"Alligator Alcatraz?" More Like "Alligator Auschwitz."

It's official: The cruelty is the point.

The new ICE detention center in the Florida Everglades

For those of us who have been hoping against hope that America's MAGA die-hards are not intentionally driving cruelty in their efforts to remake the country in their inage, but are merely cheering policies that heavily feature it, today was a real low point. Opening the new ICE detention center in the Florida Everglades currently being called “Alligator Alcatraz," President Donald Trump admitted he knew exactly how terrible it was.

He had to know, because as he stood next to the sickening chain-link dog kennels filled with towers of bunk beds for detainees - who will, in many cases, have no criminal records - Trump explained directly to reporters, with an eye-popping lapse of seriousness, even for him, "Biden wanted me in here, OK? He wanted me. Didn't work out that way, but he wanted me in here, that son of a bitch.”

When have you heard a sitting president plainly tell reporters that his predecessor is “a son of a bitch?” This wasn’t a hot mic or a secret tape. Is this how we expect a president to behave?

Apparently, it is! The MAGA faithful - who, I may say, are distinct from conservatives and many Republicans - seem to be loving this lout, this liar, this felon, this sexual abuser who - in a four-alarm demonstration of catastrophic ineptitude - has no clue whether his job as president requires him to uphold the Constitution.

I feel like even George W. Bush could have answered that question correctly, bless his heart.

No, this stuff doesn't bother his core voters, because, you see, God chooses imperfect vessels to do His work.

But Trumpists don't care about the dignity of the office. They don't care how America looks to the rest of the world. What they care about is that he uphold their preferred worldview of white Christian nationalism. And at the top of that agenda is the rounding up and deportation of immigrants - most, ideally, here without proper paperwork; some who certainly do have it (and even some citizens).

Conditions at existing Miami ICE facilities are so abhorrent that up to 27 women have been put in one cell, detainees have been instructed to simply relieve themselves on the floor, and they've then been forced to sleep on that same floor. So this new facility, some 37 alligator-infested miles from Miami, is meant to improve things. It's built to hold 5,000 of the most innocent prisoners there have been since 1940s Germany.

If you believe for a moment that this will be a nice, clean, facility run by kind people who are following the law, then hey: I know a bridge you might like to add to your portfolio.

But here's what's truly stupid: We all know this is dead wrong.

We all know this is unconscionable - indefensible. And we all know these immigrants being detained are not gangbangers, murderers, or rapists. They're moms, arrested in front of their children without a warrant. They're grandpas, kidnapped while out walking their dogs. They're a whole lot like us. And they're going to fill up this new facility as quickly as ICE - acting as Gestapo - can abduct them.

Yes, I understand that the place is surrounded by a swampy moat of crocodiles, pythons, and alligators in the same way that the Alcatraz prison sits alone and disused, a mile offshore in the San Francisco Bay. But let's be real: It's Alligator Auschwitz.

And I don't say that lightly. Recall that a concentration camp, like Dachau or Bergen-Belsen or Treblinka or CECOT, need not be a death camp and is not required to house the machinery of mass murder. That's just a “nice to have," not a necessity.

Nevertheless, 13 people have now died in these ICE detention centers this fiscal year; more than 60% since Trump took office. Between that, the lack of medical care, the total lack of sanitation, and the insufficient food water, ICE detention centers are certainly concentration camps. So, for that matter, are most privately-operated prisons. Sanitation is reportedly subpar. Conditions are horrible; safety is no guarantee. But at least prisons house actual criminals.

If you're reading this and thinking, “But they are criminals! They entered the country illegally!" then here’s a surprise! When illegal entry to this country comes to light for a settled person with no criminal record, it's treated as a misdemeanor, and it does not typically come with jail time.

A misdemeanor. Public intoxication is a misdemeanor. So is driving without a license. So is being a minor in possession of alcohol.

If you've ever been rowdy leaving a bar, if you've ever forgotten to renew your license and had to chance a drive to the BMV, if you've ever given your college kid a glass of wine on a special occasion - or had a beer at a freshman party on campus - then congratulations! You yourself are just as much a hideous and terrible criminal as someone who comes into this country illegally to live.

Should you, then, be locked up in a place like this? I assume you'd be fine with that, right? You know: rule of law, and all.

For 22 years now, I have researched the history, context, and aftermath of the Holocaust. I have been to the museums. I have been to the camps (I have thrown up at the camps). I have lived in Germany and talked to Germans about their culture’s #1 taboo topic and gotten answers only because of my fluent German - and my own heritage. I have met up with my third cousin, whose branch of our family did not leave when mine did, and heard about those relatives’ activities during World War II.

It used to be that people would ask, “How could such a thing happen?" And part of the answer used to be that it was difficult to get definitive confirmation of the kidnap of millions of Jews, Romani, Slavic peoples, the mentally and physically handicapped, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community - let alone hands-down, no-question proof of their mass murder, from Kiel in the north to Klagenfurt in the south; from Alsace-Lorraine in the west to Bialystock in the east, and to all the small towns in between. There was plausible deniability as well as genuine doubt, and people living in very remote areas might honestly not have known how bad it had gotten.

But come on. This was on TV. We cannot deny it.

“Alligator Alcatraz"-branded merch currently for sale at the Florida GOP Store

Folks, way too many immigrants, innocent people, are being abducted - yes, abducted - by ICE as they’re faithfully checking in for appointments pertaining to their Intensive Supervision Appearance Programs (ISAP), as they had agreed to do in order to stay and work here legally, but without a built-in path to a green card. They trusted our government, they trusted us - and we kidnapped them and threw them in jail.

This is so far from the America that I grew up in just 25 or 30 years ago that it feels like a horrible dream.

And by the way - you really, seriously have a problem with undocumented immigrants being allowed to work and pay taxes as they file formal visa applications?! I thought “Arbeit Macht Frei!"

The fact of the matter is that when individual non-citizens are following the law of the land more closely than entire entities of the United States government, well, that spells trouble. To paraphrase another noted huckster who succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, “That’s trouble with a capital ‘T,’ and that rhymes with” “D,” in this case - which stands for “dictator.”

We thought Harold Hill was a con man! Trump makes him look like Mr. Rogers.

And President Donald Trump is going to sing and dance his way out of here with our Constitution in a way that the Music Man could only dream of. But go ahead: Order your Alligator Alcatraz beer-can coozy or T-shirt. Crow at this. Go ahead, laugh! After all, you've never done anything wrong!

But every time you look at the stupid, cheap ICE merch you just had to have, in order to show off how much contempt you truly have for your fellow man, I’ll be the voice inside your head, whispering “Auschwitz."

Maybe that way, you'll at least learn how to pronounce it.