Arresting Trump Will Get Ugly, The Alternative Is Worse

We are damned if we do, and damned if we don't. But the future of America is at stake, so bravery is needed to confront this grave existential threat.

by Justin Rosario

Sometimes I wonder if the people who write for the major news outlets really understand the moment in history we find ourselves trapped in. By and large, these same people completely ignored the danger of the right’s growing addiction to racism, violence, and authoritarianism. Now that America’s fascist movement is too obvious to wave away as liberal hysteria, they don’t quite seem to get what it is they’re looking at.

Steve Phillips’ Guardian column, “If America fails to punish its insurrectionists, it could see a wave of domestic terror,” is correct, and solidly based in history. But it overlooks what cannot be wished away: If America does punish its insurrectionists, we’ll see a wave of domestic terror anyway.

No accountability = more terrorism

Phillips makes the case that we must hold Republican insurrectionists accountable or the consequences will be dire. He doesn’t mean that Republicans will try again, although they obviously will. What Phillips is referring to is the very clear historical precedent set after the Civil War:

The last time the United States failed to properly punish insurrectionists, they went on to form the Ku Klux Klan, unleash a reign of murderous domestic terrorism, and re-establish formal white supremacy in much of the country for more than 100 years.

Phillips is correct here. Instead of hanging the entire leadership of the Confederacy for treason, they were allowed to go home unscathed. The men responsible for more American deaths than almost every other war in American history combined then started a long campaign to undermine the rule of law.

As Phillips points out, it worked. Southern conservative racists ran rampant for a century, murdering thousands and assaulting and assassinating elected officials. The government put up a desultory effort to stop it but withdrew federal troops in 1877 as part of a crass political deal, leaving the southern Black population at the mercy of terrorists. Eventually, this prompted the Great Migration during which millions of American citizens fled the violence of the South.

What makes us think this would happen again? Because it never really stopped. The police have been terrorizing Black communities for generations. White America didn’t bother noticing until it was on video and impossible to avoid but police violence against Black skin is a constant reality. 

It’s important to note that once it become undeniable that the police were out of control, very little happened. The opposite occurred, in fact. We gave the police weapons of war and made it easier than ever to evade accountability. The response from the police has been to become “warrior cops”, ever ready to pull the trigger with little to no provocation. Now, no one is safe from their violence. Men, women, children, the elderly, the handicapped, all equal targets of opportunity for a power trip and a rush of adrenaline. But the terrorism inflicted on the Black community is still on another level.

An almost total lack of consequences has taught law enforcement that they can do anything they want, just like the KKK after Reconstruction ended. So they do. Violence, theft, murder. It’s all good when you have a badge, a gun, and almost total immunity from the law.

That’s not even including the white nationalist infiltration of law enforcement or the fact that law enforcement mostly ignores white nationalist extremism already. Even after the federal government finally stepped in to crush the KKK and end the terrorism that ruled the South, law enforcement was always too busy to deal with smaller terrorist groups. 

They had plenty of resources to harass the Black Panthers and the Weathermen of course. There were billions of dollars available to surveil and violate the civil rights of an untold number of American Muslim citizens who hadn’t actually done anything but wake up brown and Muslim. Occupy Wall Street was an intolerable threat, what with their drum circles and smoking weed. BLM? Antifa? 5-alarm fires!

But white nationalist groups that have been responsible for the overwhelming majority of domestic terrorism in America for decades? Everyone has been much too busy to deal with any of that. Even suggesting we have a right-wing extremism problem is cause for a public meltdown.

Naturally, the lack of consequences has only emboldened the right to become more and more aggressive. The Proud Boys are a street gang that operates out in the open. They start brawls right in front of the police and walk away. Sometimes the police work with armed extremists to attack protesters. Is it any wonder why they thought they could storm the Capitol and overthrow the government? Why they live streamed it? They have enjoyed decades of having no consequences for their actions. Why would there be any now? 

Phillips is absolutely right. If we do not throw the people behind the attack in jail, it will send a signal to the rest of the country that white nationalist extremism cannot or will not be punished. The result will be a wave of terrorism that would make the KKK blush.

But Phillips is also wrong because throwing the people behind the January 6th attack in jail will launch a wave of terrorism anyway.

Accountability = more terrorism

We know that Donald Trump was the ringleader and instigator for the violence we saw on January 6th (the commission is laying out all the evidence in excruciating detail), but he had a whole lot of help carrying out his coup attempt. Not just the useful idiots in the mob but elected officials all over the country. Every one of them should be arrested for sedition and locked away for 20 years. 

How do you suppose, though, the GOP and Fox News will spin that? They’re already screaming that the mob responsible for attacking the Capitol are “political prisoners.” There are hundreds of hours of video of these people violently assaulting the police. They were screaming for blood and people died. They live streamed themselves smashing windows and beating cops. But to the right, they are the victims.

Should the FBI start arresting elected officials for their role in sending that mob into the Capitol to murder democracy? Should Trump be arrested for his wide reaching attempt to overturn the election he knew he had lost? The calls for violence would be immediate and deafening. 

We know that Trump wanted to use the military to shoot protesters as a means to stay in power. He tried to have his own Vice President killed so Chuck Grassley could step in and enact the plan to overthrow the election. Trump is a malignant narcissist with little regard for the lives of others.

Republicans and right wing media figures who are not directly tied to the insurrection would also see accountability for Republican criminality as an existential threat. It is important to remember that the entire modern right wing is predicated on corruption and extremism. Their media figures promote terrorism, either to grift millions from their viewers or to push fascist ideology. Or both. Their elected officials have abandoned any pretense of democracy and are busy rigging elections out in the open. Republican judges are so openly corrupt it almost defies description. These avowed enemies of the rule of law would react…poorly to widespread arrests.

Between the two groups, those facing jail now and those facing jail later, they would provide all of the impetus needed to trigger a massive wave of domestic terrorism in hopes of saving their own skin. America has very little appetite to tackle the problem of violent white men.

Eyes wide open

We are currently in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation, but these people are criminals who present a direct threat to America. They should all rot in jail.

That being said, we do need to understand what is coming. Steve Phillips explained what will happen if we don’t act. It’s just as important to explain what will happen if we do act. Shock and awe is a very real thing. Right wing terrorists will seek to demoralize the nation to the point where we give them what they want. They have every reason to believe this will work and it will if we do not prepare ourselves for it mentally before they strike. 

Phillips is right that we must punish insurrectionists or we will face severe and bloody consequences. We simply have to go into this eye wide open when we do.

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You made a lot of amazing points on both podcasts, especially the part of "feeding the hate machine" which will surely happen once they gain power, just like it did in Germany. And I have a feeling the trans population will be first the crosshairs. Jews will certainly be targeted, but once rights (and lives) are stripped from trans, lesbian and gay populations and people of color and women, then they will come for Jewish and Muslim populations…

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