Precedent
Donald Trump spent the first week of his second term using the presidency to glorify political violence and weaponize the threat of it against anyone who might consider criticizing him.
Trump pulled the security detail from former chief White House medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is an enemy of MAGA thanks to his efforts to fight covid. He also ended security details for his former National Security Advisor John Bolton and his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, both of whom have been targeted by Iran because they worked to advance Trump’s hard-line policies during his first term.
Bolton of course is an outspoken Trump critic, but Pompeo campaigned for his former boss just last fall. Trump repaid him by using mobster logic to justify endangering his wellbeing, cold-bloodedly telling reporters who asked him last week about the decision to pull the security detail that “there’s risks to everything.”
Trumpese for “nice little place you got here.”
Trump’s moves against Fauci and company last week were overshadowed by his pardons of about around 1,500 people convicted of crimes in connection with the January 6 insurrection, including some who brutally beat cops. Trump also commuted the sentences of individuals associated with violent rightwing groups and convicted of seditious conspiracy related to their involvement in the attack on the Capitol, including Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio, who had been sentenced to 22 years, and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was sentenced to 18 years.
There’s precedent. Hitler freed all imprisoned Nazis in a 1933 amnesty.
The most obvious past example of Trumpist terror, of course, is the January 6 coup attempt. On that date in 2021, Trump used his social media platforms and speech to incite a mob to storm the Capitol. There, they assaulted police officers and threatened the lives of lawmakers. As many as nine people died in the violence and its aftermath.
And yet, after all that, he was allowed to run again, and he won. This makes the US a failed state.
Um….is that the same Noah Berlatsky who worked with the Prostasia Foundation? The group that helped “Minor Attracted Persons” (ugh!) speak with teenagers?
https://www.splicetoday.com/writing/is-noah-berlatsky-getting-cancelled
Also, Berlatsky hates real and imagined TERFs:
https://www.everythingishorrible.net/p/laverne-cox-and-beauty
So I’m a bit surprised to see a Berlatsky article appear on B&W.
Yes, I guess it is. I found a post of mine from three years ago which is rudely critical of him. Sadly, I don’t remember the name of everyone I say rude things about. On the other hand I do sometimes point out that people can be horribly wrong about X but right about Y.
At any rate, a Berlatsky article didn’t appear on B&W, I wrote a post on B&W quoting from a post by Berlatsky. The name rang a bell but I didn’t remember that I’d flailed a bad piece he wrote in 2022. I’m not going to bother to apologize, I don’t think it’s that much of a crime.
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Well, I don’t disagree with the Noah Berlatsky quotes in the article above. An example of someone
being ” horribly wrong about X but right about Y.”
I recall that the Noah Berlatsky /Prostasia scandal got quite a bit of coverage a few years ago:
https://4w.pub/prostasia-normalize-pedophilia/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
The reality is we all agree with each other about most things. The stuff we argue and quarrel over is a fraction of what there is. That doesn’t stop me arguing nonstop all the time, but it’s useful to remember now and then.
(Trump may be the exception.)