Glamorous people are considered dangerous.
This is especially true in a United States that has long been described for people of color that look and act to prove the use of force, which is the sting of the dark man to white women.
So when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said after Senator Alex Padilla interrupted her press conference on Thursday: “People need to recognize themselves before they start Chase” – it’s hard to believe that this doesn’t mean it is a word that is intentionally loaded with a loading result.
For those who don’t watch Fox and other right-wing media, I’ll show you how Noem’s description works. They say Padilla is the Trump version of the story, and he gets what he deserves: He broke into a press conference, they say he pushed to the stage and failed to identify himself.
Just asked my inbox.
“This is what your article should say,” wrote one fan of my column. “‘Dei’s appointed Senator Alex Padilla dressed like a truck driver, held like a potential attacker or mental case, held a press conference by senior cabinet members and began yelling and disturbing her.'”
Another reader talks about racism more concisely.
The reader quipped, “Juan without law.”
We will understand whether Padilla devours it, it is just the real danger of bows and arrows. But the bigger problem is that the Trump administration is building fear and establishing alternative reality for support for military repression. Our demand is not that we believe Padilla is a threat, but that we believe that the United States has become a chaos caused by immigration that only the army can calm down, and that Trump needs the power of the king to lead our redemption.
So the question of whether Padilla really pierces is not the real question – because as the video shows, it’s obvious that he’s nowhere near as unintentional damage as Noem, but why Noem chose to call it a lunge.
“It is very honest to say that Kristi Noem’s claim was his greeting to her,” Joan Donovan told me. She is a disinformation expert and an assistant professor of journalism at Boston University.
“The Trump administration is coveting a big competition that will allow them to drive the army into any old town,” she said. “They don’t seem to have such a major intervention and excessive force that these people can’t overcome.”
Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants, is a candid man. My colleague Gustavo Arellano described him as “Sugar Two Shoes”.
But these are not days of mind. Padilla said he briefed a general in the federal building on Thursday as he had been trying to fail for weeks to get answers on how to deal with deportation.
Padilla said Noem’s press conference delayed the briefing, so – escorted by federal authorities, who knew exactly who they were escorting, he said – he went to listen to Noem in hopes of getting some information.
Padilla said he was tired of her speech about the criminal and the invasion and tried to ask a question while crossing the wall of the TV camera. In the video I watched, multiple federal agents (which seemed to be some from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI) blocked his way and then started pushing him back. Padilla seemed to continue moving forward, but was overwhelmed and forced into the corridor. Here he was taken to the ground with his cuffs.
It’s hard to see the lunge in it. If there is one, it is at least 10 feet away from Noem. Ed Obayashi, an expert who uses power, told me that in this case, law enforcement officers are expected to use their judgments about danger.
“They tried to stop him from approaching,” Obayasi said, noting that protecting Norm was the officer’s job. “They tried to do their best in this situation to prevent him from getting closer.”
However, he added that from what we see in the video, it seems Padilla showed “intention” to cause harm, and he was really far away. Distance will make a difference when judging whether a lunge is a threat.
“It seems like he won’t rush up,” Obayasi said.
So be fair to officials who may or may not realize they are manipulating U.S. Senate, who have a job to do, even if they are a little enthusiastic.
But Norm knows it’s better. It is hard to imagine that she didn’t know Padilla, who served on the Confirmation Committee and is a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship and Border Security.
If she doesn’t, her confidant and close consultant Corey Lewandowski did. Padilla told the New York Times that he was detained in the corridor: “When everyone, Corey Lewandowski… came to the hall and he started yelling, ‘Let him go! Let him go!'”
Of course, Padilla shouted that he was a senator and forced to deny any lunges.
“I didn’t cheat on her or anyone, yes, I’m sure myself,” he said on CNN.
Of course, Nom could have said something to digest the situation. She could have asked Padilla to go back to the room to answer his questions. Padilla said the two met after the press conference and spoke for about 15 minutes, meaning Noem knew his intentions when he later accused him of “arches”.
So something that could have been dealt with as an unfortunate encounter was intentionally escalated. Shortly after Noem’s statement, the White House media secretary released Padilla’s “the harshness of recklessness to the podium” on X, consolidating this narrative as the duty of the right.
For weeks, the Trump administration has been intensifying the war on dissent. A few weeks after Padilla was handcuffed, U.S. Rep. Lamonica McIver (DN.J.) was indicted by a grand jury for “forced obstruction and interference” with federal law enforcement after clashes outside the New Jersey ice detention center. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested in the same incident but was later revoked.
In April, Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested in her own court after being accused of helping an immigrant appear in court to escape from an ice officer, allowing him to withdraw through public doors.
Just before the Padilla incident, Norm claimed that despite the protests, federal agents would remain in Los Angeles, with hundreds of people cited or arrested. By Friday, the Marines had been deployed in Los Angeles, with little clarity on whether their guns contained live tours and under what circumstances were authorized to open fire.
“We are here to liberate the city from the heavy leadership of the socialists and the governor, and the mayor has placed it in this country and what they are trying to insert into the city,” Neum said.
Liberate American cities. With the troops.
Oppose objections. fear.
A Prri survey last fall found that 26% of Republicans said: “It is necessary that the president has the right to limit the influence of opposition parties and groups.”
It also found that “there is a strong overlap between Americans who hold Christian nationalist and authoritarian views.”
“If Trump and Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth will continue to arrest democratic representatives, it is authoritarianism,” Donovan said. “Those people are the job of representing ordinary people, and if they can’t do that because they are stuck with false accusations or outperform allegations, then we won’t live in a democracy.”
Padilla may have lost his trademark at that press conference cool, but Noem did not.
She knew exactly what she was talking about and why. Padilla’s question is a threat to Trump.
Padilla’s slam became a threat to society and only Trump could stop.
