It would also mean we'd have a witness able to report on the prison's conditions. And the administration can say he's lying, but when there's no other source of information about it, people are going to hear him out.

Yes. Fascism is about normalizing treating outsiders as non-human. To do this you expand your crimes step by step. Justifying and normalizing each step. And you don't have to do it for long. You just move onto the next worse thing quickly.

There was a really good, almost poetic, video that covered this just as Trump took office. It's been a good reminder for me to keep my compass and perspective.

https://youtu.be/0YFdwfNh5vs