> Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. Allowed by whom? That's always been the problem with the (especially American) idea

> Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. Allowed by whom? That's always been the problem with the (especially American) idea of a separation of power or checks and balances being sufficient to stop bad actors. The legislative passes laws, the judicative applies those laws, the executive carries them out, okay. But at the end of the day out of those three the executive is the ones with the guns. Combine this with unitary executive theory and now a single person gets to call the shots (literally, if necessary) while the other two branches become legal window dressing. Under Trump the US has literally deported people and revoked green cards for their alleged affiliations alone - not criminal ones either as that would have had to be decided by a court, instead the pure suspicion is sufficient. Keep in mind that having processes isn't inherently better. The Soviet Union made sure to use mock trials and coerced confessions because it desparately wanted to maintain an appearance of legitimacy. While in Hitler's Germany or Mussolini's Italy the state might have literally just killed you without a trial, the Soviets went to great lengths to create a paper trail for a legalistic justification before killing you (or sending you to a forced labor camp to die of "natural causes"). Institutions don't protect you. Institutions are just other people. If your system of governance depends on the people at the very top acting in good faith on the powers they are granted, it's really just built on wishful thinking.