Citizenship is not some indelible mark on your person. It is likely at best some ink on a piece of paper or line in a database that can be lost, stolen, "forgotten", or denied.
Imagine that I were a police officer, I asked for your papers, and then immediately burnt them. How are you going to prove you are a citizen? What if I accused you of faking those documents? What is your recourse? How are you going to prove your citizenship? Are you going to go to the judge that was appointed by the person in power to plead your case? I already think you faked your documents, why should I let you have due process, I already know you are guilty.
Once you take away the structure of law these ideas that you think give you power, like citizenship, are just power on paper. The only real power you have is your friends and family getting upset and going to a journalist to plead your case to the court of public opinion, but maybe those journalists are employed by a billionaire, too, or they are scared they will fall out a window if they question the governments actions.
You are trusting someone who says if you give them power, they will solve your problems. But what if they don't, what if they start causing you problems? Who takes that power away once they already have it or have consolidated it with loyalists?
> Imagine that I were a police officer, I asked for your papers, and then immediately burnt them.
This isn't hypothetical, either. I know several US citizens whose documents are being confiscated and destroyed, because the current US regime has decided they're fraudulent. (One person had their passport printed, and then immediately destroyed.)
Imagine that I were a police officer, I asked for your papers, and then immediately burnt them. How are you going to prove you are a citizen? What if I accused you of faking those documents? What is your recourse? How are you going to prove your citizenship? Are you going to go to the judge that was appointed by the person in power to plead your case? I already think you faked your documents, why should I let you have due process, I already know you are guilty.
Once you take away the structure of law these ideas that you think give you power, like citizenship, are just power on paper. The only real power you have is your friends and family getting upset and going to a journalist to plead your case to the court of public opinion, but maybe those journalists are employed by a billionaire, too, or they are scared they will fall out a window if they question the governments actions.
You are trusting someone who says if you give them power, they will solve your problems. But what if they don't, what if they start causing you problems? Who takes that power away once they already have it or have consolidated it with loyalists?