Ashley Parker

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, what I was really trying to explore with this piece one year into his second term was sort of the boiling frog theory of American politics.

And I should say up front that this theory is apocryphal.

It's not actually true, but I think it works for our purposes, which is the way it goes is that if you drop a frog in boiling water, it will hop out.

But if you put a frog in lukewarm water and slowly turn up the heat, it will not know to jump out because the changes will be so incremental and gradual and it will boil to death.

Sure.

So it really starts back in 2015 when Trump comes to national prominence as a politician in a campaign launch speech.

that demonizes immigrants broadly as criminals, rapists, not the best among us, people who are bringing drugs across the border.

So he has been getting the country comfortable for a long time with the idea that undocumented immigrants are dangerous and they're a problem.

But going to this term with Venezuela, he uses a fairly obscure wartime powers act, the Alien Enemies Act,

to essentially declare that we are at war with Venezuela, specifically a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua.

And because we are at war with them, we're able to take certain wartime liberties to deport Venezuelans.

Exactly.

Now, there might be images they see of what this actually looks like that they kind of cringe at.

But yeah, broadly, they support this.

Then he begins a series of strikes on boats in the Caribbean and East Pacific Oceans off the coast of Venezuela.

And yes, a lot of these boats that are targeted, there are drugs on them.

But it is not, as the president has claimed, you know, a huge mob or cartel

boss headed to the United States.

In some cases, these are small fishing boats, people who are petty criminals bringing small amounts of cocaine, not to the United States, but to neighboring islands like Trinidad.