The Fourth Reich
MAGA's Aryan Ethnostate is already here.
The Second World War was, inarguably, the most impactful and devastating global conflict in recent history. From O’ahu to Hiroshima, all of humanity was, at once, forced to feel the rumbling of pure hatred fostered by the deep segregationist mindset of ‘us against them.’ But a catastrophe such as World War II didn’t just end because the United States decided to drop two nuclear bombs on Japanese soil.
Truth is, we, indeed, exist in the context of all in which we live and what came before us. To pretend otherwise would do nothing but blind us from the reality that the Fourth Reich is already being built in our backyards. After all, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
On July 1st, Donald Trump and his Aryan Ethnostate1 Regime announced the completion of Alligator Alcatraz.
“Detention Center,” they called it while showing us pictures of a concentration camp.
Built in just eight days, these cages are projected to house over 5,000 adults and children alike by the time this piece is up. For what crimes, you may ask? I don’t know. No one knows. Not even ICE or Border Patrol.
According to ICE and Border Patrol’s mandatory disclosed detention statistics, they have arrested an average of 47,710 individuals (34% of whom are children) from January 2025 to June 2025. Of those, 22,929 individuals (adults and children alike) were arrested under the pretence of ‘other immigration violators,’ despite the document never explicitly stating what these individuals were accused or convicted of. 10,517 individuals (again: adults and children alike) were arrested with pending criminal charges. That means that ICE and Border Patrol may very well be detaining wrongly accused individuals, despite the 5th Amendment.
That’s roughly 48% of law-abiding adults and children and 22% of adults and children without a proven criminal record being detained (70% in total). That means only 30% of all individuals detained are the ‘dangerous illegal aliens’ that Donald Trump and his Aryan Ethnostate Regime have been fear-mongering about. Even then, the severity of those crimes was never explicitly stated either.
In times like these, it’s important to remember that all fascist regimes are slow burns.
The Nazi party started gaining traction as early as 1920; a whopping 13 years before Adolf Hitler was even appointed as chancellor. And it wouldn’t be another six years after that that the Nazi Party became the Third Reich we recognise it as today. They, too, started with unassuming detention camps before escalating to concentration camps. They, too, fear-mongered about ‘white genocide’ before using it to justify the mass executions of all non-white individuals. They, too, deployed national troops to stamp out protestors. All are markers that we are seeing in the present MAGA party.
I just want to know: Were the Nazi salutes at the inauguration not enough to ring alarm bells? Do ICE officers have to wear their swastikas loud and proud for us to see them for what they are? How many more concentration camps does Donald Trump’s Aryan Ethnostate Regime need to build before we start connecting the dots? When is ‘enough?’ When the Fourth Reich is operating at full force? When the killing chambers are inevitably erected?
Let us not be those condemned to repeat history out of convenience. Let us not look back in two decades and find ourselves in the shoes of Martin Niemöller and all others who stood by and allowed the Third Reich to happen. Let us not make another generation of Anne Franks.
I once again urge all those who are in positions to make a change (be it through white privilege, monetary privileges, or just simply being a US-born citizen) to do the best you can to stand by your neighbours, peers, and loved ones who Donald Trump’s Fourth Reich is specifically targeting. Whether it be educating yourself on the dangers faced by those who do not look like you, participating in your locally organised peaceful protests, calling up your local representatives (be it district, county, or state representatives), or even just lending an ear or a shoulder to those who have no say in this developing regime.
Never underestimate the importance of kindness in dark times like these. It could be all that someone needs to keep going, to keep fighting. Especially as more and more amendments are being rendered defunct with each passing day, most terrifyingly being the 14th Amendment, as the MAGA party have already begun to revoke naturalised citizenship.
If they can threaten their citizens, one can only imagine what they are willing to do to those they do not feel responsible for.
Lastly, the thumbnail of this post is a portrait of George Santayana, the philosopher whose writing continuously reminds me why it is so important to preserve history.
Ethnostate: a sovereign state in which citizenship is restricted to members of a particular racial or ethnic group.