TRUMP the PUNISHER is controlling this country through threats of violence

Mitt Romney says during Trump's second impeachment, Senators were warned, "Think of your children." They did. Some voted to acquit who wanted to convict.

It’s his F-U look. It’s his “you stink” look.

And the look goes with the spaghetti thrown against a White House walls, the flung golf clubs, and the endless vicious rage tweets and (un)Truth Social rants—the name calling and the character assassinations — and the endless threats, the calls to arms that notify the radicals in his MAGA base literally to violently punish anybody who demands he be held accountable for his actions.

This week he “warned” the nation of “bedlam” if he is fined by Judge Arthur Engoron to the tune of the $370 million Leticia James wants him to pay for the staggering fraud of which he has already been found guilty.

And when he lost the 2020 presidential election, he stoked a mob into attacking the U.S. Capitol. They injured 174 police officers, defecated in offices and hallways, terrified members of Congress, and tore up everything they could get their hands on. The Department of Justice has brought more than 1,200 against the vandals and bullies who planned and engaged in this violence, and it has so far convicted and jailed 890 people. While this was going on, Trump did NOT call law enforcement or ask for National Guard assistance and was watching it on TV and LAUGHING. His staff begged him to intervene, and he would not do a thing to stop the violence.

Why? Because violence, threats, and slander work. That’s one reason he does it: it works. The other reason is that he’s a sadist, and he loves making people suffer.

And what’s as scary as having a sadist—as a president, as a candidate, as a defendant—is the fact that no one seems to know how to stop him: The media mollycoddle him — and social platforms are now tolerating him again after having once kicked him off. And even judges who have warned him to stop maligning their staffs have not found him in contempt of court when he does it (Engoron). And even judges (Chutkan) who have won limited gag orders against him have failed to take him into custody when he breaks every rule legally laid out for him.

But they’re not the real enablers. The real enablers that of this hideous behavior are the MAGAs who give LOVE this. MAGA rallies are chock-full of barely controlled violence. People have been beaten at rallies, Democrats have been threatened and screamed at, and disabled people have been jeered. Perhaps he’s the Republican front-runner because he channels their hate and rage that cooler heads and warmer hearts have, over time, eroded the death-grip of American white supremacy and male dominance.

The worst of the damage of this, however, has been done to Congress. January 6th intimidated EVERYBODY who was there. When long-time Senator and former Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney resigned a few months ago, he was clear that what has happened to the Republican Party, infiltrated by Constitution-eschewing religionists, enemies of women’s rights, xenophobes, and racists, is that the few left who are still humanitarians and stand for a rights-based Constitution are absolutely scared to vote against this man.

In the book he published shortly after he resigned, Romney spelled it out, and The Atlantic filed a report on it.

“One Republican congressman confided to Romney that he wanted to vote for Trump’s second impeachment, but chose not to out of fear for his family’s safety,” Coppins writes. “The congressman reasoned that Trump would be impeached by House Democrats with or without him — why put his wife and children at risk if it wouldn’t change the outcome?

“Later, during the Senate trial, Romney heard the same calculation while talking with a small group of Republican colleagues. When one senator, a member of leadership, said he was leaning toward voting to convict, the others urged him to reconsider. You can’t do that, Romney recalled someone saying. Think of your personal safety, said another. Think of your children. The senator eventually decided they were right.”

And writes Aaron Blake of the Washington Post:

There was former Ohio congressman Anthony Gonzalez (R) — a former professional football player — who deemed the hostility he faced after opposing Trump too much of a risk for his family. Former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney (R) described similar fears from other legislators, as did former Michigan representative Peter Meijer (R). That these three are all former legislators is not a coincidence: They resigned or were beaten in primaries largely because they saw how the party had turned against them.

And the party turned against them because the party is now overwhelmingly MAGA. And this kind of thing is fine with them. But the rest of us aren’t.

What the solution? Vote. Write. Speak up. Vote. Make sure others can vote. Petition the courts to stand up. Protest the media. Take a stand in every way you possibly can.

One last note: Joyce Vance’s substack this morning is fantastic and explained what happened to Engoron yesterday in court. And also to note is that some MAGA creep called in a bomb threat on Engoron’s family. So, while he’s hearing Donald Trump whine and rant and personally attach him and Leticia James (DA of New York state), Engoron is worried sick somebody will kill his family.

Here’s Joyce Vance’s piece from this morning. It’s excellent.

Enough