The Jackboots Have Arrived
The Fourth Reich Rolls Through Altamonte Springs
Altamonte Springs FL
I have done my time in the humid, suffocating purgatory of Central Florida. For almost two decades, I’ve kept my head down, sweating it out in the swamp, focusing on the singular mission of raising my spawn. But the kid is eighteen now—an adult, free of the nest, released from the immediate blast radius of my choices. That means the tether is cut. I am finally free to get the fuck on. But more importantly, I am free to scream about exactly what I see before I go.
And what I saw today, December 5th, 2025, was the death of the Fourth Amendment rolling down the street in a convoy of domestic terror.
”This isn’t happening,” the centrists and the suburban ostriches with their heads buried in the sand like to bleat. They tell us we are being alarmist. They tell us to trust the process.
Fuck you. I see it with my own eyes. I smell the rot.
I was sitting outside near the Westmonte Recreation Center in Altamonte Springs, just waiting for my food, trying to exist in a moment of peace. Westmonte isn’t a war zone; strictly speaking, it’s the heartbeat of a predominantly Latinx neighborhood. It is a sanctuary of normalcy. It’s where families go to wash off the Florida heat in the city pool, where the “thwack” of pickleball paddles echoes off the courts, where kids run the bases on the diamonds until their lungs burn. It is a place of community, of multicultural existence, of life.
Then the SUVs rolled up, and the air changed.
There were four of them. Unmarked. Windows tinted to an illegal obsidian black. They were packed full of masked cowards clutching rifles like they were patrolling the streets of Fallujah instead of a quiet suburb. They weren’t here to serve or protect; they were here to hunt.
They didn’t come alone, either. That’s the part that turns my stomach the most. Trailing behind them, like pilot fish swimming alongside sharks, were the sympathizers and the collaborators. City vehicles. Altamonte City Prowlers. Harleys revving their engines in a display of impotent machismo. Above us, whirly birds circled like vultures waiting for the carcass of Due Process to rot in the sun.
Make no mistake: this is not random. This is the direct, poisonous fruit of Governor “Rhonda” Santis and her desperate, pathetic need to please her daddy, Orange Hitler McFuckstick. She didn’t just invite this occupation; she coerced it. She forced the Sheriffs of Florida to sign a pledge, essentially deputizing them as the new Gestapo, handing them a blank check to kidnap people off the street, violate their civil rights, and beat the innocent into submission under the guise of “security.”
These aren’t law enforcement officers anymore. They are the Mitläufer—the followers who go along to get along, the “good Germans” just following orders, ensuring the machinery of fascism runs smoothly on American asphalt.
I locked eyes with one of them. A masked face staring out from the safety of an armored SUV, anonymous and heavily armed. A coward hiding behind state-sanctioned violence. I didn’t have a weapon. I didn’t have my phone to capture his shame or broadcast his face to the world.
Fuck.
But I had my arm.
I stretched it out and brandished the tallest, stiffest middle finger I could muster. A singular, vibrating salute to their cowardice. A few of the Gestapo fucks saw it. They made eye contact. They saw the rage of a man who knows exactly what they are.
I didn’t get the photo today, and that failure burns. But I assure you, I will be at the park tomorrow. I will be there to document the jackboots and their collaborators. I will be there to witness the intimidation of my neighbors. My lens will be ready.
Consider this an ICE ALERT for the vicinity of Westmonte Recreation Center. The fascists are here, they are mobilized, and they are hunting.
If I get arrested tomorrow for the crime of standing on public land with a camera, so be it. If I disappear into the system, if I become just another file on a desk in a detention center, I will try to reach out to comrades and family.
But I won’t look away. Not anymore.
The Nomad is watching.