Hard disagree.

Anyone who believed (or believes) that they were going to focus only on “the bad ones” (a racist, xenophobic, and factually inaccurate trope in and of itself) is at best willfully ignorant, and at worst an overt racist, as well as an abject idiot to boot.

It was extremely obvious what the regime’s predilections were during orangeboi’s first stint. They used the federal government as an instrument of retribution the first time around too, only there were people around to stop it at that time, and they didn’t understand the levers of power enough to effectively use them to achieve their aims. Now they do, and they are. None of this is a mystery. Every fucking bit of this was eminently predictable. You are not allowed to be surprised by this.

And yes: the Cuban population of Florida absolutely fell for this idiocy hook, line, and sinker. It’s horrible that they’re being targeted, but it’s horrible that any immigrant population is being targeted. The Cuban diaspora gets absolutely zero additional sympathy from me past the baseline of humanistic dignity, specifically because they wanted this, and they categorically ignored what “this” is. This is 10/10 leopards eating faces.

You have completely lost the plot here.

They may have thought they were voting for something other than this shit show but it was extremely obvious that nothing good could come from voting for Trump if you aren't one of his friends.

This IS what people voted for, because they voted for this sack of shit and the project 2025 was written out well ahead of the elections.

They were lied to about many things, but they still voted for a lying liar and fucking should have known better.

This is everyone's fault who voted for this orange shit sack

promise made was the mass deportation of criminal immigrants

Yes. That's what is happening. Anyone brown is a criminal to these folks.

What is happening is state-sponsored domestic terrorism

Well, also yes. How else were they going to hit the numbers they promised.

Nothing they're doing now is different than what was promised then. It's just that people failed to understand what context the words were being spoken in. They ASSUMED the context wasn't white nationalism. They were wrong.

It was not particularly veiled. The level of hysteria around immigrants "eating the cats and the dogs" and other insane statements made very, very clear trump thought every nonwhite immigrant was an illegal criminal. He constantly accused legal immigrants of being illegals. He said asylum seekers were illegals.

The thing that should be surprising is that actual criminals seem to be targeted at a lower rate than ever before.

The promise made was the mass deportation of criminal immigrants.

Anyone who says this is fucking lying and anyone who believes it is a fucking idiot.

They set a goal of 100m deportations. They said this before the elections. They did not hide it.