An instrument
Democrats on Sunday framed President Trump’s public demand that Attorney General Pam Bondi not “delay” in prosecutions of political enemies as a threat to American democracy.
I don’t think “framed” is the right word there. “Described” or “characterized” would be better. It’s not really all that controversial or debatable that a president leaning on an AG to prosecute people the president doesn’t like is not kosher. Is “not kosher” equivalent to “threat to democracy”? Good enough for government work, I’d say.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) argued on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that Trump is turning the DOJ “into an instrument that goes after his enemies, whether they’re guilty or not” and “that helps his friends.”
Schumer warned, “This is the path to a dictatorship.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) framed the current moment “one of the most dangerous” the country has faced, saying on ABC’s “This Week,” “We are quickly turning into a banana republic.”
He’s not wrong. I wish we could say he’s wrong, but he’s not. Trump publicly telling the AG to go after his enemies is very banana. It wouldn’t be any better if he’d done it privately, but the fact that he did it publicly is a sign that norms and public opinion are not a deterrent. That’s scary. It’s all scary, and that’s scary too.
This is really alarming.
If I lived in the US, I’d consider leaving now .
This new Substack essay by Jane Clare Jones “Free Speech and the F-Word :On a Turning Point” is pretty good.
https://culturewarblues.substack.com/p/free-speech-and-the-f-word
There’s other good material here, including stuff about the influence of horrors like Curtis Yarvin and Peter Thiel on the Trump Administration.
How long do you go down “the path to a dictatorship” before you admit you’re already there?
Well, Sumi, there are House of Representatives elections due in November.
Are these elections going to be allowed to take place? Or will Trump and Vance pull some BS about how the evil Leftists who murdered Saint Chuck will wreak more havoc unless the elections are suspended?
Mostly Cloudy, Russia still has elections although there’s no doubt Putin’s a dictator. In fact, just last week they held elections for governors, regional parliament deputies, municipal councils members, and mayors. It’s amazing how popular Putin’s United Russia party is. A pro-Kremlin candidate won in all 19 gubernatorial elections, with over 80 percent of the vote in seven of them.
Canceling elections seems amateurish when you can simply rig them.
Good point. Trump could well go down the Viktor Orbán route and take control of the media and the judiciary, and use them to make it impossible for fair elections to be held.
Meanwhile, the Republicans continue to publicly celebrate violence. Here’s Trump Toady Laura Ingraham on Fox News:
https://x.com/hemantmehta/status/1969182743503225017#m
Thanks for the link, Mostly Cloudy. Jane is one of the very few people – along with this blog commentariat – who makes me feel like I might not be crazy after all.
Jane is one of the Good Folk.
Jones mentioned the far-right “Unite the Kingdom” rally in the UK organised by Tommy Robinson a fortnight ago. Alarming to see the stuff that happened there, including the rant from far-right New Zealand preacher Brian Tanaki.
Tanaki shouted “Ban any type of public expression – in our Christian nation – from other religions. Ban halal! Ban burkas! Ban mosques! Ban temples! Ban shrines!” The crowd roared approval.
https://x.com/Dplanet/status/1967478842135650604
Time was that the UK would only hear this type of Protestant fundamentlst rant in parts of Northern Ireland. That a crowd composed of people from all over the UK are now cheering on such sentiments in London is genuinely shocking.
Another vote for the Jane Clare Jones essay. I haven’t finished because I haven’t slept in god knows how long and from the little bit I’ve read it’s worth some serious engagement. Jones is one of the few people on X (along with our host of course) who hasn’t lost their mind. People I knew to be right leaning, but who I though were rational, thoughtful people, have enthusiastically joined the baying mob. The torches have been lit and apparently anyone who failed to feel grief at yet another murder by gun* in the US is marked as a monster. Dammit, even Glinner has joined in. (Not that I ever thought any good would come of his moving to the US.)
Of course, so much of this has been copied from the Party of Institutional Revolution (which calls itself the left) who didn’t invent it but has polished it to a high degree. You must care passionately about something. This is something. You must care about this. The revolution will not be televised but the Two Minutes Hate will be live 24/7 on social media.
*By my calculations there have been another dozen or so just today and we may as well forget anything before that because everyone has.
@2 thanks for the link. Anyone interested in Jane Clare Jones’ work might want to check out her Centre for Feminist Thought:
https://feminist-thought.org/
I’m starting her beginning course next month.
We are in the planning stages of a long-overdue kitchen renovation. It will cost a lot of money. On a regular basis, we wonder whether we should save that money to spend on a house in a different country.
Mostly Cloudy,
The elections for the House are in November 2026 (though I guess there might be some special elections this year for vacant seats).
This year the most telling elections will be the statewide contests here in Virginia and in New Jersey.
What A Maroon – yes, I should have clarified that the midterm HoR elections are due in November next year. There are a few elections for vacant House seats this November, though.
There’s going to be an election in Arizona in a few days.
https://azluminaria.org/2025/06/16/half-the-candidates-in-southern-arizonas-congressional-special-election-dont-live-in-district-7/
Disney says the Jimmy Kimmel show will be returning to broadcast:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/22/disney-abc-jimmy-kimmel-return.html
Looks like someone at the company still has a spine.
Yaboosucks Donnie.