Who Arrests Politicians From The Opposition? There's a Long List— Of People Condemned By History

Who Up The Chain Gave The Order To Arrest Baraka? Was It Trump?

6 top contenders in NJ gubernatorial race

And just like that,” wrote New Jersey Advance reporters Tom Martello and Brent Johnson, “Newark Mayor Ras Baraka is the most talked-about politician in New Jersey. His dramatic arrest by ICE agents outside a detention center Friday quickly made national and international headlines. It could also propel him to the top of the heap in the Democratic primary for governor— a May surprise in what has already been an election year like no other in the Garden State. ‘I think we have our frontrunner,’ said one Democratic operative who declared ‘this volatile moment’ could be a ‘game-changer’ in a tightly packed, six way race in with the primary exactly one month away.” And now New Jersey political circles are buzzing with rumors that progressive luminaries AOC, Bernie and Jasmine Crockett are going to throw their support behind Baraka this week.

That’s a helluva better rumor than the one circulating about conservative Democrat Mikie Sherrill— that she repeatedly inflated her Navy rank during her congressional campaigns and even fed the lie to the White House so that Biden would repeat it publicly. No wonder the corrupt bosses of Hudson County— County Executive Craig Guy, Union City Mayor Brian Stack, Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis, West New York Mayor Albio Sires— dumped Josh Gottheimer and switched to Sherrill! Corruption is still very much alive in New Jersey politics… and Mikie Sherrill is the embodiment. Well…  Gottheimer is too-- a real Twiddle Dee, Twiddle Dum offering to the voters.

Conventional wisdom is that Republicans think their best chance to win in November would be against Baraka, the most progressive of the candidates. But he's also the most inspiring on the candidates and that flies right in the face of that GOP propaganda. Among Democrats everywhere, favored candidates in primaries tend to be the most overtly anti-Trump, not Trump ass-lickers like Gottheimer, who is also the most corporate, most corrupt and most Trump-friendly of all the New Jersey gubernatorial candidates.

Gottheimer-- HA!

Martello and Johnson wrote that “While every Democrat has commercials saying they’ll fight Trump, Baraka’s arrest at the hands of the president’s ICE agents puts him in another league. It could anger Democratic voters and will energize his base. And with all this attention, everybody will know Baraka’s name. ‘He was already over-performing,’ the Democratic operative said of Baraka. ‘This is where our party is right now: looking for a fight with Trump.’ … Trumpist Alina Habba said Baraka was trespassing and ‘ignored multiple warnings’ from U.S. Homeland Security Investigations to leave,” a lie that was instantly exposed by multiple videos of the arrest.

All of Baraka’s Democratic opponents released statements slamming the arrest, including Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, who is fighting Baraka for progressive voters. But not all may want to be drawn into Baraka’s fight. One, New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller, is all in, saying late Friday “the Trump administration isn’t coming for someone else, they are coming for all of us.”

Spiller announced he would be at Delaney Hall, where it all happened, on Saturday morning. He called on “all the other candidates in this race to join me in standing together for justice.”

And for those wondering when the Trump Regime would start arresting Democratic Members of Congress, ICE seems eager to start the ball rolling, threatening to arrest the 3 New Jersey Members who were at the scuffle Friday, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez and LaMonica McIver, claiming, falsely, that the Members assaulted ICE enforcement officers. A spokesperson for Watson-Coleman said that "Threatening to arrest Members of Congress for exercising their lawful oversight authority is another example of this administration abusing its power to try to intimidate anyone to stands up to them.”

It’s a well-worn fascist tactic, dating back to the 1930s’ rise of fascism in Europe, beginning with Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany as they started arresting political opponents as part of their bids to consolidate power, once they could use state mechanisms to suppress dissent. Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister of Italy on October 28, 1922, following the March on Rome. While he initially governed within a coalition, his Fascist Party began targeting opponents— socialists, communists, and liberals— almost immediately. He used the existing police and newly formed Fascist militias (Blackshirts) to intimidate and detain political rivals. Socialists and trade unionists faced arrests during strikes, often under vague charges of “public disorder.” For example, in 1923, socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti reported widespread arrests of anti-fascists in northern Italy. The regime formalized repression after consolidating power. The 1926 Leggi Fascistissime (Fascist Laws) outlawed opposition parties, banned independent press, and established the OVRA (secret police). Political opponents, including communists like Antonio Gramsci (arrested November 1926), were detained in large numbers. Gramsci was sentenced to 20 years for “subversive activities.” By 1926, thousands of anti-fascists were arrested or exiled to remote islands (confino), using tribunals like the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State to bypass regular courts.

Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. The Nazi regime moved swiftly to eliminate opposition, exploiting legal and extralegal means. The Reichstag Fire (February 27, 1933) provided a pretext for mass arrests. The Reichstag Fire Decree suspended civil liberties, enabling the Nazis to detain communists, socialists, and trade unionists without trial. Over 4,000 Communist Party members, including leader Ernst Thälmann, were arrested in Berlin alone within a month. The Enabling Act (March 23, 1933) allowed Hitler’s government to bypass the Reichstag, effectively legalizing arbitrary arrests. The Nazis established “protective custody” (Schutzhaft), a euphemism for indefinite detention of political opponents. The first concentration camp, Dachau, opened in March near Munich to hold political prisoners. By mid-1933, around 27,000 opponents— communists, social democrats, and some conservatives— were detained in camps or prisons. SA and SS units conducted arrests, often with brutal violence. Both regimes acted within months of gaining power, targeting leftists (communists, socialists) first, followed by liberals, conservatives, and other dissenters. Arrests numbered in the thousands by the mid-1920s (Italy) and tens of thousands by 1934 (Germany). Arrests silenced opposition, instilled fear, and paved the way for totalitarian control.

Franco took over Spain in 1939. He had already been arresting and executing political opponents in Nationalist-controlled areas following the July 1936 coup, targeting Republicans, socialists, communists, anarchists and regional separatists (e.g., Catalans, Basques), local Falangist units detaining suspected leftists, often executing them without trial in what became known as the “White Terror.” An estimated 200,000–400,000 deaths occurred, many in mass executions or concentration camps. After the civil war, Franco’s regime systematized repression with mass arrests of Republicans and their supporters, with over 270,000 political prisoners held in camps by 1940. The Law of Political Responsibilities (1939) retroactively criminalized Republican affiliations, leading to widespread detentions, forced labor, and executions. The regime targeted a broad spectrum: leftists, intellectuals (e.g., poet Federico García Lorca, killed in 1936), and even moderate republicans. Purges extended to teachers, civil servants, and unionists to eliminate dissent. 

Hungary’s interwar period was marked by authoritarianism under Regent Miklós Horthy, but fascist elements gained traction in the 1930s. Gyula Gömbös, Prime Minister from 1932 to 1936, pushed fascist-inspired policies, while Ferenc Szálasi’s Arrow Cross Party (1938–1945) was openly fascist and pro-Nazi. Gömbös, appointed in 1932, began targeting communists, socialists, and liberal opponents soon after taking office. Szálasi’s Arrow Cross Party, backed by Germany, seized power in October 1944 after Horthy’s attempt to negotiate peace with the Allies. Arrests of political opponents— socialists, liberals, and Jews— began immediately, alongside mass deportations to pre-El Salvador concentration camps. 

In 1933 when Romania’s fascist Iron Guard gained parliamentary seats, it targeted opposition politicians indirectly through violence. The assassination of Prime Minister Ion Duca (Liberal Party) at the end of that year marked an early strike against a leading political figure, though mass arrests of politicians were limited under King Carol II’s control. In 1940, after Ion Antonescu allied with the Iron Guard, arrests of opposition politicians intensified, targeting leaders of the National Peasants’ Party, the National Liberal Party and the communists.

In Vichy France (1940), Pétain’s regime started arresting Third Republic politicians, targeting those who opposed the armistice or supported de Gaulle’s Free French movement. The dissolution of parliament empowered Vichy to detain dissenters. Arrests intensified as Vichy collaborated with Nazi Germany, focusing on socialist, communist and Gaullist politicians, such as Léon Blum (Socialist Party leader and former Prime Minister) who was charged with treason and deported to Buchenwald, and Édouard Daladier, also a former Prime Minister, who was arrested in 1940 and held in Fort Portalet. Communist deputies, like Gabriel Péri, were detained after the 1940 Communist Party ban; he was executed in 1941.

After Germany’s invasion of Norway in 1940, the Nazi-aligned administration, with Nasjonal Samling support, began arresting politicians who opposed the occupation. Vidkun Quisling’s formal rule from February 1942 intensified these efforts. Johan Nygaardsvold, Labour Party Prime Minister, fled to London, but his allies in Norway, like Labour Party leaders, were arrested, includingl mayors and Storting (parliament) members.

So… lots of precedents for Trump and White House Nazi Stephen Miller to follow. Meanwhile… is this new Kanye West song Twitter’s new anthem? MAGA's? The GOP's?