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DAVID DEMILO's avatar

It's worth noting that Booth believed he would welcomed as a hero when he escaped to Richmond, even though he was told by CSA spies that Richmond was ruined and Davis had fled.

It's also worth noting that Reagan's would-be assassin, John Hinckley, was trying to impress Jodie Foster.

Political motivations notwithstanding, the primary motive is self-evident: Crooks wanted to take out the POTUS. Whether Crooks thought this would make him a hero, or whether he was trying to impress, say, Adam Schiff, it's wrong to say "we don't know his motive" or argue it was not political violence.

Those who say (I don't care how many degrees they have) that Trump is an authoritarian and that he is a threat to our constitutional republic are obliged to provide evidence for such an assertion. I can give you a long llst of democrat policies and specific executive actions that I believe threaten our constitution, and I also have argued this point with people on the other side.

When I ask them how Trump is an "existential threat" or an "authoritarian" (despite actions to the contrary), all I get is a lot of gestalt theory. He's violated long-standing norms. Hmmm. Norms. Which ones? He's vulgar and he insults people, they say. Unlike other Presidents, huh? He doesn't respect the inter-agency consensus. As President, he is obliged to do so, especially when time after time the experts are proven wrong, sometimes catastrophically. He pals around with dictators. You mean like FDR and Stalin? Nixon and Mao? Or the Shah, or Marcos, or Peron? Obama and Fidel and Chavez? Biden with Zellensky, who has suspended elections since the Russian invasion?

And then they drop the mother load: Well, he led an insurrection to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. I have maintained from Jan. 6, 2021 to now that that riot was being manipulated by democrats and the press in real time exactly the way the Nazi Party manipulated the Reichstag Fire. They took a catastrophe and overlaid a narrative so they could use the law to persecute their political enemies. To this day, Trump has never been charged with insurrection, nor can anyone demonstrate an organized plot to do anything other than send electoral votes back to certain states - a parliamentary and legal tactic that has been tried in the past, and which Jamie Raskin is openly planning this fall, should Trump prevail.

So yes, if you believe an idea is a threat to the republic, say so. But make an argument, not a declaration, then use it punish and imprison people when they don't fall in line.

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