patrick.net

Late last week, the Washington Post’s entire editorial board ran a handwringing editorial springing to Republican John Bolton’s defense, headlined, “FBI raid targeting Bolton crosses a line in the Trump revenge campaign.” ...

Hilariously, the Editorial Board bent over backwards to scold Trump for “revenge raids” and to sermonize about “forbearance,” but not once did they trot out their favorite mantra: “no one is above the law.” That line was practically a daily drumbeat during the Mar-a-Lago saga and every other Trump case. But now, when it’s Bolton’s boxes? Suddenly, the slogan vanishes, disappearing like the faint ghost of a distant echo.

The deepest irony is that they convinced themselves that Trump was a one-off, an aberration, a man so uniquely dangerous that feeding “norms and standards” into the shredder was justified by the exigencies of the moment. Every raid, every novel theory of prosecution, every “emergency” departure from precedent was platformed as democracy’s last stand.

The problem with governing by exception is that exceptions have a nasty habit of becoming precedents and biting you in the tender parts. Once you’ve broken the seal —politicized prosecutions, FBI raids on ex-presidents, hyper-creative readings of statutes— you shouldn’t be surprised when the same exacting playbook is used against your people. Yet somehow, the Post seems shocked that the tools sharpened for Trump are now cutting against Bolton.

It’s the oldest legal lesson of all: if you cheer when the state stretches the law to nail your enemy, you don’t get to complain when the same stretched law comes looking for you.

sure, every time someone from the left tries to kill or burn or loot someone, you squawking bobbleheads look somber and sad and say “what a tragedy” and “we deplore this and do not condone violence,” but then a week later, you’re back on TV saying “my political opponents are literally hitler” and “fascists” and once more engaging in the mass hypnosis of your tribe to get them all thinking that they are re-living the 1930’s and need to kill the nazis before it’s too late.

not only do none of them actually know what this means or that trump and musk are also highly moderate versions of what else could stand in their place,

this is stochastic terrorism.

the propoganda complex is just upping the probability until it crosses the line into certainty.

the praxis is endlessly messaging until you find the weak minded or the virtue seeking vicious, whip them to violence, then call the burning of cities and killing of anyone you do not like “well deserved” and act like it’s the height of morality and how to get tribal merit badges.

then when the next atrocity occurs, you once more don your sadface and lament this terrible tragedy as though you had no hand in inciting it and are, of necessity and of course “the good guys.” ...

the smart ones on the left are realizing that they allowed some truly deranged and dangerous people into their tent.

now is the time to disavow and move away. you cannot just “stay silent” about this anymore, not after the things that have happened.

i think that probably about the only thing between the US and something that expresses like civil war and communists getting thrown out of helicopters is most of the left disavowing its extreme wing and joining the right in opposition to these zealots.