Timothy Snyder Trump’s likely next step:

What comes next? For the Nazis, the deportation and the pogrom of autumn 1938 were steps towards creating a centralised national police agency. In the US, something similar is unfolding with ICE: tasked initially to carry out deportations, it has taken on espionage roles, provoked citizens in the cities, and then is reinforced by soldiers of the National Guard. In these respects it is becoming something like a national police force, with ideological propaganda and connection to part of the armed services.

In one way, mass deportations and a national pogrom advanced the Nazi regime change. But this kind of instability was unpopular inside Germany – much as ICE raids are unpopular in US cities. The radical next steps were only possible under cover of war. That would be the classic next step in the regime change, the easy way to eliminate the internal enemy by identifying him with an external enemy. For Trump, a war with Venezuela (or someone) would be the next logical move in domestic politics.

It is not hard to see that Trump understands this, given all the militaristic talk and the murder of civilians in the Caribbean, including survivors killed in obvious violation of the law.