Two notable speculative fiction novels written in the 1990s by Octavia E. Butler about future life in America are Parable of the Sower (2024-27) and Parable of the Talents (2032). Both are set in a dystopian America in which the government is ineffective, corrupt, and authoritarian—most evident in the practices of local police forces. To my great surprise, the earlier book presciently mentions a president’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”
Here we are in 2025, with a president having the same campaign slogan. His second term more than his first one threatens a dystopian America by making its government ineffective, corrupt, and authoritarian with the aid of the world’s richest man. Authoritarians acquire and secure power by exploiting group rivalries and by using the criminal justice system—police forces, prosecutors, courts—to enforce their whims and will, overpower the populace, and protect themselves by suppressing dissent in the media, curtailing demonstrations in the streets, and rounding-up undesirable Others. Trump is following the example of other authoritarian leaders.
Trump is encouraging bigotry and aggressive, even violent, police behavior. Years ago, he urged officers not to be gentle in putting suspects in police cars. Recently, he shut down the national database on police misconduct so that police departments cannot check on applicants’ backgrounds and discharged officers can transfer without disclosure of their record. He supports the militarization of police forces. Locally, Police Chief Jeremy Story urged City Council to request state funding to further militarize the LCPD with five SWAT vehicles for purposes unstated and situations unimaginable. Story and two subordinates refused my requests, direct or indirect through Councilor Cassie McClure, for information about them and a rationale for their use. Taking its cue, McClure did not object to their refusal and ignored my questions about it. The LCPD seems to think that the public would disapprove of enhanced military capabilities for use against civilians.
Dystopian rot begins in the federal government, then spreads to state and local governments. As the federal government moves against targeted groups by infringing on their legal rights, state and local governments follow or are forced to follow its lead. Trump has threatened sanctuary cities with financial penalties if they do not cooperate with police forces in rounding up illegal immigrants. He has warned state and local police to obey federal demands or face prosecution for obstruction. Police are responding with promptitude. They have begun to violate safe havens like churches and temples, schools, and hospitals. At the checkpoint near Hatch, Border Patrol agents boarded a Las Cruces school bus and shouted demands at students on swim teams for documentation before they left without obtaining what they had demanded.
In his first weeks in office, Trump initiated varying degrees of discriminatory harassment. He prioritized Hispanics presumed to be illegal immigrants for round-ups and deportation. He threatened deportation of Muslim and Arab residents and restrictions on Muslim and Arab immigration. He targeted LGBTQ+ citizens for exclusion from military service and sports teams. He promoted policies with adverse racist and misogynistic effects.
Despite the steady increase in antisemitic occurrences, Trump is letting Jews await their turn, but their day will come, as it always does. The chances that such a day will arrive are greater today than they were yesterday, and it is more likely to arrive earlier in Las Cruces than it is likely to arrive elsewhere. Yet most people think that it can’t happen here—until it does. Where non-Jews require Nazi parades, swastikas on flags and armbands, and “kill-the-kikes” chants as proof of antisemitism, Jews know that quiet, little things—hostile attitudes, derogatory language, and differential treatment—mean a lot and often lead to pogroms or worse. I am not paranoid, only sensitive to the non-negligible chances that my day might come if, now 85, I do not die beforehand. After all, the majority of Las Cruceans are culturally and socially conservative, Catholic, and antisemitic, though not presently virulently so. Their antisemitism sleeps lightly. Still, when awakened unexpectedly, it can exhibit remarkable strength and persistence.
I came face to face with it when a friend and I met with McClure to discuss ways to improve city government. I had provided her with several documents. Some concerned a Public Works project which was ineffective, environmentally destructive, aesthetically spoiled, and hugely expensive. Others concerned five false allegations of code violations. Only one document suggested that the motive for them might be antisemitism.
When McClure joined us but even before she sat down, she peremptorily declared that she saw nothing antisemitic about the alleged code violations. Since the topic of the meeting was government improvements, not antisemitism, I did not address or challenge her opinion. But I knew two things immediately. One, by starting with and stressing the issue of antisemitism, she revealed that it mattered more to her than problems about government operations in Public Works and the LCPD. Two, by curtly dismissing that issue, she adopted a forceful offense in defense and thus revealed herself to be antisemitic.
McClure’s outburst was the first—I should add only—comment on antisemitism in my case by any member of City Council. Until that moment, all members had avoided the issue for over five years. Their avoidance tolerated the discriminatory—antisemitic—treatment which I have experienced from city government officials. None of them asked City Managers, City Attorneys, or Police Chiefs to explain why a veteran officer made five false allegations at a self-identifying Jewish home. None is a Jew; all have less experience with, information about, and insight into antisemitism than I have. If they did not believe my claim of antisemitism, they should have asked me to explain it. But antisemites prefer to hide behind silence to avoid, not address, the issue. When a well-known civic activist wrote to urge them to take up my case, neither Mayor Miyagishima nor any councilor responded. Responses to my complaint other than McClure’s denial and Council’s defensiveness signal that antisemitism pervades city government.
Thus, Internal Affairs ended its investigation of my complaint without addressing any of the five allegations and thus violated my due process rights. It did not admit mistakes, charge the officer for violating police policies, take steps to correct them, and, most important, explain the mistakes. It ignored my suggestion of antisemitism, a fraught issue beyond its competence, until I published a blog about its failure to act on it, then botched its attempt to do so. Worse, the Law Office tried to hide the results of the IA investigation, withheld IA’s finding that the allegations were unsupported, and intervened to prevent a City Manager from making an apology for and retracting the false allegations. Councilor Johana Bencomo heard his admission of error and his desire to right the wrong but did nothing when the City Attorney prevented him from doing so. She was not alone in having been fully informed of my case and having done nothing. The city can respond even now in one of two ways: either prove that the LCPD has treated others as it has treated me—handed out multiple false allegations of code violations—or admit that it is permeated by antisemitism.
Bottom line: about two dozen city officials, police officials, and city attorneys have resisted by silence—ignored or dismissed—my claim of antisemitism for over five years. That fact alone proves that antisemitism is a fact of life in the City of Three Crosses. When the time comes, Las Cruces will bend the knee to authoritarians, obey their commands, and carry out evictions or pogroms against the harassed and the hated, the weakest and the smallest, groups—and not only Jews—among its citizens. Who will be left? You?
