Breaking the Law to End Rule of Law Is the Path Republicans Have Chosen
Thoughts About Trump Dictatorship Doomerism in Progress
In recent times it appears to have become a virtue for the GOP to obstruct justice with distractions or just flat out abet members of their tribe in committing criminal acts.
I get it.
The House of Representatives has painted themselves into a corner in their quest to revenge-impeach President Biden as proof of their loyalty to Orange Jesus (their words, not mine).
Evidence? Who needs evidence when Democrats are supposedly so evil? The big lie has been repeated often enough so that a majority of Republicans profess to believe the 2020 election was stolen.
Who needs hearings? There are congresscritters ready to convict and remove the incumbent from office yesterday, especially after Saint George (Santos) was driven from the temple.
Videotapes of the January 6th insurrection were released by House Speaker of the Moment Mike Johnson with the faces of participants blurred to prevent the Department of Justice from charging them. He publicly admitted to obstruction of justice, then walked it back to say they were protecting rioters from harassment. Wow. Rioters need protecting? How about democracy?
Does their interpretation of Rule of Law really mean it’s not a crime if you don’t agree?
Or maybe it’s not a crime if then-President Trump sent you to do it?
From the Washington Post:
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday accused former president Donald Trump of a long pattern of lying about elections and encouraging violence, saying he “sent” supporters on Jan. 6, 2021 to criminally block the election results.
In a new court filing, prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith went further than in their August indictment in attempting to tie him to that day’s violence, saying they intended to introduce evidence of his other acts both before the November 2020 presidential election and subsequent alleged threats to establish his motive, intent and preparation for subverting its legitimate results.
“Evidence of the defendant’s post-conspiracy embrace of particularly violent and notorious rioters is admissible to establish the defendant’s motive and intent on January 6 — that he sent supporters, including groups like the Proud Boys, whom he knew were angry, and whom he now calls ‘patriots,’ to the Capitol to achieve the criminal objective of obstructing the congressional certification,” prosecutors alleged in a nine-page filing.
The former President has also done some filing, demanding the prosecution cough up files on just about every aspect of the MAGA mythology on January 6. Hoping to bury the government’s case by making them search for fantasy documents, Trump’s team is alleging that the government is withholding information on people known as “Fence Cutter Bulwark” and “Scaffold Commander” — made up names by conspiracy theorists about people they claim are government agents.
Files on Ray Epps, the MAGA man now living off the grid after being falsely accused of being a government informer, are part of the Trump team’s filing, along with John Nichols, the journalist accused of being an inciter, who can prove he was in Wisconsin on January 6th .
His team has also asked for any intelligence the government had on “Antifa,” on pipe bombs found near the Capitol on Jan. 6, and on “informants, cooperators [and] undercover agents … involved in the assistance, planning, or encouragement” of the events of that day.
All of these issues (and demands for files pertaining to) have been raised previously in trials of the arrested, convicted, and pleaded guilty for participating in the events surrounding the insurrection. All of these diversionary fantasies have been repeatedly debunked in front of numerous judges appointed by numerous Presidents.
Via Jay Kuo’s substack:
The playbook is the same as Trump used for the Big Lie, connecting obscure anecdotes and misleading claims of election fraud together into a fantastical network of untruth and misdirection. Never mind that it actually doesn’t matter whether his followers attacked on their own or were led into attacking; Trump still stood by and watched the assault and did nothing to quell it for hours.
The government will file what’s called “motions in limine” to prevent false conspiracies and tangential claims from polluting the trial. If Smith succeeds and Judge Chutkan excludes most or all of such evidence, Trump likely will then argue on appeal, that he was unfairly kept from presenting “his” side of the case. It’s all part of his deep state, witch-hunt narrative.
The battle will also play out in public. Trump will emerge from the courthouse and tell America that the election was stolen, that the feds were behind January 6, but that he’s not being allowed to show that inside the courtroom. The media needs to be prepared to not simply just repeat his false claims, but rather to label them as false and explain precisely why that each is.
Last night (Tuesday):
Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney is now making the rounds in support of her book, titled Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning. And she’s clear about the warning part of the title, namely that a Trump victory will bring an end to presidential elections.
Former Bush speechwriter David Frum lays out his fears for the future in The Atlantic's January/February 2024 issue, which contains articles by 24 different writers laying out the dangers the United States could face with a Trump reelection.
By Election Day 2024, Donald Trump will be in the thick of multiple criminal trials…. A second Trump term would instantly plunge the country into a constitutional crisis more terrible than anything seen since the Civil War. Even in the turmoil of the 1960s, even during the Great Depression, the country had a functional government with the president as its head. But the government cannot function with an indicted or convicted criminal as its head….
From Trump himself and the people around him, we have a fair idea of a second Trump Administration's immediate priorities: (1) Stop all federal and state cases against Trump, criminal and civil. (2) Pardon and protect those who tried to overturn the 2020 election on Trump's behalf. (3) Send the Department of Justice into action against Trump adversaries and critics. (4) End the independence of the civil service and fire federal officials who refuse to carry out Trump's commands. (5) If these lawless actions ignite protests in American cities, order the military to crush them.
An alternative view on Trump dictatorship doomerism comes via Greg Sargent at the Washington Post, who makes a case for institutional resilience:
“Authoritarians create a climate where they seem unstoppable,” Ben-Ghiat told me. “Creating an aura of destiny around the leader galvanizes his supporters by making his movement seem much stronger than it actually is. The manipulation of perception is everything.”
The aim is to hypnotize voters into forgetting the power and numbers that they possess, persuading them that politics is a hopelessly sordid and disappointing exercise. But that is not the story of the Trump years.
The purpose of this isn’t to downplay the gravity of the moment; it’s to channel anxieties about it in a constructive direction. As Brian Beutler writes on Substack, excessive public worries about Trump’s supposed inevitability bury the all-important truth that popular majorities have regularly, emphatically rejected Trump and all he represents, potentially making the convictions of the anti-Trump movement look feeble in the eyes of swing voters.
No more indulging in paralyzing fatalistic nightmares. We need a spirit of guarded and vigilant confidence — one that is fully aware of what’s at stake while drawing inspiration from the cognizance that this country has thwarted Trump in the past — and will likely do so again.
It’s really swell of Sargent to have faith in the system. My argument against his point of view stems from recognition of the autocratic/theocratic/dominionist moles whose power has steadily increased.
From the Supreme Court to the House of Representatives to all-too-many state legislatures, the ranks of those with allegiances to extremists who despise our institutions has steadily increased. Exhibit A would be the Federalist Society; Exhibit B would be the Republican Attorney Generals Association.
The part of the electorate under the sway of modern day evangelicals is ready for this eventuality for the same reason they’ve stayed loyal as MAGA’s unChristian words and deeds have been documented.
A while back, Talia Lavin and David Swanson focused on this sort of preacher-led blind loyalty:
When Donald Trump came to power, many evangelicals—including members of his own Cabinet—saw in him an echo of a figure foretold in Biblical prophecy, the reincarnation of a monarch who had lived more than two millennia ago. As foretold in the prophesies of Isaiah, this figure was Cyrus the Great, the Emperor of Persia, who in the year 538 BC granted the return of exiled Jews to their homeland of Israel, and enabled the building of the Second Temple. Cyrus was, in the words of the Christian Courier, “a pagan in sentiment and practice, yet an unconscious tool in the hands of the Lord.”
Seeing in Donald Trump a return of Cyrus—the heathen who would become God’s instrument—was a popular view among evangelicals leading up to and after Donald Trump’s 2016 election. In the leadup to the 2016 elections, when a tape was released revealing a series of lewd comments Trump made during the filming of the TV show “Access Hollywood,” including his now-infamous assertion that he could “grab [women] by the pussy,” evangelical leaders doubled down on this comparison. In 2017, prophet Lance Wallnau told the Christian Broadcasting Network that God had visited him and explicitly made the analogy, citing Isaiah 45:1—which references “Cyrus, the Lord’s anointed.”
And they concluded with an even stronger warning:
A nation bound by Christian authoritarianism, whose mandate is cruelty in private and austerity in public—which claims to love you as it burns you alive—is not to be countenanced. Not in our schools, our courts, our cops, our corners. It must be routed out from the public square and left to rot in ignominy, robbed of its power to hurt and to shame.
What do you hear in the darkness around you? Is it the whirl of devils and angels in battle, or silence, or rain, or the mundane miracle of dawn, or the sleep of the one you love beside you? Somewhere in that aural landscape are the war-drums marching, the horns of Jericho in full, florid trumpet, ready to shake down the cracked remaining guardrails against autocracy in this country. In response, we must take up a countermarch, thrill to its own cacophonic strains, and rise to spurn a faith that has overrun its banks, spilled out into wild and untrammeled hate.
I would agree that we can no longer tolerate the “horse race” view of the 2024 presidential election; the consequences must be front and center.
I also think it’s wise to look at President Biden's (largely unsung) biggest accomplishments, even when they are half-measures. The administration’s view of governance embraces guardrails anchored in what’s best for the country, as opposed to craven sucking up to corporate malfeasance.
America’s front and center corporations and many of the men who control them aren’t shadow-opposing Biden because they like Trump; it’s because the invisible hand of the markets has its digits up their asses.
When it comes to everyday voters, the health of their families and their financial future is a big part of what matters. Every heatwave/flood is a trigger for uncertainty. Every union victory gives cause for hope. And if we can offer to save Obamacare/Medicare/Social Security along the way, the future will look a bit brighter.
Finally, it’s become a truth that every Republican accusation is a projection. They are what they say they oppose, whether it’s actual (or abetting) child molesters or illicit drug enablers. Law enforcement’s chasing women seeking health care, while rehab programs with a mandatory (Christian) faith component get favorable treatment. Threats/acts of violence are their brand. Fear is their best selling item, particularly when it’s tied to fictional yarns about “others” “taking.”
That vision is a long way from what was offered in the second verse of America, The Beautiful:
O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife, Who more than self their country loved And mercy more than life!
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Wednesday’s Clips of News and Views
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Column: The GOP is back to attacking Obamacare, and making less sense than ever
By Michael Hiltzik at The Los Angeles Times
If Trump, DeSantis and Haley devoted any thought to America’s healthcare landscape, they would stop talking about repealing and “supplanting” the ACA and come up with concrete suggestions to make it better. Instead, they wield their attacks on Obamacare like shibboleths.
They’re the easiest way to excite the MAGA base without actually doing anything. All they’ve proven is the old adage that talk is cheap.
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US breaks record for most mass shootings in single year after weekend murders Via The Guardian - (subhead) Country has had 38 mass shootings – in which at least 203 people have died – so far this year, passing previous high of 36 (with four or more dead)
Despite the media attention they attract, most mass shootings do not happen in public spaces, with at least 26 of this year’s 38 happening in private homes or shelters, according to the Washington Post.
Different groups count mass shootings and killings in different ways. Some, such as the Gun Violence Archive, include events in which multiple people are shot regardless of number of deaths, and so report much higher figures. Its tally for the year is 630 mass shootings.
Mass shooting deaths dropped in 2020 during the Covid pandemic to 21, but have since rebounded to a new record.
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Florida says the purpose of school libraries is to "convey the government's message" Via Judd Legum at Popular Information (Remember the days when ‘Government Schools’ was a pejorative used by the right? Times are a changin’, I guess.)
Ken Paulson, the director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, noted that proponents of removing books from school libraries frequently say they are fighting for "parental rights." But "[if] government speech determines what books can be in the library, the government is essentially saying your children can only see the ideas that the government has approved." That is inconsistent, Paulson argues, with parental rights. "It's authoritarianism," Paulson said.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, said Florida's position goes against the fundamental principle "that no government entity can engage in viewpoint discrimination." Caldwell-Stone said, if Florida prevails, it would transform schools from a place dedicated to "preparing individuals… to make decisions about their own lives" to "indoctrination centers for only one viewpoint."