In the first season of Mad Men, protagonist Don Draper crashes at the apartment of a would-be girlfriend’s bunch of beatnik associates. Needless to say, they don’t hit it off. When asked how he sleeps at night, ad executive Draper replies, “on a bed of money.”
Nevertheless, they agree on one thing. They eventually fall asleep after smoking a large quantity of pot. In the morning, they awaken to a police raid in progress at a neighbor’s apartment.
Draper, needing to report to work, straightens his tie and tugs on his suit coat to pull out the wrinkles. As he opens the front door, one of the beatniks anxiously objects, “You can’t go out there!”
Don pauses a beat and says, “No, you can’t,“ and walks out, nodding at the policemen in the hallway as he goes.
I was reminded of this a couple of weeks ago as I boarded a plane for a brief vacation in Mexico. Walking down the jetway, I passed by a Customs and Border Protection agent. Suffice it to say, he was playing the part. Body armor, M-4 carbine slung across his chest, etc. Briefly looking over at him, he gave me a slight nod. Reflexively, I nodded back.
A fleeting exchange to be sure, but telling all the same. Like Don Draper, and unlike many other people, I can pass. I’m an average-looking middle-aged white male who presents conventionally. In a sense, I’m above suspicion. I’m just grateful no one can detain me for my thoughts. Yet.
At least the CBP agents were clearly identifiable. The news of late tells of law enforcement officials unidentifiable by agency or uniform rounding up migrants and student activists. Are they or aren’t they actual cops?
The second coming of Donald Trump has provoked a resurgence in militaristic cosplay. I first noticed the trend the first time around during the lockdown phases of the pandemic. We were shown the spectacle of white men donning tactical gear and brandishing weapons at urban civil rights protests and setting up unauthorized roadblocks in rural locales asserting authority they did not possess. The January 6th insurrection appeared to be the climax of this nonsense which would simmer down with the absence of Trump and his minions from Washington.
Wishful thinking. Shortly after the election, I was at the airport waiting at the baggage carousel when I noticed a young man milling amongst us. He was white, with a beard of course. Otherwise dressed in civilian attire, he was sporting a tactical vest. He walked slowly, with a serious expression, thumbs hooked at the top of his vest. I had no idea who the hell he was or why he was there aside from being an arriving passenger, and I asked myself if anyone else was even noticing this. No one seemed to. It is common enough lately that such sights scarcely raise an eyebrow.
Much as they had during Trump 1.0, the real authorities have gotten in the act. News and phone footage showing what seemed to be ICE agents abducting individuals in public are disturbingly frequent. The agents are generally clad in black or in casual wear, their faces obscured with balaclavas or masks, and they are not displaying badges or other markings identifying which agency they represent. Homeland Security officials defend the practice as protecting law enforcement personnel from being doxed.
Maybe, but probably not. The intended effect is performative intimidation made more ominous by ambiguity. It also looks cool, if you’re into that kind of thing.
Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem is the poster girl for posturing as substitute for public safety. We see her in tactical gear joining Border Patrol agents on a raid. We watch her posing in front of a packed cell of deportees at El Salvador’s supermax CECOT, sporting a $50,000 Rolex no less. She parries a question from U.S. Senator Alex Padilla at a press conference on the wholly unnecessary federal intervention in the civil unrest in Los Angeles by siccing the Secret Service on him.
The optics are lost on her. Appearing before a congressional committee recently, Rep. Bennie Thompson greeted her by thanking her for her time amidst her busy schedule “of photo ops and costume changes.” Noem scarcely batted an eyelash.
As to be expected, bad actors are getting in on the act. You, too, can buy ICE merch online. Young white males have taken to stationing themselves in Home Depot parking lots wearing ICE jackets to scare off day laborers looking for jobs. Even more troubling are reports of midnight “raids” on immigrant households by people claiming to be government agents. In one instance, a family was told to hand over their phones and any cash in their possession. Contacting ICE and Homeland Security offices afterward, the agencies denied knowledge.
The Trump administration’s methods of ensuring law and order have encouraged vigilantism and enabled common criminals to prey upon vulnerable people. You could reason that this is an intended consequence. In the first category, we have a small group of MAGA diehards who believe Trump possesses extralegal authority and that anything they do on his behalf is justified. (I call this the deputization defense; several J6 rioters believed Trump had “deputized” them to stop certification of the 2020 election results.) In the second category are opportunistic crooks and garden variety assholes exploiting people who can’t go to the police.
Authoritarians are drawn to military and police regalia. Perhaps even more so when the individual never served in the military or law enforcement. (Consider Trump’s fixation on parades.) At a certain point, fantasy and reality blur. At a certain point, the biggest Walter Mitty losers can delude themselves into believing they’re the good guys simply by cultivating a look. Provoked by the violent rhetoric emanating from Trump and his allies or internalizing a belief that white men with guns are sheepdogs protecting home and hearth, and you have a recipe for tragedy.
Policing in
a stable democracy must operate in the open.
Law enforcement should be clearly identifiable to the public they serve. If you’re acting legally, there is no reason
to hide who you are. Otherwise, you erode
public trust. When legitimate law
enforcement is indistinguishable from the LARPers you don’t believe your eyes anymore.
Perhaps this moment will stimulate reform. We can set guidelines for law enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and local levels relating to how they present themselves to the public they serve. Place limitations on the sale and possession of certain items such as body armor and certain kinds of lethal and non-lethal weapons (though this probably wouldn’t pass constitutional muster in some cases). Introduce stronger sanctions against impersonating law enforcement and military personnel. Any of these would be a good start.
What we may not be able to fix is a cultural toxicity that long predated Trump and MAGA. They are a symptom or the latest permutation of that ugliness. The only road to improvement is through individual hearts and minds. And that is a task fit for Sisyphus.
©
2025 The Unassuming Scholar
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