Trump-endorsed Maryland candidate: I'll use state troopers to resist "rogue" Biden actions

Dan Cox is the Republican nominee for governor of Maryland. He won the nomination by defeating Kelly Schulz, a protégé of incumbent Larry Hogan. Cox was the choice of former president Trump.

Cox won the primary despite doing virtually no advertising. The Democrats did his advertising for him.

They did it by running ostensibly negative ads against Cox that highlighted Trump’s endorsement. The ads mobilized support for Cox among Republicans, as they were intended to do.

Cox defeated Schultz handily.

That was okay with me. I knew Cox couldn’t win the general election, but suspected that Schultz couldn’t either. Under these circumstances, why not nominate the more conservative candidate, if that’s what Cox really is?

Cox did have one strike against him as far as I was concerned. On January 6, he called Mike Pence a traitor. But Cox thought better of it and later apologized. Maybe the attack on Pence was a one-off.

On Tuesday, though, Cox responded to the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago by proclaiming that, if elected, he will “use the MSP [Maryland state police] and Maryland Guard to stand against all rogue actions of this out of control tyrannical Biden administration with fierce tenacity.”

Maryland police officers and guardsmen fiercely battling FBI agents trying to carry out a court-authorized search? I’ll pass on that.

January 6 fell well short of an “insurrection,” in my view. But what Cox seems to be promising meets that description.

In the real world, I doubt Maryland cops and guardsmen would follow Cox into battle against the feds. I’m not sure Cox would follow through on his rhetoric and order them to stand against the Biden administration. I suspect Cox’s statement is posturing.

But for what purpose? So he can lose to the left-wing Democrat by 75-25 instead of 65-35?

If I were more of a conspiracy theorist, I’d conclude that the FBI raid was intended to provoke violence and threats of violence by outraged Trump supporters. Certainly, the mainstream media was ready with articles about GOP “hysteria” over the search as “an invitation to violence.” Such violence, or fear of it, might be the only thing that could revive Joe Biden’s standing — the way the Oklahoma City bombing brought a faltering Bill Clinton back into favor with the electorate.

Yes, the FBI raid violated important norms. And, no, it’s not a defense of the raid to point out that Trump violated important norms in early January 2020, and that, indeed, Trump’s removal of boxes of presidential documents was itself a violation of lesser norms (and the law).

But for a gubernatorial candidate even to suggest he would deploy state troopers to fight off such a raid is the height of irresponsibility. Can’t conservatives leave that kind of talk to the deepest recesses of the internet and podcast fever swamp?

I hope so. Otherwise, we’ll be playing right into the hands of those who want to marginalize, and maybe crush, us.