Vor zwei Jahren ging eine Soravia-Tochter in Deutschland pleite – um plötzlich nicht mehr insolvent zu sein. Deutsche Kleinanleger verloren Hunderte Millionen. Was steckt dahinter?

Red Alert 2 in web browser (chronodivide.com) 20:21  ↑ 102 HN Points

### In raising the alarm about New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, Senator Ted Cruz said Mamdani is not just a mere socialist. No, he’s something far more extreme: a Marxist. Cruz is very confused about what the terms Marxism and socialism mean. * * * Ted Cruz’s thinking implies there’s something dangerous about advocating for the end of private control over productive capacities. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) For months, Zohran Mamdani’s critics have gnashed their teeth over his self-identification as a democratic socialist, an ideology they consider beyond the pale. Their attacks didn’t work; Mamdani won the New York City mayoral race without backing down, even reiterating his socialist affiliation in his victory speech. So now, his critics are upping the ante. Last week on Fox News, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) claimed that Mamdani isn’t a socialist at all. Instead, Cruz said, he’s something far worse. He’s a _Marxist_. The senator is very confused. First, he badly misunderstands what Marxism is. When Mamdani “argues for government seizing the means of production in society,” Cruz said, “that is Marxism.” Cruz is harking back to an earlier bout of right-wing hysteria about Mamdani that broke out last summer, when an old clip emerged of the future mayor at a Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) conference in 2021. In the clip, Mamdani mentions various short-term reforms favored by YDSA and its parent organization, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). But he also mentions the long-term “end goal” of “seizing the means of production.” To the extent that any sense can be squeezed out of Cruz’s alarmism, his idea seems to be something like this: Normal, mainstream democratic socialists might want to implement doses of socialism within a fundamentally capitalist framework, like a “Medicare for All” system of single-payer public health insurance. But the end goal of going beyond capitalism entirely is only advocated by crazy marginal extremists, and Marxism is a word that describes that extreme. This is just plain incorrect. All socialists want private ownership of things like factories, banks, and hospitals to eventually end. Marxism is indeed a variant of socialist thought, but it’s not a more _extreme_ variant. It’s a particular theoretical framework for thinking about systems like capitalism and socialism — their internal economic and political dynamics, and how they rise and fall over the course of history. Karl Marx and his close collaborator Friedrich Engels called the framework they developed “scientific socialism” since they grounded their ideas about how socialism could be achieved in a social-scientific analysis of capitalism. But the non-Marxist socialists of their day (e.g., the “utopian socialists”) had the same end goal of socializing the means of production. All socialists do; it’s the definition of the term. The second problem with Cruz’s thinking is that it implies there’s something dangerous and spooky about advocating for the end of private control over productive capacities, as though holding this view were synonymous with fringe political extremism. In fact, mainstream socialist parties all over the world advocated the end goal of socialism until very recently. Socialist parties — and _in particular_ democratic socialist parties with a strategy informed by a Marxist analysis of material conditions — have long sought to achieve their aims through entirely above-board means. And they have not been secretive about those aims, maintaining that advocating capitalism’s end is no more “extreme” than advocating its continuation. In the UK, for example, the original version of Clause IV of the Labour Party’s constitution committed the party to “secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.” During the nearly eighty years when this was in the Labour Party constitution, there were many Labour mayors of cities like London and Manchester. They mostly did things like build large-scale council housing estates, bring utilities and transport under municipal ownership or control, expand public health and sanitation services, create public parks, and use wage policy and social programs to raise working-class living standards. Mainstream socialist parties in many European and Latin American countries had similar long-term horizons, which they defended and took seriously as they implemented short-term reforms. In Sweden, the ruling Social Democrats even made an abortive attempt to move toward that long-term end goal in 1975, with the “Meidner Plan” that would have required companies over a certain size to cede a certain portion of their ownership shares every year to funds controlled by workers. That effort was politically defeated at the time, but it was a glimpse at one way that a society that had already achieved many short-term reformist goals might try to go beyond capitalist ownership relations. # The Overton Window Shifts To be generous to Cruz, his confusion might be partly explained by the fact that the tradition outlined above has been suppressed for half a century. Many countries no longer have mainstream socialist parties that tie their minimum program of reform to a maximum program of social transformation. He can perhaps be forgiven, then, for having no clue what he’s talking about. The Labour Party, for example, dropped Clause IV in the 1990s. It was the subject of much debate. The argument in favor of keeping it was made well by the Marxist philosopher G. A. Cohen, who observed that it didn’t make much sense to say the party cared about equality while rejecting its commitment to the socialist end goal. He wrote: > In the capitalist division, some live by virtue of their participation in the creation of social wealth, while others live by virtue of their ownership or control of that wealth, and, therefore, on the backs of those who create it. No one can call that division a form of equality. > > But the division between capital and labor is generated by private ownership of means of production. And the only alternative to _private_ ownership of the means of production is _common_ ownership of the means of production. . . . There is no third possibility. Cohen and other socialists lost that debate. And they weren’t alone: Labour’s abandonment of its long-term commitments in the 1990s was part of a global process by which the whole spectrum of mainstream discourse about economics was shifting to the right. Here in the United States, neither of our mainstream parties ever supported socialism in the first place, but at the same time that Tony Blair’s Labour Party was abandoning any pretense of a commitment to socialism, Bill Clinton’s Democrats were abandoning their support for the New Deal order and declaring that “the era of big government is over.” Blair and Clinton were champions of a general shift in how capitalism was managed called neoliberalism. It was a revival (hence “neo”) of an older and more “liberalized” form of capitalism — one, in other words, where employers faced less interference from labor unions and the regulatory and welfare states. It manifested in things like the privatization of railways in the UK, Clinton’s brutal welfare reform in the United States, and the widespread adoption of trade treaties that made it easier for corporations to hop from nation to nation in search of lower wages. If we think of neoliberalism as a kind of global social experiment, the results of that experiment have long since come in. It’s made the lives of vast numbers of human beings far more miserable and precarious. Little wonder, then, that older forms of left politics are being revived today by democratic socialists like Mamdani. Don’t let the Cruzes of the world scare you with visions of radical extremism and Soviet breadlines in Manhattan. A left politics that aims to make policy shifts that benefit the working class here and now, and sets its long-term sights at changing the economic foundations of society through common ownership and democratic control of society’s productive resources, isn’t foreign to the mainstream socialist tradition. It’s the historical core of that tradition. * * *

# Today's links * Zohran Mamdani's world-class photocopier-kicker: Lina Khan has plans for New York City. * Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. * Object permanence: Pirate code in Sony rootkit; Tim Wu on "New Monopolists"; Supersonic chirps in ads; Fordite; Sony's rootkit uninstaller leaves computers insecure; Anne Frank Foundation's copyfraud. * Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. * Recent appearances: Where I've been. * Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. * Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. * Colophon: All the rest. * * * # Zohran Mamdani's world-class photocopier-kicker (permalink) The most exciting thing about Biden's antitrust enforcers was how _good_ they were at their jobs. They were dead-on chapter-and-verse on every authority and statute available to the administrative branch, and they set about in earnest figuring out how to use those powers to help the American people: https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby It was a remarkable contrast from the default Democratic Party line, which is to insist that being elected gives you no power at all, because of filibusters or Republicans or pollsters or decorum or billionaire donors or Mercury in retrograde. It's also a remarkable contrast from Republicans, whose approach to politics is "fuck you, we said so, and our billionaires have showered the Supreme Court in enough money to make that stick." But under Biden, the trustbusters that had been chosen and fought for by the Warren-Sanders wing of the party proved themselves to be both a) incredibly principled; and b) incredibly skilled. They memorized the rulebook(s) and then figured out what they needed to do to mobilize those rules to makes Americans' lives better by shielding them from swindlers, predators and billionaires (often the same person, obvs). They epitomized the joke about the photocopier repair tech, who comes into the office, delivers a swift kick to the xerox machine, and hands you a bill for $75. "$75 for kicking the photocopier?" "No, it's $5 to kick the photocopier, and $70 for knowing where to kick it." https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff One of Biden's best photocopier kickers was and is Lina Khan. She embodies the incredible potential of a fully operational battle-station, which is to say that she embodies the awesome power of a skilled technocrat who is also deeply ethical and genuinely interested in helping the public. Technocrats get a bad name, because they tend to be empty suits like Pete Buttigieg, who either didn't know what powers he had, or lacked the courage (or desire) to wield them: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge But another way of saying "technocrat" is "someone who is very good at their job." And that's Khan. You'll never guess what Khan is doing now: she's co-chairing Zohran Mamdani's transition team! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/12/yes-new-york-will-soon-be-under-new-management-but-zohran-mamdani-is-just-the-start Khan's role in the Mamdani administration will be familiar to those of us who cheered her on at the Federal Trade Commission: she is metabolizing the rules that define the actions that mayors are allowed to take, figuring out how to use those actions to improve the lives of working New Yorkers, and making a plan to combine the former with the latter to make a real difference: https://www.semafor.com/article/11/12/2025/lina-khans-populist-plan-for-new-york-cheaper-hot-dogs-and-other-things Front and center is the New York City Consumer Protection Law of 1969, which contains a broad prohibition on "unconscionable" commercial practices: https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2404&context=mjlr There are many statute books that contain a law like this. For example, Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act bans "unfair and deceptive" practices, and this rule is so useful that it was transposed, almost verbatim, into the statute that defines the Department of Transportation's powers: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/16/for-petes-sake/#unfair-and-deceptive Now, this isn't carte blanche for enforcers to simply point at anything they don't like and declare it to be "unconscionable" or "unfair" or "deceptive" and shut it down. To use these powers, enforcers must first "develop a record" by getting feedback from the public about the problem. The normal way to do this is through "notice and comment," where you collect comments from anyone who wants to weigh in on the issue. Practically speaking, though, "anyone" turns out to be "lawyers and lobbyists working for industry," who are the only people who pay attention to this kind of thing and know how to navigate it. When Khan was running the FTC, she launched plenty of notice and comment efforts, but she went much further, doing "listening tours" in which she and her officials and staff went to the people, traveling the country convening well-attended public meetings where everyday people got to weigh in on these issues. This is an incredibly powerful approach, because enforcers can only act to address the issues in the record, and if you only hear from lawyers and lobbyists, you can only act to address _their_ concerns. Remember when Mamdani was on the campaign trail and he went out and talked to street vendors about why halal cart food had gotten so expensive? It turns out that halal cart vendors each have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to economic parasites who've cornered the market on food cart licenses, which they rent out at exorbitant markups to vendors, who pass those costs on to New Yorkers every lunchtime: https://documentedny.com/2025/11/04/halal-food-trucks-back-mamdani/ That's the kind of thing Khan did when she was running the FTC, identifying serious problems, then seeking out the everyday people best suited to describing how the underlying scams hurt, and how they harmed everyday people: https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy Khan's already picked out some "unconscionable" practices that the mayor has "standalone authority" to address: everything from hospitals that price gouge on over-the-counter pain meds to sports stadiums that gouge fans on hot dogs and beer. She's taking aim at "algorithmic pricing" (when companies use commercial surveillance data to determine whether you're desperate and raise prices to take advantage of that fact) and junk fees (where the price you pay goes _way_ up at checkout time to pay for a bunch of vague "services" that you can't opt out of). This is already making all the right people lose their minds, with screaming headlines about how this will "deliver a socialist agenda": https://web.archive.org/web/20251114230206/https://nypost.com/2025/11/14/us-news/zohran-mamdanis-transition-leader-lina-khan-seeks-more-power-for-him/ In a long-form interview with Jon Stewart, Khan goes deep on her regulatory philosophy and the way she's going to bring the same fire she brought to the most effective FTC since the Carter administration to Mamdani's historic administration of New York City, a municipality with a population and economy that's larger than many US states and foreign nations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRJWM_3OW2Y One important aspect of Khan's work that she is always at pains to stress is _deterrence_. When an enforcer acts against a company that is scamming and preying upon the public, their private finances and internal communications become a matter of public record. Employees and executives have to be painstakingly instructed and monitored so that they don't say anything that will prejudice their cases. All this happens _irrespective_ of the eventual outcome of the case. Remember: we're at the tail end of a 40-year experiment in official tolerance and encouragement for monopolies and corporate predation. Those lost generations saw the construction of a massive edifice of bad case-law and judicial intuition. Smashing that wall won't happen overnight. There will be a lot of losses. But when the process is (part of) the punishment, the mere existence of someone like Khan in a position of power can terrify companies into being on their best behavior. As MLK put it, "The law can't make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and that's pretty important." The oligarchs that acquired their wealth and power by ripping off New Yorkers will never truly believe that working people deserve a fair shake – but if they're sufficiently afraid of the likes of Khan, they'll damned well act like they do. (_Image:lee, CC BY-SA 4.0, modified_) * * * # Hey look at this (permalink) * A dream denied: My 54-year quest to publish a short story in F&SF https://www.scottedelman.com/wordpress/2025/11/12/a-dream-denied/ * The algorithm failed music https://www.theverge.com/column/815744/music-recommendation-algorithms * Why the filibuster? https://coreyrobin.com/2025/11/11/why-the-filibuster/ * Britain’s Railway Privatization Was an Abject Failure https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/53917/britains-railway-privatization-was-an-abject-failure * The lawsuit is over! https://linkletter.org/update-33-the-lawsuit-is-over/ * * * # Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago Sony begins to recall some infected CDs https://web.archive.org/web/20051127235441/http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2005-11-14-sony-cds_x.htm #20yrsago Sony’s rootkit uninstaller is _really_ dangerous https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2005/11/14/dont-use-sonys-web-based-xcp-uninstaller/ #20yrsago Table made from ancient, giant hard-drive platter https://web.archive.org/web/20050929185244/https://grandideastudio.com/portfolio/index.php?id=1&prod=20 #20yrsago EFF to Sony: you broke it, you oughta fix it https://web.archive.org/web/20051126084944/http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/Sony-BMG/?f=open-letter-2005-11-14.html #20yrsago Sony anti-customer technology roundup and time-line https://memex.craphound.com/2005/11/14/sony-anti-customer-technology-roundup-and-time-line/ #20yrsago Visa’s “free” laptop costs at least $60 more than retail in fees https://web.archive.org/web/20051125053825/http://debt-consolidation.strategy-blogs.com/2005/10/free-laptop-from-visa.html #20yrsago Sony’s rootkit infringes on software copyrights https://web.archive.org/web/20061108150242/https://dewinter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=215 #20yrsago Gizmodo flamed by crazy inventor; turns out he’s a crook https://web.archive.org/web/20051126101341/https://us.gizmodo.com/gadgets/portable-media/iload-inventor-vents-is-out-on-bail-136934.php #20yrsago Fox counsels viewers to share videos of shows https://memex.craphound.com/2005/11/13/fox-counsels-viewers-to-share-videos-of-shows/ #20yrsago Sony’s malware uninstaller leaves your computer vulnerable https://www.hack.fi/~muzzy/sony-drm/ #15yrsago Tim Wu on the new monopolists: a “last chapter” for The Master Switch https://web.archive.org/web/20151214010555/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704635704575604993311538482 #15yrsago Man at San Diego airport opts out of porno scanner and grope, told he’ll be fined $10K unless he submits to fondling https://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/these-events-took-place-roughly-between.html #10yrsago 100 useful tips from a bygone era https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/search/index?q=gallaher++how+to+do+it#/?scroll=18 #10yrsago Copyfraud: Anne Frank Foundation claims father was “co-author,” extends copyright by decades https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/books/anne-frank-has-a-co-as-diary-gains-co-author-in-legal-move.html #10yrsago Startup uses ultrasound chirps to covertly link and track all your devices https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/beware-of-ads-that-use-inaudible-sound-to-link-your-phone-tv-tablet-and-pc/ #10yrsago Cop who unplugged his cam before killing a 19-year-old girl is rehired https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/cop-fired-for-having-lapel-cam-turned-off-a-lot-reinstated-to-force/ #10yrsago Hospitals are patient zero for the Internet of Things infosec epidemic https://web.archive.org/web/20151113050443/https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-hospital-hack/ #10yrsago Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s FBI files https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/nov/13/ol-dirty-bastard-fbi-files/ #10yrsago I-Spy Surveillance Books: a child’s first Snoopers Charter https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/2015/11/i-spy-surveillance-books.html #10yrsago China routinely tortures human rights lawyers https://www.businessinsider.com/amnesty-international-report-on-torture-2015-11 #10yrsago Fordite: a rare mineral only found in old Detroit auto-painting facilities https://miningeology.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-most-amazing-rocks.html #10yrsago Facebook won’t remove photo of children tricked into posing for neo-fascist group https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-34797757 #5yrsago Big Car wants to pump the brakes on Right to Repair https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/13/said-no-one-ever/#r2r #1yrago America's richest Medicare fraudsters are untouchable https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/13/last-gasp/#i-cant-breathe * * * # Upcoming appearances (permalink) * London: Enshittification with Sarah Wynn-Williams and Chris Morris, Nov 15 https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/event/cory-doctorow-with-sarah-wynn-williams * London: Downstream IRL with Zack Polanski, Ash Sarkar, and Aaron Bastani (Novara Media), Nov 17 https://dice.fm/partner/tickets/event/oen5rr-downstream-irl-aaron-bastani-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-17th-nov-earth-london-tickets * London: Enshittification with Carole Cadwalladr (Frontline Club), Nov 18 https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/in-conversation-enshittification-tickets-1785553983029 * Virtual: Enshittification at the Internet Archive, Nov 21 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-talk-enshittification-tickets-1839608451399 * Virtual: Enshittification with Vass Bednar (Vancouver Public Library), Nov 21 https://www.crowdcast.io/@bclibraries-present * Toronto: Jailbreaking Canada (OCAD U), Nov 27 https://www.ocadu.ca/events-and-exhibitions/jailbreaking-canada * San Diego: Enshittification at the Mission Hills Branch Library, Dec 1 https://libraryfoundationsd.org/events/doctorow * Seattle: Neuroscience, AI and Society (University of Washington), Dec 4 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/neuroscience-ai-and-society-cory-doctorow-tickets-1735371255139 * Madison, CT: Enshittification at RJ Julia, Dec 8 https://rjjulia.com/event/2025-12-08/cory-doctorow-enshittification * Hamburg: Chaos Communications Congress, Dec 27-30 https://events.ccc.de/congress/2025/infos/index.html * * * # Recent appearances (permalink) * How to dis-Enshittify the world (Blood In the Machine) https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/how-to-dis-enshittify-the-world-with * Reimagining Digital Public Infrastructure (Attention: Govern Or Be Governed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JuXDfDtBY * Enshittification and How To Fight It (ILSR) https://www.whoshallrule.com/p/enshittification-and-how-to-fight * Big Tech’s “Enshittification” & Bill McKibben on Solar Hope for the Planet https://www.writersvoice.net/2025/11/cory-doctorow-on-big-techs-enshittification-bill-mckibben-on-solar-hope-for-the-planet/ * Enshittification and the Rot Economy with Ed Zitron (Clarion West) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz71pIWbFyc * * * # Latest books (permalink) * "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 * "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ * "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). * "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). * "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). * "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). * "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. * "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com * * * # Upcoming books (permalink) * "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026 * "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 * "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026 * "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026 * * * # Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: **Currently writing:** * "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE AND SUBMITTED. * A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING * * * This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. * * * # How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://twitter.com/doctorow Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "_When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla_ " -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. 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Going beyond simple accuracy for evaluating abstraction abilities

“It felt like we were under siege.” That’s how Darrell Ballard, a 63-year-old Chicago resident, described a massive federal raid on a South Side apartment complex on Tuesday that involved a swarm of drones, snipers rappelling from helicopters, and hundreds of heavily armed agents. They stormed the building, breaking down doors and igniting flash-bang grenades, and pulled out dozens of residents—some of whom were naked children, and many of whom were U.S. citizens. The adults were cuffed and the kids zip-tied to each other, in some cases for hours, while their names were run through a database to check for existing warrants and citizenship status. The Department of Homeland Security claimed, without providing evidence, that the building was a hotbed for Tren de Agua, the Venezuelan drug gang. Two days after federal agents turned a peaceful apartment complex in Chicago into a war zone, Donald Trump informed Congress that he had “determined” that drug cartels operating in foreign countries are “nonstate armed groups” and “unlawful combatants,” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States.” Trump was declaring war, in other words, and providing the same post-9/11 rationale used for taking out terrorists to justify repeated airstrikes on small Venezuelan vessels in the Caribbean that have left several dead. The administration has claimed, again without providing evidence, that these ships are carrying drugs—not that the presence of drugs would warrant obliterating them, the administration’s legal contortions notwithstanding. Even with the fig leaf of legality, those strikes almost certainly defy international law, just as the warrantless detention of U.S. citizens in Chicago make a mockery of the Constitution. Taken together, they are stark examples of an administration that is increasingly using state violence with impunity—both outside and within America’s borders. But they are also chilling signs for the future: The awesome power being wielded against Venezuelans may one day be wielded against what Trump calls “the enemy within”—and justified on similar grounds. It’s becoming clear that the administration’s extralegal assault on immigrant communities was just the beginning of a wider war, one that lately hast targeted anyone—from the street to the TV screen—who dares criticize the regime. Trump and his cronies have targeted media and entertainment companies, with the president filing baseless lawsuits against organizations like _The New York Times_ (which is fighting) and CBS (which folded)—the goal being to cow them, and by extension their entire industries, into submission. Though unsuccessful, the Federal Communications Commission’s effort to push ABC host Jimmy Kimmel off the air—done via an assist from right-leaning affiliate broadcasters—showed that the administration does not give a damn about the First Amendment. It was also unmistakable proof that it will use state power to crush dissent with impunity. There are troubling signs as well that the administration aims to attack critics of the Department of Homeland Security, the Border Patrol, and ICE in much the same way that it is attacking immigrant communities. As protesters massed outside an immigration detention facility that was being visited by Homeland Security head Kristi Noem, they were met with barricades, violence, and arrest. The same day, _Wired_ reported that ICE was assembling a 20-person team to monitor social media to target people—presumably critics—for deportation, and Apple, in yet another blow to free speech, announced it was removing apps used to track ICE raids in communities, accepting the administration’s baseless claim that it endangered the agents’ safety. That argument—that criticizing ICE’s gestapo tactics amounts to a physical threat—is absurd, but it is increasingly being used to justify crackdowns on administration critics. Trump’s decision to label “antifa” a domestic terrorist organization after Charlie Kirk’s assassination—even though his assassin had no connection to far-left anti-fascist organizations—was largely symbolic. There is no “antifa” command structure because it is not an organized group; labeling it a terrorist organization was applauded on the right, where it has become an almost mythic bugbear, but meant little in practice. Still, it was a fearful sign that the president will eagerly label critics and opponents terrorists and attempt to direct federal law enforcement agencies against them. It would be a mistake to describe this as a crisis that has yet to arrive. Immigrant communities, foreign students, and pro-Palestinian activists have been victims of state violence practically from the moment Trump reentered the White House. This administration has already deployed the military to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and plans to do so in Portland, Oregon, and Chicago. It has already sicced its lawyers on the president’s “enemies,” notably former FBI Director James Comey, who last month was slapped with ridiculous charges of lying to Congress. And yet, we have all seen enough these past eight months to know how much worse it can, and almost certainly will, get. Speaking to hundreds of military commanders on Tuesday, Trump hinted that he plans on expanding his crackdown to target administration critics, activists, and pretty much anyone else who dares speak out against a corrupt and increasingly murderous president. “This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room because it’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control,” Trump said. “It won’t get out of control once you’re involved at all.” It’s easy to see that becoming a legal justification for just about anything—just as ICE claims critics endanger its agents, or the administration claims it can kill anyone it says is trafficking drugs or arrest anyone who belongs to “antifa.” Trump’s comments were met with stony silence by the generals, but he didn’t seem to mind. He kept on talking. Who was going to stop him? He has all the power now, and he knows it.