CNN —
Reoper Alcatraz is such a typically Trumpian idea that it is a miracle that the president has not tried before.
Lush criminals in tiny cells on an island surrounded by turbulent and murderous currents would feed the anxiety of macho show of President Donald Trump.
Years after its closure in 1963, the prison became an icon of pop culture, with a tradition inspired by infamous stories of mafia inmates such as Capone and films about criminals and brutal justice, which have always fascinated the president. Its notorious legacy fits perfectly with the ruthless image that the White House is weaving while driving hard -line criminal justice plans and mass deportations.
Rehabilitating the rock would reinforce the Aura of self -proclaimed Trump dictator and made it seem ruthless, the goal behind many White House policies. Although progressives are likely to be horrified by the idea, those Trump supporters who react to their dystopian theatricality could nod and consider it commonly as a new home for the worst of the worst.
The president does not disguise Alcatraz’s appeal as an allegory of his leadership, qualifying the island on Sunday as “a sad symbol, but it is a symbol of law and order.” This Monday, he reminded the journalists in the White House that the former prison housed “the most violent criminals in the world.”
Of course, reviving Alcatraz, in front of San Francisco, as a federal prison is extremely impractical and could be a waste of millions of dollars at a time when Elon Musk has been drastically cutting the financing of the federal government. Adapt it to modern standards – not necessarily for inmates, but simply to guarantee the safety of prison officials who would have to work there – would be a huge task. And the arrogant attitude of the administration regarding its deportations and the rule of law raises serious doubts about the due process that the potential inmates of Alcatraz could expect.
But the Trump administration has never focused on good governance above all.
If the president’s objective is to imprison the worst criminals, he could opt, for example, for the federal prison of Maximum Security of Colorado: an isolated and spartan installation that Richard Reid will never come out, a terrorist who put explosives in a couple of shoes; Ramzi Yousef, author of the attack against the World Trade Center; and Terry Nichols, complicit of the attack on Oklahoma City. But prisoners are sent to the maximum security prison to disappear from public consciousness; That is part of the punishment, along with its multiple perpetual chains.
Trump has already tried to send undocumented migrants to Guantanamo Bay. He considered an installation at the Cuba base other than the one that houses the brain of 11-S, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. But the dark connotations of the name were the key.
Reoper Alcatraz would be the maximum expression of this strategy, creating a living symbol of the president’s orchestrated force and his mockery to political correction.
And even if years of administrative delays, legal challenges and other impediments mean that Trump will never reopen the prison, the holder already has.
The plan would have another advantage for Trump. Alcatraz 2.0 would embarrass the psyche of one of the most liberal cities in the country, which coincidentally houses a presidential nemesis: the emern president of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. The Californian legislator dismissed Trump’s last trick with the contempt she reserves for her former adversary. “Alcatraz closed as Federal Penitentiary more than 60 years ago. It is now a very popular national park and an important tourist attraction. The president’s proposal is not serious,” Pelosi wrote in X.
But could a president who admires dictators to choose a better metaphor for his second term than to turn a tourist attraction into a bleak gulag that revives justice for blows to a less enlightened era?
Trump’s presidencies often seem to develop as a succession of televised maneuvers and extravagant concepts. In his first mandate, the idea that the former team of “The Amprentice” was an extended reality show became a trite cliché.
At the end of that initial mandate, many of the shows staged by Trump became increasingly worrying, such as their march towards Lafayette in Washington when it had just been violently evicted as protesters. Among his main advisors was the then head of the Joint General Staff, General Mark Milley, who later apologized for participating in a politicized photographic session, becoming an enemy of the president.
Trump’s rally at the Washington ellipse on January 6, 2021, meanwhile, laid the foundations for one of the darkest moments in US history: the assault on the Capitol by his peat of Maga supporters.
In his second term, the political choreography of the administration has deliberately adopted authoritarian dyes. The president replied “I don’t know” on the weekend when Kristen Welker, from NBC, asked if he needs to respect the Constitution. Trump plans to make a military parade to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the army on his own birthday, an event that will probably remember the parades of missile and tanks so appreciated by the former Soviet leaders.
Often, the crazy plans of the president seem calculated to distract. His idea of reopening Alcatraz could have been planned to divert the attention of their statements in NBC, or to try to forget that they have not yet achieved a single promised commercial agreement, after repeatedly predict imminent advances while the economy wobbles for its chaotic tariff wars. There are good reasons for Trump to try to change the subject: the lack of substantial conversations with China, currently subject to a 145 % tariff imposed by an irritated president by Beijing’s reprisals, threatens to soon cause a great crisis.
On other occasions, Trump seems to be motivated simply by his love of fame. His taste for the pomp was satisfied with his state visit to the late Queen Elizabeth II in his first term. King Carlos III has invited him to a repetition.
And Trump’s peaks with the lonely North Korean tyrannical Kim Jong Un, who had previously mocked calling him “The little man rocket”, are among the most shocking diplomatic occasions of the last decades. At a meeting, the president entered his hermit kingdom, creating a piece of history for himself. The photo sessions were incredible and captivated the world. But the summit did not achieve significant long -term advances in the eradication of North Korea missile and nuclear programs. Even so, Trump could argue that no other modern president was more successful in traditional diplomacy, dialogue or sanctions against North Korea.
On other occasions, Trump’s theatrical style came out of the butt or was offensive. For example, when he stopped in front of the wall of the stars of the CIA in memory of the fallen officers and boasted the size of the crowd that attended his first investiture in 2017. On another occasion, Trump converted a Jamboree of Boy Scouts into a selfish political rally.
But Trump’s theatrical talent has also helped him convert extreme circumstances into political gold. The police photo taken in a Georgia prison after one of his criminal accusations would have ended the career of any other politician. Trump used it as a launch platform for the most shocking political return in the history of the United States. And after mocking death at the hands of an aspiring magnicide, he had the serenity of getting up, tightening his fist and creating one of the most indelible images in the history of the Republic.
That moment was consistent with the thread of the president’s political performance, which has an irresistible attraction for his base, but that critics reminds of a demagogue that disdains democracy. Either signing decrees on stage after his second investiture, posing in the White House as a conquering hero after returning from the hospital after surviving the COVID-19, or sending undocumented migrants to El Salvador chained, Trump is presented as a modern Caesar that exercises a ruthless power.
That mentality was the one that motivated his order to the prison office to reopen Alcatraz.
