This Is Not a Joke. And He Knows It.

Donald Trump sent a fundraising email that crossed a line most democracies don’t come back from.

Give me money, or ICE will assume you’re an illegal alien and “track you down.”

They’ll tell you it’s a joke. They always do.

But Trump understands something his defenders pretend not to: his threats or perceived jokes don’t land as humor. His followers hang on every word.

He knows the right-wing media ecosystem will twist this. By tomorrow, this won’t be framed as a scammy fundraising gimmick. It will be reframed as a message: that liberals are illegitimate, un-American, suspect. That political opposition is grounds for surveillance. That disagreement is a deportable offense.

This is how authoritarian language works. It doesn’t start with mass arrests. It starts by collapsing categories. Immigrant becomes criminal. Critic becomes enemy. Donor becomes citizen. Non-donor becomes “illegal.”

ICE is not a punchline. Deportation is not a metaphor. And threatening state power against political opponents, even rhetorically, is not campaign rhetoric. It is conditioning.

This isn’t about humor. It’s about permission.