#ETTD edition
A sidekick without a protagonist is what?
There’s lots of pushback on Sen. Lindsey “count me out” Graham’s promising riots in the streets if TFG Donald Trump faces prosecution for mishandling federal dcouments. Under the friggin’ Espionage Act, yet. What does he think Jan. 6 was?
“I spent more than 20 years in the military, and from Beirut to Libya to Syria to Iran to Iraq, this guy’s rhetoric sounds like every terrorist leader we were sent to hunt down,” tweets Jim Wright (a.k.a. Stonekettle) this morning. “Threatening violence over your political and religious beliefs is the very definition of terrorism.”
It is also notable that people whose conservative politics were heretofore anathema to the left are, for now, allies in defense of the institutions of this democratic Republic. That ought to give Trumpists pause. It won’t.
Wilson continues:
2/ This accepts the predicates of the authoritarian side; the Dear Leader is above justice.
It acknowledges the advantage of a party/movement willing and proven to use political violence to achieve electoral ends.
This is poison for the Republic and for democracy.
3/ It accepts the false assertion than any arm of government that seeks to hold Trump not to political but *legal* account is inherently corrupt, political, and malevolent. The DOJ isn’t being “tested”…it’s doing its job. America, however, is being tested.
4/ Trump’s history of escaping justice is notable and depressing. It’s one of his superpowers, and gives his base a sense of invulnerability and gives Republican leaders a case of swooning vapors at the thought of siding with law-and-order.
5/ The media faces a particularly tempting variation of this; to turn the coverage into the legal version of he-said she-said horserace coverage. This isn’t just back-and-forth both-sides-have-a-point, folks. Trump’s effect on American political…
6/ …is cancerous, hideous, and pervasive, but no more so than his corrupt attempts to suborn the law to protect himself. The danger of his people rising up if he’s indicted, prosecuted, and imprisoned is far, far less consequential than walking away from justice.
7/ If they do rise up to violence, we face a choice; collapse into the long dark or do the hard, correct things to save America from a (not semi) fascist movement. The New Civil War is here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet. (h/t@greatdismal)
Finis
“The danger of his people rising up if [Trump is] indicted, prosecuted, and imprisoned is far, far less consequential than walking away from justice.” I must agree.
Bill Kristol cites Lincoln’s 1838 Lyceum speech on the threat to our political institutions posed by “the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country,” as well as what today looks like Trumpist mobocracy:
By such examples, by instances of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit, are encouraged to become lawless in practice; and having been used to no restraint, but dread of punishment, they thus become, absolutely unrestrained.–Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much, as its total annihilation. While, on the other hand, good men, men who love tranquility, who desire to abide by the laws, and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country; seeing their property destroyed; their families insulted, and their lives endangered; their persons injured; and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better; become tired of, and disgusted with, a Government that offers them no protection; and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose. Thus, then, by the operation of this mobocractic spirit, which all must admit, is now abroad in the land, the strongest bulwark of any Government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed–I mean the attachment of the People. Whenever this effect shall be produced among us; whenever the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision-stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure, and with impunity; depend on it, this Government cannot last. By such things, the feelings of the best citizens will become more or less alienated from it; and thus it will be left without friends, or with too few, and those few too weak, to make their friendship effectual. At such a time and under such circumstances, men of sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity, strike the blow, and overturn that fair fabric, which for the last half century, has been the fondest hope, of the lovers of freedom, throughout the world.
Our alleged beacon of freedom is at risk today from the very people who dip themselves in it like soft-serve vanilla decorated with sprinkles. The press still treats them seriously.
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