To the editor:

I believe it was the famous philosopher, Peter Townshend, who wrote the apt phrase, “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”

On Monday, Greg Bovino, who many have compared to Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, was unceremoniously fired as U.S. Border Patrol commander-at-large. The comparison to Himmler, however, is inartful. Bovino is better likened to the other Heinrich, Gestapo Chief Heinrich Muller. Himmler oversaw the SS and Schutzsaffel — a broader portfolio, closer to a modern border czar. If anyone fits the Himmler role, it would be Tom Homan, the man Trump sent in to clean up Bovino’s mess.

Which raises the obvious question: If Homan is Himmler and Bovino is Muller, what does that make Kristi Noem? For purposes of this analogy, she maps most closely to Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich, “the man with the iron heart” and chief architect of the holocaust.

Speculation abounds that Noem may be next on the chopping block; by the time this runs, she may already be gone. Bovino — who hates being compared to a Nazi — may be the lucky one. Like Muller, who many believe survived the war and escaped judgment, Bovino gets to slink away, retire, and fade from history.

But Trump appears not to be abandoning the strategy, only shifting its terrain. Maybe Philadelphia. Maybe Maine. Maybe both. Sending Homan to “fix” Minnesota may not be the fig leaf many hope it is.

As Ron Fournier wrote in a Substack article for his blog, Convulsions, “President Trump and his team lied about what we all saw in Minneapolis. Now they want us to believe they’re atoning.” Charlie Sykes followed up on his Substack, “To the Contrary,” writing, “(R)egarding the deployment of Tom Homan as ‘conciliatory’ is what Daniel Patrick Moynihan once described as ‘defining deviancy down’ — shifting standards to redefine anti-social or deviant behavior as more or less normal.”

If anything, Homan is worse than Bovino, and perhaps even worse than Noem, who bragged about murdering her dog for his exuberance, posed like an SS guard in front of caged prisoners for a photo-op, and lied to the public about the assassination of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Homan, described as a thug’s thug and documented as once having accepted a bag full of cash, is unapologetic and powerful. When criticized by the RCC, he deflected rather than reflected, saying, “I’m a lifelong Catholic, but I’m saying it not only as a border czar, but I’m also saying this as a Catholic, I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic church.”

This is not a man inclined toward course correction. He will double down, scapegoat subordinates and open unwinnable fronts. I mean, it’s not like there aren’t historic parallels.

This time, however, the opposition is ready. “We won’t get fooled again.”

J. David Core

Toronto