Why Donald Trump Should Care About an Arrest in the Philippines

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is charged by the International Criminal Court for extrajudicial killings.

Image of Duterte public domain via Wiki Commons

Donald Trump made his first prominent political arrest on Saturday night, one of those dark-of-the-night things that many of us warned would happen, an illegal detainment based on a man’s politics.

Mahmoud Khalil, a noisy Palestinian eager to let everyone know that people who live in Gaza are people too, a man tired of seeing the faces of children splattered against the rubble of buildings, was detained by Homeland Security in an ominous warning to the rest of us, including simple Substackers like me.

Khalil, green card in hand, was snatched from his home in New York City and thrown into a detention facility in Louisiana.

And so it begins.

Khalil’s crime? I’ll let the Malevolence of Mar-a-Lago tell you via one of his posts on True Sociopath:

“This is the first arrest of many to come. We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.”

And what, exactly, was this terrorist activity? Speaking out. When Khalil was a student at Columbia University, he dared to speak out for the Palestinian cause. He did it without violence. He opened his mouth, and now he’s in a Louisiana detention cell.

To loosely borrow the words of Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Gaza protesters, and I did not speak out—because I was not a supporter of Palestine.

Then they came for transgenders, and I did not speak out—because I was not a transgender.

Then they came for the LatinX, and I did not speak out—because I was not a LatinX.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Whether you’re virulently pro-Israeli or part of the Genocide Joe crowd doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have to say that Khalil had the right to speak his mind.

I also shouldn’t have to remind anyone that we want a diverse set of opinions in our nation and that, as a graduate of the University’s School of International and Public Affairs, Khalil should be considered a welcome voice, no matter what your opinions about the Middle East might be.

Khalil’s legal team, in a rapid response style habeas corpus petition, has already hinted they’ll use the Orange Puffaroon’s words to help set Khalil free:¹

Greer also hinted that some of the administration's comments about Khalil, including President Trump's social media posts, may be used by Khalil's legal team to argue for his release.

You can be sure that the regime will fight this case all the way to the Supreme Court if they have to. The ability to detain people for political opinions will become an increasingly important part of the Project 2025 landscape.

Wait, Charles, there is something in your headline about the Philippines. Did your brain crack open again?

I’m glad you asked, because, meanwhile, in the Philippines, former President Rodrigo Duterte, whose government-fueled vigilante justice led to alleged drug dealers getting shot in the street about as often as a Republican lies on a Sunday, was arrested overnight for crimes against humanity. The idea here is that he’ll be brought to the Hague and face an international tribunal for his years of extrajudicial killings.

Duterte created a model of government that the human hottub of orange excrement worships at his altar of hate. Duterte spent years building immunities against any of his crimes, and he, too, was adored by a large number of misguided followers.² By the time he left office, he felt assured that his immunity was unassailable. Just like you-know-who probably does now.

Granted, so far, the U.S. president’s biggest crime against humanity is his mere existence, so I’m not suggesting that his future is a visit to the Hague, although if current trends hold up, who knows?

Instead, I expect a sweeping response from the next administration to this regime’s antics. Those of us who are resisting this regime will not settle for a Democrat in the next primary who doesn’t promise real consequences for this regime’s actions.

If we have to pack the Supreme Court to kill their foolish immunity decision, we will.

We also will not tolerate this regime’s inevitable attempts to destroy the electoral process.

Thanks to Project 2025 and its vast army of goons, the regime initially left us all in a state of shock, as did the 77 million people who voted for it. Like Duterte, the regime thinks it’s immune.

More than a hundred executive orders, each written like they were directly lifted out of Project 2025’s 900-page manual of chaos and Christo-nationalism, have been sending our heads into a cartoonish whiplash.

This has left many of us asking, “Where is everybody? Where is the resistance this time?”

The answer? It’s everything everywhere all at once.³ It’s Khalil’s legal team’s rapid response. It’s you reacting to the latest malfeasance, a new one of which is bound to appear before you are finished reading this.

It’s the hundreds of court cases against this regime’s attempts to destroy us. It’s federal employees screaming into the night⁴ and it’s rural voters throwing tomatoes at Republican congressional buffoons.

It will be the massive turnout in the midterms that will create a majority able to successfully impeach the president as many disillusioned MAGA voters join us in the wake of their crumbling lives.

And, after the next presidential election, it will be a U.S. attorney general who doesn’t spend four years pissing in the wind.

There will be no reconciliation period. The criminals in this regime will face their justice, just like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro⁵ and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte seem poised to do.

Notes

Thanks for reading!

For a look at how the nation might fare if I’m wrong about a citizens’ rally:

The Neighbors Beyond the Yard

Footnotes

1. Garcia, Armando, Mariama Jalloh, Aaron Katersky, and Meredith Deliso. 2025. “Judge Blocks Removal of Palestinian Activist Who Was Detained at Columbia University.” ABC News. March 11, 2025. https://abcnews.go.com/US/ice-arrests-palestinian-activist-green-card-columbia-university/story?id=119616144.

2. The two countries are quite different, though. The Philippines, much poorer than the U.S., was ravaged by the behavior of drug dealers. Their harsh treatment was applauded by many citizens weary of crime.

3. Thank you, Michelle Yeoh and friends.

4. Will Federal Employees Create an American Fallujah?

5. Trump’s henchmen will probably find a way to deliver a pardon to former Brazilian president Bolsonaro.

Hughes, Eléonore, and Mauricio Savarese. 2025. “Former Brazilian President Bolsonaro Agreed to a Plan to Poison President Lula, Prosecutor Says.” AP News. February 19, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/bolsonaro-charges-formal-accusations-1751e6b6060ccfcc92d0e6d453650e0d.