We have has the rather stomach churning experience of watching stars of the GOP establishment descend on Donald Trump’s criminal trial this week to defy a judge’s order and claim that the justice system is corrupt because it deigns to hold their Dear leader to account for his crimes.
If you want to see how this degradation of the rule of law is playing out in everyday life, witness this shocking move in Texas.
You may recall the case of Garrett Foster, an Air Force veteran who was attending a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 and was, as is legal in Texas openly carrying a rifle. A man named Daniel Perry drove his car into the protesters and Foster (who was white) confronted him without raising his gun, Perry shot him five times.
As JV Last points out in his piece on this at The Bulwark:
The case had everything Republicans love: A peaceful protest with people exercising their First Amendment rights. A veteran lawfully exercising his Second Amendment right. And before the murder the killer had been searching the internet for young girls and sending sexually explicit texts to a minor.
The only problem was the protest itself: It was a Black Lives Matter protest.
And so Daniel Perry—a groomer who was convicted of murder by a jury of his peers—became a conservative cause celebré.
The justice system worked in this case. Perry was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison (which seems low to me considering it’s Texas which usually loves to inflict the death penalty.)
Last explains why Perry did this:
First off, Perry is a racist. And when I say “racist” I don’t mean in the Archie Bunker sense. This is a guy who *hates* black people so much that he frequently talked about killing them for sport. The prosecution presented a mountain of evidence on this point and I won’t quote any of it here, but you can read about it if you like.
Second, there is ample evidence that Perry had been working himself up to seeking out a Black Lives Matter protest for the purpose of killing. Radley Balko has the full rundown on this here.
For instance, here is a something Perry wrote in June of 2020: “I might have to kill a few people on my way to work, they are rioting outside my apartment complex.”
At trial, prosecutors presented an exchange Perry had with a friend in which he had mused on how to create a situation in which he would be justified to kill:
Perry speculated about how he might get away with such a killing – by claiming self-defense, as he is now doing. Prosecutors presented a Facebook Messenger chat between Perry and a friend, Michael Holcomb, which occurred two weeks before he shot Foster. In it, Perry argued that shooting protesters was legal if it was in self-defense. Holcomb, who was called to the stand Wednesday afternoon, seemed to try to talk Perry down. “Aren’t you a CDL holder too?” he asked, referring to the men’s licenses to carry concealed handguns. “We went through the same training … Shooting after creating an event where you have to shoot, is not a good shoot.”
And yes, he is also a man who has been shown to be stalking underage girls. He is a sick, criminal piece of work who killed a man in cold blood.
And yet, Gov. Abbott pardoned him yesterday. Full pardon, the man is now free. His death cult MAGA constituents are thrilled.
Can you believe it?
As Last notes, that’s not the end of the story. Texas has a law designed to remove locally-elected DA’s ostensibly because they are too lenient on crimes. Guess what?
While pardoning Perry, Gov. Abbott claimed that Garza had “demonstrated unethical and biased misuse of his office in prosecuting Daniel Scott Perry.”
Texas Republicans are not content to allow Perry’s murder of Garrett Foster. They also want to send a message that even using the law to bring charges against members of the ingroup who kill members of the outgroup is verboten.
This is MAGA America, folks. The rule of law under these monsters will be the law that protects them and punishes their enemies, period. We’re seeing it play out with the national GOP which wants to throw the book at Democrats and calls any attempt to hold them accountable for their crimes a rigged, witch hunt. An we’re seeing it play out in states where MAGA racists are allowed to kill with impunity.
And, as Tom pointed out this morning, this extends all the way to the Supreme Court where we have a Supreme Court Justice flying an upside down American flag signalling sympathy with the insurrection back in 2021. This idea of “rule of law for me but not for thee” runs very deep in the American right.
Check this out: