How the ‘war on drugs’ set the stage for Trump’s authoritarianism today

Update: 2025-07-11

Description

“What Kilmar Abrego Garcia's family is going through is just unimaginable,” says Baltimore-based journalist Baynard Woods, “but it is also what we've all allowed to happen over generations of letting the drug war and our deference to police departments erode the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which should protect us all from illegal search and seizure, such as these seizures that ICE is committing all around the country right now.” In this episode of Rattling the Bars, Mansa Musa and Woods discuss the US government’s case against Abrego Garcia—whom the Trump administration finally returned to US soil from El Salvador in June—and what the government can do to citizens and non-citizens alike when our right to due process is taken away.

Guest:

Baynard Woods is a writer and journalist based in Baltimore. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Oxford American Magazine, and many other publications. He is the author of Inheritance: An Autobiography of Whiteness and coauthor, with Brandon Soderberg, of I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad.

Additional resources:

Baynard Woods, Baltimore Beat, “Government’s case against Abrego Garcia is based on PG County Cop who was on the SA’s do not call list”
Baynard Woods, Baltimore Beat, “A Maryland man’s life is at stake. Trump and Salvadoran president Bukele could not care less”

Credits:

Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

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