Behold the latest installment of the American tragedy, a script so predictable and unimaginative it would be rejected by a third-rate cable access channel. The chattering classes are currently vibrating with a brand of synthetic shock over the revelation that Donald Trump has effectively transformed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency into his own personal Praetorian Guard. They call it a 'goon squad'—as if that were a new development in the grand, rotting theater of Western governance. In reality, it is merely the logical conclusion of a society that traded its soul for a 24-hour news cycle and a collection of red hats manufactured in the very overseas factories they claim to despise.

Trump, a man whose primary intellectual contribution to the world is the realization that if you shout a lie loud enough, the truth becomes a nuisance, has tied his entire political identity to the visceral fear of the 'other.' It is a classic grift, older than the hills and twice as dusty. By weaponizing ICE, he hasn't just created a law enforcement agency; he has curated a physical manifestation of his own insecurities. These agents, often depicted by the breathless media as a shadowy cabal of stormtroopers, are actually something far more pathetic: they are the bored, the angry, and the intellectually stunted, given a badge and a mandate to act out the fantasies of a man who thinks exercise is bad for your 'finite battery' of energy.

To the Right, these agents are the vanguard of civilization, the only thing standing between a picket-fence utopia and a fictionalized horde of invaders. It is a moronic delusion, of course. The 'law' they claim to protect is nothing more than a series of suggestions that can be ignored whenever the Leader has a bad night on Truth Social. They don’t want law; they want the thrill of the boot. They are the kids who got picked last in gym class, now finally given the authority to demand everyone else’s lunch money in the name of 'border security.' It is a spectacle of greed and small-mindedness that would be hilarious if it weren’t so profoundly tedious.

But let us not ignore the Left, those professional pearl-clutchers who treat every Trumpian decree like the opening of the seventh seal. Their outrage is as performative as a high school production of 'The Crucible.' They lament the 'death of the rule of law' while simultaneously enjoying the high-definition drama that keeps their fundraising emails lucrative. To the liberal elite, the ICE goon squad is a godsend. It gives them a villain to tweet about from the comfort of their gated communities and artisanal coffee shops. They don’t actually want to solve the problem; they want to archive the problem in a series of poignant documentaries that no one will watch. They are the symbiotic partner in this dance of dysfunction, providing the necessary 'resistance' to ensure the cycle of panic never actually stops.

We are told that this squad is replacing 'law' with a 'state of panic.' This implies, quite hilariously, that there was a functioning 'law' to begin with. The American legal system has always been a moth-eaten tapestry, held together by the collective hallucination that if we use enough Latin phrases and wear enough polyester robes, we can transcend our basic animal instincts. Trump didn’t break the law; he just pointed out that the law is a suggestion for anyone with enough followers and a lack of shame. The panic is not a bug; it is the feature. Panic is what sells subscriptions. Panic is what keeps the population from noticing that while they argue about who gets to cross a line in the dirt, the entire ship is sinking under the weight of its own hubris.

Historically, every crumbling empire has its version of the goon squad—the men who do the dirty work while the elites argue about the price of grain or the gender of statues. But ours is uniquely American in its stupidity. It is a paramilitarism driven by branding. It is 'Goon Squad™' brought to you by a man who once tried to sell steaks through the Sharper Image catalog. The agents aren't motivated by a grand ideology; they are motivated by the same thing that drives a middle-manager at a failing insurance firm: the desire to feel slightly more important than the person in front of them.

Ultimately, we deserve this. We deserve the orange-tinted narcissist and his band of merry enforcers. We deserve the performative weeping of the opposition. We have spent decades dismantling the very idea of objective truth, replacing it with 'personal brands' and 'alternative facts.' Why should we be surprised when the person with the loudest brand decides to hire some muscle to protect it? The 'state of panic' isn't a crisis; it’s the new national pastime. So, sit back, grab your overpriced snacks, and watch the collapse in 4K. Just don’t act surprised when the goons eventually realize that you’re just as replaceable as the people they were sent to hunt. After all, in a kingdom of narcissists, everyone is an intruder eventually.