

“I also want to mention a very difficult subject before you here, completely openly. It should be discussed among us, and yet, nevertheless, we will never speak about it in public…I am talking about the “Jewish evacuation” the extermination of the Jewish people.”

It is One of the things that is easily said. “The Jewish people is being exterminated,” every Party member will tell you, “perfectly clear, it’s part of our plans, we’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating them, ha!, a small matter.”

But then along they all come, all the decent upright Germans and each has his decent Jew. They all say: the others are all swine, but here is a first class Jew. And none of them has seen it, has endured it. Most of you will know what it means when 100 bodies lie together, or when there are 500 or 1000. And to have seen this through, and –with the exception of human weaknesses– to have remained decent, has made us hard and is a page of glory never mentioned and never to be mentioned….”

Himmler with Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss

Today, Trump and his supporters don’t care if their crimes against humanity are broadcast in real time.

Their actions reflect the worst of humanity and remind me of the words of Professor Timothy Snyder:

“The world is now changing, reviving fears that were familiar in Hitler’s time, and to which Hitler responded. The history of the Holocaust is not over. Its precedent is eternal, and its lessons have not yet been learned.”

For those who do understand, the United States under Trump is on the precipice of beginning its own Holocaust. This time the perpetrators won’t be Germans, and most of the victims will not be Jews. We are starting with dark skinned immigrants and citizens, but it won’t end there.