Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Philadelphia’s DA have warned troops they’ll face charges that Trump can’t save them from if they violate residents.
As Donald Trump floats expanding his authoritarian military crackdown to liberal-led cities beyond the nation’s capital, troops deployed to carry out his anti-democratic schemes might be at risk of prosecution themselves — and the pardon-happy president may not be able to save them.
Thus far, by my count, two Democrats in states that may find themselves targeted have vowed to spur local or state prosecutions — which couldn’t be overturned with a presidential pardon — for anyone who violate residents’ rights if and when the Trump administration expands its troop deployment.
Arresting trump would have started the civil war. And you can bet that basically the entire news media would range from “This breaks historic norms. Nixon got pardoned!” to “Hilary Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama are actively using the military to attack Republicans!”
I genuinely don’t know what the answer should have been. Yes, trump led a violent insurrection… that (pulling numbers out of my ass based on reading previous polls and studies) probably a third of the voting populace actually supported and a bit over half weren’t overly bothered by.
I have a LOT of problems with the Biden admin and agree that a major problem was the idea that doing a good job would make people like them but not doing the PR to explain why the IRA was so great (never get tired of that) and so forth. But the trump problem is a lot like our 9-11 response where… I genuinely can’t think of what the right answer would have been.
Of course the loser MAGAs would fight back, which would have been great. Shoot as many as possible in their riots, gather up the rest, along with the Jan6ers, execute their leaders, and toss all the rest in prison for decades.
And when the stolen documents scandal came to light, it would have proven to the world that they were genuine traitors, and it wasn’t just Democrat lies.
Sure, there would have been a lot of trouble, and a lot of clean-up, but now we’re going to have that anyway, and a lot more, IF we ever emerge from this nightmare. It would have been a lot easier in January 2021 than it’s going to be in January 2029.
…
Look. We are all subject to it and I am not going to pretend I haven’t watched (the Scott and Stonebridge seasons of) Strike back closer to four times than not but… life is not an action movie.
Those magats who “fight back”? They aren’t going to only shoot at the cops and soldiers coming to arrest them. They are going to shoot at “purple haired trans people” (just with a lot more slurs). They are going to shoot up the schools that are teaching kids to use litter boxes and the libraries and daycares that dare to put fricking Miss Rachel on the TV. They are going to shoot at the people who have those “in this house we don’t discriminate” lawn signs and so forth.
And ACAB isn’t just a fun dance. We have seen, time and time again, police departments actively refuse to enforce Democratic/left-leaning laws they don’t approve of. The few attempts at gun control are a “great” example of this where cops actively refuse to enforce them and actively call for the removal of government officials (New Mexico had a big one of those two or three years back).
Life isn’t Call of Duty. Civil war is going to reach the suburbs. And it is going to be really really bad.
The scenario you’ve described sounds far superior to the reality we’re living in now due to Trump’s presidency. The things you’re talking about are happening already, but now with the complicity of the state. Trump in power is worse than his most extreme fanatics getting riled up.
I do fear we are going to see things go hot to some degree or another before 2028 (maybe even 2027…).
But it is the difference between guaranteed slaughter and hoping that people choose sanity. And, even more cynically, it is the difference between “expendable” groups (e.g. Trans folk) being slaughtered versus white middle class liberals. Which is obviously a long standing issue with Democrats (and most mainsteram left leaning political parties) but also aligns with the “Just let them start shooting and we’ll fight them back and fix everything” fantasies that are so common in these discussion spaces.
Would be a lot LESS bad if we had a sane administration running the government, though.
Surely it would have been better to have had a Democrat in the white house when the civil war started than having trump there.