MAGA's Terror Playbook
With their reactions to even the most insignificant of events, MAGA lays out the playbook for Martial Law.
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by Jeremy Novak
On New Year’s Day 2025, there were two terror attacks in the U.S. In one, a truck was driven into a celebrating crowd on the streets of New Orleans, killing 14. In the other, in an apparent suicide attack, a car bomb exploded in front of a Trump hotel in Las Vegas.
MAGA supporters swiftly and aggressively responded to these attacks, continuing their pattern of targeting perceived enemies. Two main aspects of our current reality kept these events from turning into bona fide crises:
Trump is still not president.
Neither attack was actually conducted by the perceived enemy in question (migrants crossing the border).
How might this have played out had neither of these two things been true?
Jumping the Gun
There was just enough information for MAGA to assume the worst and jump to feverish conclusions. In the case of the New Orleans attack, the attacker was non-white and had a Middle Eastern-sounding name (complete with a hyphen!).
On the same day the Las Vegas attack occurred, which consisted of a Tesla Cybertruck exploding in front of a Trump hotel (a real metaphor for our current political predicament).
For quite some time it wasn’t clear who exactly had been responsible; it took a while for authorities to identify that a human body was on-site, much less identify the specific individual.
In both cases it took hours for local experts to investigate and assess the facts. In this information vacuum, MAGA swept in. Trump’s Truth Social posts were a mishmash of demeaning hyper-venom towards migrants and anyone in charge of the border in the last four years:
With the Biden “Open Border’s Policy” I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe. That time has come, only worse than ever imagined. Joe Biden is the WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICA, A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER.
- 1/2/25 9:08 AM
And:
Our Country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World! This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective, and virtually nonexistent leadership. The DOJ, FBI, and Democrat state and local prosecutors have not done their job. They are incompetent and corrupt, having spent all of their waking hours unlawfully attacking their political opponent, ME, rather than focusing on protecting Americans from the outside and inside violent SCUM that has infiltrated all aspects of our government, and our Nation itself. Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to happen to our Country. The CIA must get involved, NOW, before it is too late. The USA is breaking down - A violent erosion of Safety, National Security, and Democracy is taking place all across our Nation. Only strength and powerful leadership will stop it. See you on January 20th. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! - 1/2/25 12:06 AM
Biden’s friendly visit with Trump at the White House apparently did not successfully butter him up.
The usual suspects also posted on Xitter in the hazy immediate aftermath of the attacks, with no regard for truth or respect for the investigative process.
Here was Marjorie Taylor Greene:
New Orleans terrorist attacker is said to have come across the border in Eagle Pass TWO DAYS AGO!!! Shut the border down!!! Who did our government bomb lately that is taking it out on innocent Americans?
What did we expect would happen with wide open borders and millions of gotaways?
Donald Trump, Jr.:
Biden’s parting gift to America - migrant terrorists.
Sen. Josh Hawley:
After the horrific attack in New Orleans, Alejandro Mayorkas needs to be called to testify before the Senate immediately - BEFORE Biden leaves office. ACCOUNTABILITY
- Sen. Josh Hawley
And Charlie Kirk:
BREAKING: Authorities confirm that 4 or 5 other suspects involved in the New Orleans attack in addition to Shamsud Din-Jabbar (sic).
Consider the false impressions that were generated by these statements. The New Year’s Day attacks had absolutely nothing to do with borders, Eagle Pass, our government’s bombing activities, “got aways”, migrants, Alejandro Mayorkas, or “other suspects”. In reality, they were each carried out by one single attacker, each an army veteran born and raised within our borders.
Had Trump been in power at that time, he could have declared martial law, completely shut down the border, spent trillions of dollars so that hundreds of thousands of jackbooted thugs could scour every home in America, find and drag every undocumented migrant from their beds into airplanes and drop them into the ocean, and it wouldn’t have done one fucking thing to prevent either terrorist attack.
Pattern Recognition
Lying and pushing out unconfirmed “news” is nothing new to MAGA, but the response to these particular attacks fit an ongoing pattern. Consider the brief but real hysteria surrounding other recent events.
On November 22, 2023, a car crashed and exploded at the Canadian border near Niagra Falls. Fox News, always up for breaking news that hasn’t been totally confirmed, reported that this was being considered as a terrorist attack. It didn’t have to be Fox News; it could have been Brietbart or even Mother Jones — once any publication with an air of perceived respectability puts these things out into the infosphere, MAGA pounces.
Charlie Kirk, one of the most prominent MAGA influencers, promptly Xeeted out to his 4.4 million followers:
“the ‘vehicle explosion’ at Rainbow Bridge in Niagra Falls between U.S. and Canada border was an ‘attempted terrorist attack’ with ‘a lot of explosives in the vehicle at the time’ according to Fox News”.
Two days later the whole story was largely confirmed to be a simple tragic accident in which a middle-aged couple were killed. Even Kirk and MAGA had to accept reality at this point and the initial hysteria died down.
And who can forget the Great Haitian Denigration of 2024? A simple Facebook post by a single resident in Springfield, Ohio sparked nationwide fear mongering about Haitian migrants eating our cats and dogs.
Again, the hysteria died down once it was established that the source of this was the aforementioned Facebook post, and that the fears it inspired weren’t actually true. The poster later even apologized to the Haitians living nearby who were subject to this hateful venom.
Worst Case Scenario
But what if undocumented migrants that recently illegally crossed the border really did commit acts similar to these? And what if Trump was president when that happened? Well, we now have a sense of how it will turn out.
Given previous patterns it would almost certainly be the invocation of the Insurrection Act, and the start of something resembling Martial Law. Trump and his close advisors have been advocating this for years, mostly in the context of quelling the protests U.S. citizens.
It’s bad enough that he’s been willing to propose a solution like this against his own citizens that he’s sworn to protect. But an actual terrorist attack by one or more undocumented migrants would give Trump and his MAGA administration an even stronger impetus to take this action, because an attack by a non-citizen on our country is an attack by an external enemy.
Pro-democracy and pro-America citizens need to recognize that this is a very real scenario. And there must be vigilant opposition.
Because in Trump’s America, Martial Law will likely not be used to fix only the problem at hand. Once implemented, it would be expanded to anything and everything else perceived as a “threat”, whether that be transgender people, Democrats, or even democratic elections.
If we thought that the relentless attacks, blame, and accusations of failure towards Biden in the aftermath of these events were bad, the reality is we have been more insulated than we realize by virtue of Biden being in power.
Under a Trump presidency, similar or worse attacks would likely be framed not as failures, but as opportunities to consolidate power - opportunities Trump would seize regardless of the consequences for our democracy.
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DEI is Bad But Anti-DEI is Worse
The Left has been punished for being woke, but when will the anti-woke bullies on the Right get their comeuppance?
by Ben Cohen
The Values Are Right, The System Is Broken
I have spent quite a bit of time going after the ideology of Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI). It is outdated, misused, and probably antisemitic. The ideology needs to be replaced quickly before it sinks more Democrats and allows the GOP to win the culture war permanently.
I say this as someone who values diversity, equity and inclusion. I want to see a more colorblind society and I want to see wealth distributed in a more equitable way. The world is a better place when we try to include people from more marginalized backgrounds, and I believe we have made a great deal of progress in the past few decades. It is no longer remarkable that a black woman ran for president and nearly won. It is no longer remarkable that a trans person can walk in their neighborhood without fear of being beaten up, and it is no longer remarkable that gay couples get married and have children. Despite liberal misgivings about America, we are undoubtedly live in a kinder, more tolerant society than at any time in history. Diversity, equity and inclusion has happened in America, and it is still happening even if half the country elected a madman into office.
When DEI Becomes Religion
The problem is when DEI becomes an ideology and a religion. In its current incarnation, DEI means favoring specific minorities over others, turning white people into a monolithic evil, and promoting a deeply patronizing culture of victimhood. I don’t believe this was the original intent of the movement, but it has been wrecked by identity politics militants who have turned it into a cult.
I haven’t formed this opinion because I spend too much time on X and have been influenced by Elon Musk and Joe Rogan. I have formed this opinion after years of subtle antisemitism, relentless comments from friends and neighbors, and some shocking experiences of real racism.
But despite my dislike of what has become of the DEI movement, I still believe it is possible to criticize it without succumbing to the forces of right wing extremism.
The Anti-Woke Crusade
The anti-woke movement on the right has become far more toxic and far more dangerous than the woke movement on the left…
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what does this phrase mean, "there must be vigilant opposition"?
Am I taking a specific action? Writing my senator and congress representatives? Something else?
"Pro-democracy and pro-America citizens need to recognize that this is a very real scenario. And there must be vigilant opposition." What would this vigilant opposition look like? Is it even possible to oppose this scenario, if Trump has the military at his command?