Policy By Panic

While America sleeps off its feast, tragedy is digested for political theater, cruelty garnished with absurdity, and citizens are offered the illusion that fear can be legislated.

Guest article by Michael Cohen. Remember to follow him on Substack for more by clicking here. Michael is also racing to 500K followers on YouTube! Subscribe today for free here.

Look, I get it. Yesterday was Thanksgiving. We all did our patriotic duty: we overate, we argued, we pretended the canned cranberry sauce was “actually pretty good this year,” and we collapsed into that glorious L-Tryptophan-induced coma that makes you forget your in-laws are still in the living room. Thanksgiving is the one day Americans unite around the belief that nothing bad can happen while we’re unconscious on the couch with football humming in the background.

But today?
Today we wake up.
Today we shake off the gravy fog.
Today we open the fridge, reach for a container half-filled with stuffing — assuming Uncle Bryan didn’t annihilate it at 1 a.m. — and we return to reality.

And reality, my friends, is a cold leftover that no amount of reheating can make palatable.

Because while you and I were lying flat on our backs, recovering from what can only be described as poultry-induced paralysis, the administration — speed-running its pledge to turn America into a white, Christian nationalist diorama — was wide awake.

And they were busy.
Very busy.

Remember: the shooting of the two National Guardsmen in D.C. happened right before Thanksgiving. The tragedy unfolded before the holiday tables were set, before the turkey knives were sharpened, before families gathered. And yet, while the rest of the country chewed through cranberry sauce and tried to swallow the day’s grief, the administration seized the moment. Not to heal. Not to investigate gun culture or domestic radicalization. Not even to confront obvious problems like weapon access and online extremism.

No. They went right for the thing they always go for when they want to make an ideological point: immigration.

Within hours of the attack — and, crucially, before millions sat down to their Thanksgiving dinner — USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) announced a “full scale, rigorous reexamination” of every Green Card holder from “countries of concern.” The list? Nineteen nations flagged in the June proclamation: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, with partial restrictions on Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

If you’re keeping score, that sequence matters. The shooting was not some sleepy post-holiday talking point. It was the spark. The administration didn’t wait for answers, didn’t wait for due process, didn’t wait for evidence. Instead, it used the tragedy as a cudgel to advance the same preexisting agenda: shrink the definition of who counts as American until it fits a Norman Rockwell painting come to life — only darker and entirely fictional.

Let’s call this what it is: “policy by panic.”
The new order equates entire nations with imminent threats and treats legal permanent residents — people who have passed more background checks than half the administration — as enemies within. Green Card holders who pay taxes, raise families, run businesses, and serve communities are suddenly up for review because the administration has decided fear is a better governing principle than facts.

This is not security.
This is performative exclusion.

We’ve seen the playbook: the “Muslim ban,” children in cages, asylum shutdowns, the weaponization of bureaucratic red tape, cruelty disguised as policy. Swap out the dog whistles for a bullhorn and you get today’s directive — icy, sweeping, and politically convenient.

And the rhetoric? Predictable. USCIS tells us “American safety is non-negotiable,” a phrase designed to close hearts and borders simultaneously. Then the President throws the verbal grenade: a promise to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries” so the system can “fully recover.” As if immigration is a sprained ankle instead of the lifeblood of a nation built by, and sustained through, newcomers.

If the administration actually cared about preventing violence against service members, it would invest in mental health, investigate domestic extremist networks, strengthen targeted intelligence, and focus on individuals — not entire populations. But nuance doesn’t fire up the base. Broad brushes do. Scapegoats do. Whole nations cast as villains do.

And make no mistake: once policy targets groups instead of bad actors, the path leads straight to stereotyping and systemic discrimination. Today they reexamine Green Card holders from nineteen countries. Tomorrow they expand the list. Next week it’s travelers. Then residents. Then naturalized citizens. The final stage is cultural cleansing wrapped in the flag and stamped “national security.”

So as you wipe the last of the gravy from your chin and debate whether cold turkey on toast counts as breakfast (it does), remember the actual order of events: the shooting happened before Thanksgiving. The crackdown came immediately after. That timing is not coincidence; it’s strategy.

Tragedy was the match.
And the administration struck it with enthusiasm.

So, let’s wake up. Leftovers can wait. Democracy cannot.

Now pass the stuffing, and remember that in Washington, disaster is just another canvas for the shameless to paint themselves as heroes. The real miracle is how they keep a straight face while doing it.

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