G Estapo-Greg calls him California Governor Gavin Newsom succinctly. This means Gregory Bovino. The head of the ICE border protection agency has earned his nickname, as he aims to call out the Gestapo association. The robust man shaves the hair above his ears and on the back of his neck and wears long military coats. To call his outfit martial would be an understatement.
Debates rage online about whether this nickname trivializes National Socialism. Sorry, people: Anyone who dresses like that and heads an authority whose job is to appear as brutal as possible and to hunt down people who don’t look like them white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and constantly breaking the law, can already be called a fascist.
However, it gets less attention Self-staging of his stormtrooperswho come across like mercenaries or guerrillas. They wear jeans or cargo pants, lumberjack shirts or T-shirts, tactical vests over them, some imaginary information on the chest instead of a name or a service number and the words “ICE” and “Police” written on the back.
This text comes from the weekday. Our weekly newspaper from the left! Every week, wochentaz is about the world as it is – and as it could be. A left-wing weekly newspaper with a voice, attitude and the special taz view of the world. New every Saturday at the kiosk and of course by subscription.
The most important accessory of the ICE police officers is the tube scarf, in English neck gaiter. You pull it over your nose in one quick movement and the mask is ready. These men do not want to be recognized in their work, which is authorized by Donald Trump but is often illegal.
Democrats call for mask ban
You are not alone in this. Around the world, the henchmen of authoritarian regimes protect themselves from social ostracism and potential criminal prosecution by wearing masks. Their appearance as an anonymous block conveys the message: We are untouchable. Which is why the Democrats in the US Senate are now calling for a mask ban for ICE people.
The neck gaiter is a piece of clothing that protesters around the world also wear, especially where they cannot hope for the state to protect their rights. When a debate raged in Germany in the 1980s about the ban on masking at demonstrations because autonomous stone throwers wore so-called hate masks, Thomas Gottschalk said the memorable sentence: “Better a masked youth than a dumbed-down youth.”
The fact that the executive forces citizens to show their faces on the street, while allowing their staff to remain faceless, is an expression of a power imbalance that is inherent in the modern state. The sovereign is the one who decides who can be anonymous and who cannot.