Dwain Northey (Gen X)

At this point, acting shocked that migrant boats from Venezuela sink under the weight of U.S. hostility is like being startled that a microwave heats your food. It’s not a malfunction — it’s the intended setting. It’s what happens when a political movement builds its immigration philosophy around the idea that suffering isn’t collateral damage; it’s a feature designed to “send a message.”

And we’ve known this vibe for years. Donald Trump practically announced it when he told police officers they didn’t have to be “too nice” while loading suspects into police cars. That wasn’t improvisation. That was the thesis. A kind of presidential freestyle about how due process is cute but optional, and roughing people up is apparently just “law and order with personality.”

It matches perfectly with a justice worldview that seems allergic to the very American concept of innocent until proven guilty. Instead, it’s like they’ve adopted the legal philosophy of a medieval dungeon: you’re guilty until you claw your way back to innocence, preferably while blindfolded and handcuffed.

And now, onto the coastline — because why stop at domestic policing when you can bring the chaos offshore?

For decades, drug interdiction on our waters has been the Coast Guard’s lane — and the Coast Guard, while uniformed and disciplined, isn’t even part of the Department of Defense. Historically they lived under the Treasury Department, the people whose job is basically “keep the money safe and try not to sink anything unnecessarily.” Their mission has been simple: stop suspicious vessels, search them, seize contraband, and bring people in alive. You know, the normal law-enforcement stuff we claim to respect.

But enter Pete Hegseth — cosplay general, cable-warrior extraordinaire — acting as though he’s Secretary of Actual War, and Donald Trump nodding along like he’s watching a rerun of “Battleship.” Suddenly this long-standing law enforcement role is being reimagined as a military operation where, instead of intercepting drug boats and arresting smugglers, the preferred tactic seems to be:

Why not just sink them?

No arrests, no seizures, no trials, no “innocent until proven guilty,” no paperwork — just a tidy little splash and the problem is “solved.”

It’s the same psychological throughline every time: if you remove the inconvenience of human rights, everything gets so much simpler, doesn’t it?

Because when your governing ethos is “don’t be nice,” the slope from “rough them up in the back of the cruiser” to “sink the vessel before asking what’s on it” isn’t slippery — it’s practically greased.

So when tragedies happen — when migrants drown, when suspects are treated like convicts before anyone checks the facts, when humanitarian crises get dressed up as “tough decisions” — we’re not witnessing accidents. Or improvisations. Or mistakes.

We’re witnessing the natural outcome of a political philosophy where cruelty isn’t collateral.

It’s the plan.