“Immigration” is about human beings moving into a country for purposes of residency. In our latest Substack Live chat earlier this week, Anat Shenker-Osorio explained why Trump’s attacks on immigrants are not “immigration policy”—they are abductions, disappearances, and the construction of concentration camps. Read Anat’s latest piece in The Contrarian, “Fascism and the English Language,” for more of her messaging guidance on this topic.
MAGA is “an always-on, always-working writer's room of authoritarian hate-baiting and narrative creation,” as Anat put it. Words mean things, and we unwittingly boost MAGA’s hate-baiting narratives when we repeat their choice phrases, like “Alligator Alcatraz.”
We also discussed some problems with how the media is framing coverage of Trump and Epstein, why we need to discuss what’s happening in America as if it were happening in any other country, and why casting ballots in 2026 might not mean the same thing as the “elections” we’re used to.
Programming note: Moving forward, Substack Live conversations like this will be published in a separate section, “WER Live.” If you are already a Weekend Reading subscriber, click here to receive emails with a link to join when I am hosting a WER Live, or to modify your email settings for Weekend Reading.
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