Art: Nikki Friede
"The question is who happens next? Who shows up? Who organizes? Who refuses cynicism? Who protects vulnerable communities? Who turns rage into disciplined action? Who remembers democracy is participatory, ...? -Michael Jochum
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getting convictions to imprison protesters isn’t (yet — they haven’t yet finished building out their network of concentration camps) their real goal.
Stop thinking of it as law enforcement and start thinking about it as punishment and intimidation. That’s their real goal, at least for the moment.
Earlier this week, a Cable TV host did an extended rant about how many cases Trump has lost in court, arguing that “these guys are really bad at what they do” or words to that effect. I beg to differ: they know exactly what they’re doing, and
schoolteacher, or a local trustee has to set up just to defend herself against the most powerful government on Earth: those are the punishments that Trump and his lickspittles are so gleeful about inflicting on those of us they decide to target.
A prosecutor who only brings cases he expects to win is enforcing the law. But, in Trump’s case, corrupt prosecutors who keep bringing cases that grand juries reject, that judges ridicule, that they themselves abandon
the moment real scrutiny shows up, aren’t trying to win at all. They’re trying to make examples of people, to destroy them financially, and to intimidate anybody else who may think of speaking out.
The indictment, the predawn FBI raid, the mugshot, the bail hearing, the ankle monitor, the year of massive, retirement-fund-draining legal bills and sleepless nights, and the GoFundMe that a protestor, politician,
Former Trump DHS Chief of Staff Miles Taylor, noting this morning that he’s heard more indictments of Trump “enemies” are coming soon, summarized it this way:
“The Soviet-ization of American life is farther along than most people realize.”
The eventual dismissal in court or quiet non-indictment by a grand jury is just paperwork stapled to the end of a campaign of brutal intimidation that already did exactly what it was built to do.
Because making examples of people who criticize those in power is Rule One in the Dictator’s Playbook.
hartmannreport.com/p/rule-1-in-...