https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/america-fascism-tr...
It's been translated in English as Ur-fascism and is available online for free at the anarchist library: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fasci....
Jonathan Ross (the ICE agent who shot and killed Renée Good) is an Iraq war veteran who has served in military and paramilitary units (National Guard, CBP, ICE) for over two decades. He intentionally engaged in a behavior that has been documented as far back as 2014 [1] to manufacture a reason to shoot the person in front of him.
Did he premeditate killing someone while getting out of bed that morning? Probably not.
Did he make the decision to kill Ms. Good in advance? No reasonable doubt.
[1] Even by CBP internal reviews, no less: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/us-border-agents-i...
https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-...
The US was supposedly ruled by a fascist in 2018: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/books/review/jason-stanle...
There was also supposedly fascism coming in 2016: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/this-is-how-fascism-comes...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09626...
And yet we had elections in 2020. So whatever, it was clearly not authoritarian fascism because we had free elections that the authoritarian fascist was ousted in. So what I think I experienced there was semantic satiation with the word fascism.
EDIT: To clarify position vis a vis reply, I am simply saying that I have heard the word 'fascism' so much I don't really react with any sense when someone says it. It's like hearing 'rape' or 'spying' on Hacker News. I assume it means "I was shown a banner ad for toothpaste after searching for toothpaste". In other contexts those words have negative valence of great significance. In this context, I just glaze over.
Likewise, the word 'fascism' from a left-leaning outlet could be anything from the end of medicare subsidies to a drone strike on an Islamic fundamentalist general to charging fares on a train.
Just sharing how I feel about it. It does not have that emotional strength that it originally felt.
https://x.com/eastdakota/status/2009654937303896492
he's even using their rhetoric ("DISGUSTING")
https://scribe.rip/@carmitage/i-researched-every-attempt-to-...
https://www.kuow.org/stories/how-ice-grew-to-be-the-highest-...
I remember reading 1984 when I was a kid and enjoying it, at no point did I think it was more than sci-fi though. I suppose it goes to show how much we took for granted the last 80+ years.
It also makes me respect Orwell so much more. Which was already very high based on how he makes tea. How was he able to see you presciently?
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
Except that "flinching" is not happening. An earlier comment of mine:
---
On the most recent event, a reduced-speed video showing one agent (centre, bent over at beginning) removing the victim's firearm from his waistband, then a second agent (left) waiting for the first to get clear, and then pulling his pistol (video stops before any shooting):
* https://x.com/TheWarMonitor/status/2015272806636736647
* https://xcancel.com/TheWarMonitor/status/2015272806636736647
The actual shooting of the victim; view discretion advised:
* https://x.com/TheWarMonitor/status/2015335743443378660
* https://xcancel.com/TheWarMonitor/status/2015335743443378660
---
The second waited for the first guy to be clear, then drew, then started shooting. He was waiting for his opportunity.
Let's not forgot and/or (3) going after Minnesota voter roles (per this letter from Pam Bondi):
* https://archive.is/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/...
* https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bondi-minnesota-voter-rolls-wel...
Also perhaps worth noting that David Frum, former speech writer to Dubya Bush, writes for The Atlantic (and has been against Trump from the start: see his book Trumpocracy):
* https://www.theatlantic.com/author/david-frum/
So we're not just talking about 'leftists' criticizing these actions and policies.
Transparent as you could ever hope for: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang
Most LEO's are lawful well intentioned, but they do stand by and cover for a good many who are not, those that these days have encrypted chat groups dehumanising those they interact with and swapping notes on what they can get away with and come out smelling of roses.
Those rotten apples corrupt new recruits and normalise harshly putting the boot in, curb stomping, and other extremes.
An acquaintance of mine has seen the full roller coaster over the past 45 years, first defending police that were unquestionably exuberant in violence, later shunned for having had enough and pulling the rug.
I highly recommend Anniversary https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12583926/
You're correct that we like to avoid flamewars, but not correct to say "anything involving politics". We don't try to (or want to) avoid politics altogether—a certain number of threads with political overlap have always been part of the mix here*. For (reams of) past explanations see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
What we want to avoid is HN being taken over by politics altogether, and thereby turning into an entirely different site. We want HN to adhere to its mandate, which is to optimize for intellectual curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). That certainly includes some political discussion, but (a) not beyond a certain threshold, and (b) not every kind of political story or article. (For example, opinion pieces are usually less of a fit than stories which contain significant new information, and so on.)
Unfortunately, this way of doing things inevitably generates conflict. For politically passionate users, that "not beyond a certain threshold" bit is far too little—especially in turbulent times, as now. Apart from that, there's no agreement on which particular stories deserve to be on the frontpage, and even if there were such agreement, there's still no way of making sure that the most deserving stories get the spots (>>42787306 ).
Everyone has the experience of being frustrated when a story that they care about gets flagged or otherwise falls in rank. When feelings are running hot, people jump to the conclusion that we're secretly on the opposite political side, or trying to suppress discussion on a particular topic. That's not the case at all—it's all explicable by the principles that we've been repeating for years—but that none of that changes how it feels.
Then there are the users who feel like HN has gotten too political and is a shadow of its former self—this also has always been with us: >>17014869 .
Double unfortunately, I don't know of a fix for any of these binds, because all of them derive from the fundamentals of what HN is - e.g. a single frontpage with only so many slots (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
(* Or to put it differently, note the words most and probably in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, as pg once said: >>4922426 .)
Granted, I've been accused of feeling too much empathy by people, but I don't think that that's an atypical reaction. The fact that this officer was able to brush it off without blinking is extremely concerning.
[1] If you want you can read about it: https://blog.tombert.com/Posts/Personal/July-2023/Guilt-and-.... That said, please do not feel compelled to tell me stuff isn't my fault. I know you mean well when you say that but my emotions are complicated and I am seeing a therapist about this stuff.
People use the word "transparency" to mean different things. Here are the ways in which I think it's fair to say we're transparent about mod actions: (1) we explain the principles that we apply, frequently and at length; and (2) we're happy to answer questions, including about specific cases.
What we don't do is publish a complete moderation log. To understand why, it's probably easiest to look through my past answers about this at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... Here's one: >>39234189 .
In our experience, the current approach is a reasonable balance between the tradeoffs. It's true that we don't see all the comments like the ones you posted here, and we can't address what we don't see. It's also true that, as volume has grown, we've found it harder to reply to absolutely every question. But it's still eminently possible to get an answer if you want one—especially if you're asking in a way that signals good faith*.
(*I add the latter bit because some people use the format of "asking a question" as way of being aggressive and in such cases we may respond otherwise than by taking the question literally. That's pretty rare though.)
I've answered that point many times, e.g. recently here: >>46378818 . If you take a look at that and have a question that isn't answered there (or here), I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
I haven't had a chance to look at the flaggers of these recent stories to verify that they fit the same pattern, but the pattern is so well-established that it would be shocking if they didn't. Btw, when you say "anything that goes against MAGA", the converse is the case as well (possibly even a bit more so). And when I say (quoting the comment I just linked to):
> There are some accounts that abuse flags in the following sense: they only ever flag political stories, and their flags are always aligned with the same political position. When we see accounts doing that, we usually take away their flagging rights.
... I didn't add that we do this the same way in either political direction, because that goes without saying, or ought to. But I'm saying it explicitly here.
ICE is said to be paying signing bonuses up to $50,000 [1]. That must seem like a fortune to the sorts of people they are recruiting... people who would happily do stuff like this for free if given permission.
The problem for people like the author is that other more astute individuals [1] correctly diagnosed the issue over a decade ago. All it took was for her to have grown up in Poland and to be a clinical psychologist who knows how to spot malignant narcissism. The rest fell into place because human nature is so... predictable.
So while it's welcome for the author to finally catch up to the rest of us, it's a little late at this point. Also If people like the author had listened to more sensible people when they had started using the F word instead of dismissing them as hyperbolic, then we wouldn't be here.
Also this bit:
> Although Trump is term-limited, we must not expect that he and his MAGA loyalists will voluntarily turn over the White House to a Democrat in 2029, regardless of what the voters say—and the second insurrection will be far better organized than the first.
shows the author is still a step behind. The correct framing is that the first insurrection succeeded. It continued after Jan 6 for 4 years, as Trump waged an information war contending he was the true winner of the election, and also a war on the judiciary to evade accountability. In that battle he evaded all accountability, nullified the impeachment clause of the Constitution, and also gained "Presidential Immunity" from his appointees on SCOTUS. He also nullified Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits anyone who has previously taken an oath to support the Constitution from holding state or federal office if they have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the US. Trump caused an insurrection, and yet somehow he was allowed to run and hold office again.
So the first insurrection was successful, the perpetrators got away with it, and they assumed total power over the government they attacked after evading judicial accountability and waging an information war on the population.
Anyway, next time there won't be a need for an insurrection, because the only reason there was one in 2021 was because plans A through G failed -- they couldn't get votes in Georgia, they couldn't overturn any state, they didn't win any court cases, they couldn't get people to go along with their "alternate electors" theory, and they couldn't get Pence to go along with the scheme. So they caused an insurrection as a last ditch effort to delay certification.
In 2029 every Republican will go along with plan A. They've already purged everyone who did the right thing in 2021 from the party. So they won't need an insurrection because any Democrat that wins in Georgia will just be erased, as they've made sure to take state control over county election boards after county election boards there went against Trump's wishes in 2020.
Like this VOX article surveying experts on fascism in 2015 and then revisiting in 2020:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21521958/what-is-fas...
> But there is still no state management of the economy here (as there was to a degree in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy). Trump is content to aid business by reducing government protections of the environment and of workers … and his economic policy is mainly just to let businessmen do what they want.
Well, we can check that one off the list with 2024 hindsight.
>He’s never actually done a Putin and tried to make himself a permanent president, let alone suggest any coherent plan for overthrowing the constitutional system. And I don’t even think that’s in his mind
And another one bites the dust.
Note that all the scholars who get very technical on what they want to call Fascist all compare him to Marcos, Erdogan, Milosovic. That's still not a good review.
Yes, he hoped to fight from the inside, but recognized that the GOP had been taken over my inmates.
In 2016 he voted for Clinton and urged others to do so:
> Surely the American system of government is more robust than the Turkish or Hungarian or Polish or Malaysian or Italian systems. But that is not automatically true. It is true because of the active vigilance of freedom-loving citizens who put country first, party second. Not in many decades has that vigilance been required as it is required now.
> Your hand may hesitate to put a mark beside the name, Hillary Clinton. You’re not doing it for her. The vote you cast is for the republic and the Constitution.
* https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arch...
But we're talking about HN censoring topics, in general - not just politics. I'll give you an example with a tech story I commented on just 3 hours ago [0].
Sourced from the BBC, with a correct headline, not a dupe, generating discussion, upvoted, relevant, important, and in every possible way squarely within HN's remit: But it mentioned Musk in a bad light.
Not only was it flagged, but it was some new kind of uber-flagged. It no longer shows up in new. It doesn't show up in the OP's submissions list. It doesn't show up in my favorites list. You can't comment on it. The link and even the title were completely removed.
That's sheer insanity. Absolutely extraordinary and wholly, completely unjustifiable.
And if you or I were to make a post about this wild level of censorship of a legitimate and important tech story, it would be rapidly removed also. Most likely, you'd be banned if you kept trying (for something completely different, no doubt).
So can we please not pretend that stories about Musk and fascism are being removed for being 'political'. The YC people have picked their dog in this fight, and are very much trying to tip the scales in their favour by censoring the users of this platform.
0 - >>46764789
https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil...
They'd have to change the fundamental nature of business. Most US companies are run like tiny little fascist dictatorships, which is a great training ground for the real thing. The relationship between capital (owners/management) and labor is usually adversarial with "at-will" employment. Contrast in Norway, where businesses operate within a 3-way Agreement (Trepartssamarbeidet) - a formal cooperation between the government, employers' associations, and trade unions.
Americans would have to change capitalism too. The most reliable way to prevent the rise of the far right is to implement robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance.
But even in this thread they don't want to do that.
ICE has arrested and deported far more people from Texas than Minnesota (e.g. https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/texas-immigration-crac... https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-states-ice-arrest-immigra... https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/im... many other sources can easily be found).
You don't hear about it so much (unless you go looking) because Texas isn't a sanctuary state. Texas law enforcement supports and assists ICE, and Texas government officials don't encourage protests (and would tell protesters, if asked, not to obstruct and not to resist arrest). So there is no major conflict, minimal protest, and essentially no news coverage.
Minnesota government officials, on the other hand, seem to be interpreting 10A well beyond any precedent I ever heard of, and don't seem particularly interested in the consequences of the Supremacy Clause. In fact they have repeatedly falsely claimed that ICE are "not real law enforcement".
Over 152 million votes were cast, representing more than 64% turnout among those eligible to vote (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...).
The USA has about 342 million people, and over 18% of them are age 14 or younger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta...) and at least some of them are 15-17 (citation needed). So clearly, doing some arithmetic, there are fewer than 304 million adults.
Not only was "half the country" not "disenfranchised", literally a majority of adults actually voted (and this is not even considering that not all adults were statutorily allowed to vote in the first place).
The article makes an argument because it cannot follow a consensus-accepted decision tree. We have many conflicting definitions from multiple sources, and there is all sorts of room to debate whether any given incident actually evidences some point of some definition. It is dictionary-definition subjective.
But more importantly, trying to fit something under a definition doesn't change what the thing actually is. Labelling things as "fascism" encourages lazy argumentation, and makes one prone to motte-and-bailey fallacy and the noncentral fallacy. For one example, people are now going around referring to ICE as "gestapo", prompted by this "fascist regime" framing. The central defining feature of the actual Gestapo is that they were secret. ICE agents are not hiding themselves in general, and even on the relatively unusual occasions that they are in plain clothes on video footage, they are not thereby doing anything that would be out of order for, say, local law enforcement.
This rhetoric also primes people to perceive "1A violations" when people are arrested for reasons clearly other than what they were saying, or "4A violations" in cases where a warrant is not legally required, or "10A violations" when federal law enforcement officers attempt to enforce federal law and happen to be within a state (or DC or Guam or whatever, you know what I mean) when they do so (as if there were any alternative). And it primes people to perceive ordinary law enforcement actions that have always happened and were always expected to happen in similar circumstances, in other developed countries like Canada as well, as some kind of fascist oppression. Most importantly, it has always been a federal crime to obstruct federal law enforcement; and 1A clearly does not and never did empower people to physically block the path of LEO to wave a sign in their face; and nothing ever legally empowered people to resist arrest.
> I flag based on if 1) this inspires curiosity and 2) does not inspire hate (which is usually built into 1. You can't be curious of your biases are clouded by prejudice).
I am not flagging based on ideology when I flag submissions like this one. I am flagging because they do not inspire curiousity and do inspire hate. Labelling people with terms like "fascist" (including vague political outgroups) is hateful. The fact that I can get responses like >>46768495 and (in another thread) >>46754655 , and the fact that I can get flagged on comments like (in another thread) >>46749406 , makes the lack of curiousity-inspiration clear. As does the fact that every attempt I make to point at legal code and case law goes ignored in favour of people telling me that I'm out of line for daring to contradict their assessment of who is or isn't a fascist. Cogent arguments against the article's point of view are summarily rejected; threads fill with propaganda about "summary executions" (in ignorance of what self-defense law actually says) and pithy statements that don't seem to require any clear argumentation as long as they come to the right conclusion; and the ingroup gets more and more worked up.
>There's a time and place. I'm very critical of Charlie Kirk, but
People were openly celebrating the assassination; and they were spreading propaganda that blatantly misrepresented many different things he said, in many cases coming across as if they had had talking points prepared. And they also baselessly tried to associate the shooter with their political outgroup, despite that narrative barely making any sense.
Outside of HN, I saw all sorts of people call for more political violence, say that certain people "were next", etc. It was the first time in nearly a decade of being on Discord that I ever felt compelled to report anyone's messages to Discord Trust & Safety.
None of that should be accepted in the first place. To say that "there's a time and place" to call out such egregious behaviour is appalling.
You may notice that neither I nor anyone else justifying the shooting of Renee Good here on HN have been speaking ill of her. I have in fact been careful and explicit in not ascribing malice to her (because any resulting case is about Ross' perspective, and Good's mens rea is not relevant to an LEO's self-defense claim.)
(May I please also just say that it's especially galling to hear current appeals to 1A used to defend protesters who were impeding officers and resisting arrest, from the same political direction as the people who were happy that someone engaged in an act of protected speech was shot and killed by a sniper who politically disagreed with that speech? I didn't record any instances of the same person making both arguments, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it happened, either.)
I don't at all mean to come across as angry or belligerent. I simply want to explain why it hurts to read these things, and why I think they aren't in keeping with the intended spirit of political discussion on HN.
> quite the coincidence that so many Kirk articles here weren't flag while calling the situation what it is still gets flagged.
This is not about sides. This is about the tenor of rhetoric in submissions and comment sections (and the reasonable expectation of how comment sections will play out based on the submission).
LEFT-CENTER BIAS These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appeals to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information but may require further investigation
https://profrjstarr.com/the-psychology-of-us/the-need-to-be-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outrage_porn
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/09/768489375/how-outrage-is-hija...
https://theconversation.com/outrage-culture-is-a-big-toxic-p...
Is a pretty good comment, but it got flagged, there is a degree of unfairness here.
Gold Breaks $5.000/Oz - >>46761853 - Jan 2026 (0 comments)
Werewolf Romance 101: quick trope map and what to watch for - >>46761315 - Jan 2026 (1 comment)
Over 36,500 killed in Iran's deadliest massacre, documents reveal - >>46760329 - Jan 2026 (152 comments)
Tell HN: I cut Claude API costs from $70/month to pennies - >>46760285 - Jan 2026 (20 comments)
Introduction to PostgreSQL Indexes - >>46751826 - Jan 2026 (16 comments)
Alex Honnold completes Taipei 101 skyscraper climb without ropes or safety net - >>46750470 - Jan 2026 (137 comments)
Show HN: QuantDinger – AI-driven, local-first quant trading platform - >>46745801 - Jan 2026 (0 comments)
Show HN: Build agents via YAML with Prolog validation and 110 built-in tools - >>46731256 - Jan 2026 (11 comments)
I'm 34. Here's 34 things I wish I knew at 21 - >>46718086 - Jan 2026 (106 comments)
Steam "Offline" status leaks exact login timestamps (Valve: Won't Fix) - >>46698687 - Jan 2026 (96 comments)
Idiocracy - >>46679515 - Jan 2026 (13 comments)
Show HN: Minikv – Distributed key-value and object store in Rust (Raft, S3 API) - >>46661308 - Jan 2026 (39 comments)
Scott Adams has died - >>46602102 - Jan 2026 (1794 comments)
Shopify CEO vibe codes an MRI viewer - >>46587741 - Jan 2026 (21 comments)
Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy - >>46587536 - Jan 2026 (950 comments)
I'd tell you a UDP joke… - >>46580946 - Jan 2026 (50 comments)
A Unique Performance Optimization for a 3D Geometry Language - >>46573566 - Jan 2026 (4 comments)
I Hate Go, but It Saved My Startup: An Architectural Autopsy - >>46567151 - Jan 2026 (15 comments)
Inside the women's prison where violent male inmates have their way - >>46555705 - Jan 2026 (0 comments)
Show HN: Various shape regularization algorithms - >>46549333 - Jan 2026 (5 comments)
Eat Real Food - >>46529237 - Jan 2026 (1638 comments)
Everything You Need to Know About Email Encryption in 2026 - >>46492810 - Jan 2026 (11 comments)
Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin, usr/sbin split (2010) - >>46487921 - Jan 2026 (157 comments)
Show HN: Dealta – A game-theoretic decentralized trading protocol - >>46464133 - Jan 2026 (36 comments)
Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of John F Kennedy, dies aged 35 - >>46438216 - Dec 2025 (1 comment)
Tell HN: I write and ship code ~20–50x faster than I did 5 years ago - >>46436872 - Dec 2025 (103 comments)
VSCode rebrands as "The open source AI code editor" - >>46403073 - Dec 2025 (76 comments)
OrangePi 6 Plus Review - >>46401499 - Dec 2025 (180 comments)
I have to give Fortnite my passport to use Bluesky - >>46327818 - Dec 2025 (69 comments)
How, and why, I invented OnlyFans. In 2004 - >>46302892 - Dec 2025 (5 comments)
Couples rate honesty/trust/sex/money 1-10 → AI coach closes every gap - >>46190219 - Dec 2025 (0 comments)
Growth Marketing Manager - >>46152463 - Dec 2025 (1 comment)
Dark Mode Sucks - >>46024894 - Nov 2025 (159 comments)
Owning a Cat Could Double Your Risk of Schizophrenia, Research Suggests - >>45946707 - Nov 2025 (14 comments)
The Anatomy of the Least Squares Method, Part Two - >>45923755 - Nov 2025 (1 comment)
Hi, it's me, Wikipedia, and I am ready for your apology - >>45733430 - Oct 2025 (152 comments)
Say Goodbye - >>45476371 - Oct 2025 (106 comments)
Times New Dumbass - >>45392811 - Sept 2025 (1 comment)
Supermicro server motherboards can be infected with unremovable malware - >>45363465 - Sept 2025 (145 comments)
Ruby Central's Attack on RubyGems [pdf] - >>45299170 - Sept 2025 (249 comments)
JIT-ing a stack machine (with SLJIT) - >>45257241 - Sept 2025 (7 comments)
Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah - >>45202200 - Sept 2025 (3317 comments)
Internet Archive is now a federal depository library - >>44685342 - July 2025 (58 comments)
2025 Recession Indicators Hit Fashion and Wall Street at Once - >>43573488 - April 2025 (151 comments)
Show HN: Paste a Zillow URL and get a property analysis - >>43180130 - Feb 2025 (22 comments)
Pushing the whole company into the past on purpose - >>42650732 - Jan 2025 (125 comments)
The risk of cancer fades past the age of 80 - >>42487301 - Dec 2024 (48 comments)
The Pentaconta Crossbar and Exchange - >>41977353 - Oct 2024 (13 comments)
Un Ministral, Des Ministraux - >>41859466 - Oct 2024 (99 comments)
The Flexipede Revisited - >>40828223 - June 2024 (2 comments)
Secret Hand Gestures in Paintings (2019) - >>40606924 - June 2024 (162 comments)
Direct Solar Power: Off-Grid Without Batteries - >>37500708 - Sept 2023 (86 comments)
Anonymous Hacks Epik - >>28532464 - Sept 2021 (249 comments)
Herdwicks: The 'smiley' sheep that shaped the Lake District - >>27172193 - May 2021 (13 comments)
Fucking, Austria changes name to Fugging - >>25223633 - Nov 2020 (239 comments)
In other words, the situation on this story turns out to fit the usual pattern as I described it a few weeks ago (>>46378818 ):
The accounts that flag these stories are almost always established accounts, so I'm not too worried about them being sockpuppets or paid influencers.
From everything we've seen, flags on political stories are a coalition between (1) users who don't want to see (most) political stories on HN, and (2) users who don't like the politics of a particular story they are flagging. In other words, users who care about the quality of the site, and users who care about a political struggle. This dynamic shows up on all the main political topics.
There are some accounts that abuse flags in the following sense: they only ever flag political stories, and their flags are always aligned with the same political position. When we see accounts doing that, we usually take away their flagging rights.
This, so far, seems sufficient to me. If we start to see indications that it's not sufficient, we'll take more action.
To make the point clearer, I went through all the other accounts that flagged the OP (i.e. not including the half dozen abusive cases) and collected examples of other stories they had flagged. I'll put that list in a reply to the current post since it's so long. I think anyone who browses that list will see what I mean when I say that most of these accounts are not flagging for purely political reasons.
I don't know if that assuages your concerns—probably not, because it's in the nature of the internet that people feel this way and explanations, data, etc., don't address those feelings—but we can at least try.
2. Are they really "the supply"? There are so many illegal immigrants in the US now (so many that they have to prioritize the ones who have committed violent crimes, hence the "worst of the worst" propaganda) that it seems entirely reasonable to imagine they could start their own illicit businesses and employ each other.
3. Even habitually hiring illegal aliens doesn't appear to be a felony (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1324a section (f)), so immigration officers such as ICE agents require a warrant to make an arrest for that specific case (unless they witness the crime per https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1357 section (5)(a), and I'm not even sure what that means for the case of unlawfully employing someone).
4. Yes, of course realpolitik also plays a role. Clearly these businesses aren't part of some conspiracy to overrun the country with illegal immigrants, so it wouldn't make sense to get the owners on Trump's bad side. These businesses would hire citizens if they were willing to work for the same pay and under the same conditions, and generally it's been the Republicans opposing things like minimum wage increases.