The label ‘politically suspect’ allowed arrest of anyone regardless of innocence

Evidence

Says the General: “The same night I ordered the arrest of this cursed Jew and held him as a so-called politically suspect person… After all, could I treat in the same manner friends and a dirty Jew who may be innocent today but who was guilty yesterday or will be guilty tomorrow?” — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2794

Categorization

• XREF: Core definitional material for the concept of the suspect as permanently guilty — carries directly into Islamophobia’s construction of the always-suspect Other.
• DEFINE: Defines ‘politically suspect’ as an elastic category that collapses past, present, and future guilt into a permanent status.
• CANDY: The general’s chilling quote about the ‘dirty Jew’ being innocent today but guilty yesterday or tomorrow is a compact, quotable anecdote.