Abusing Their Power and Position

While Donald Trump ratchets up the violent rhetoric, Nikki Haley announces support for his presidency and Samuel Alito is found to have flown another pro-Trump, anti-government flag

A violent man and an opportunist. (Photos via Getty Images)

The judge and his flag of defiance. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images)

Yesterday morning I had other ideas percolating for my Friday essay. Then three breaking stories made what you are about to read unavoidable, including news of Nikki Haley’s plan to vote for Donald Trump and another anti-government flag flying at another house of Justice Samuel Alito.

But first is the despicable effort by Donald Trump and a sick mix of his enablers to spread the lie that President Joe Biden and the FBI were in cahoots on a plot to assassinate him. Biden was “locked & loaded ready to take me out,” Trump wrote in a fundraising email Tuesday night, referring to the 2022 FBI search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The email’s subject line: “They were authorized to shoot me!”

This is not just about getting cash, of course. Trump is exploiting this extremely dangerous disinformation to con his followers, further normalize a climate of violence and justify his increasingly fascistic extremism. He is counting on inciting his cultists and other low-information voters; in the process, he is raising the prospect of more stochastic terrorism and violence by those who are convinced that Biden and the Democrats are already waging a civil war and persecuting their savior.

What was the source for this ramping up of violent rhetoric? A release of court documents on Tuesday that included a law enforcement “policy statement” involving the “use of deadly force.” In fact, the court-authorized search of Trump’s Florida club on August 8, 2022 relied on standard FBI protocol that allows the agency’s officers to protect themselves with lethal force if they face “an imminent danger of death or physical injury.” In fact, the agents specifically searched Mar-a-Lago on a day when Trump was not in residence.

But that didn’t stop Trump or the worst among the GOP enablers from abusing their public platforms. “The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres Trump and gave the green light,” the increasingly desperate Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X. Since that was apparently not incendiary enough, she asked, “Were they going to shoot SS then Pres Trump, Melania and Barron too???”

This is where we are, 165 days before the November election. And we can be sure that the deranged criminal defendant—who will soon learn whether he has been convicted in the hush money/election interference case—hasn’t come close to finding the bottom.

I’d like to imagine there are still reasonable Republicans who can have a positive impact in this current climate. But then news broke yesterday that Nikki Haley is voting for Trump. (In the announcement, she also called Biden “a catastrophe.”) That’s Haley, the GOP rival who previously called Trump “unhinged” and “not qualified” to be president. Haley, who was attacked by Trump for her ethnic background. Haley, the wife of a deployed military officer who was also grossly attacked by the criminal defendant.

(Maj. Michael Haley did stand up for himself in February. "The difference between humans and animals?” he posted with a photo on X. “Animals would never allow the dumbest ones to lead the pack.")

But Nikki Haley, in her pathetic decision to back Trump, has now proven herself to be nothing more than a craven politician who will do whatever it takes to stay close to power. No matter how unprincipled or dangerous Trump is, no matter how much he sought to humiliate and condemn her, she lacks the decency and the courage to stand up for herself, her husband or her country.

The inedible icing on this sour cake would be if she genuinely hopes that Trump—needing her voters—will now select her as the next Mike Pence. Does she really want to spend four years looking adoringly at this criminal sociopath? As the saying goes, power corrupts—and the appeal of absolute power has proven once again that a cynical opportunist will do almost anything to get close to it.

Perhaps you thought Samuel Alito’s upside-down “Stop the Steal” flag was enough to demand this arrogant, partisan Supreme Court justice’s recusal and maybe resignation. I sure do and said so on Monday. But now The New York Times has published a second story on the topic of Alito’s anti-government, pro-Trump, pro-insurrection partisanship.

This story’s focus: There was another flag flying at an Alito house, this time a New Jersey beach house with an “Appeal to Heaven” flag that flew at least from July to September last year. This flag, also called the Pine Tree flag, was carried by Jan. 6 insurrectionists supporting Trump. Moreover, the flag particularly appeals to Christian nationalists yearning for an explicitly Christian government.

Unlike the last time with the inverted flag, Alito didn’t blame his wife. This time he refused to comment, even though the Times had three photos and corroboration from both neighbors and passers-by.

This flag is long associated to the Revolutionary War and was rediscovered in recent years by far-right evangelicals as an expression of defiance. “Rally to the flag,” wrote evangelical author Dutch Sheets in his 2015 book, An Appeal to Heaven. “God has resurrected it for such a time as this.”

Well, Alito may think he should help resurrect it for times like these. Yes, that’s his right as an American citizen. But a contemptuous man like this—who is duty-bound to serve justice and conduct his work with impartiality—does not belong anywhere near the nation’s highest court. Not only should he be forced to recuse himself for Jan. 6 cases and the presidential immunity ruling, the nation’s Democratic leaders and everyone who still believes in the principle of self-governance should demand his resignation. The court is there to serve us—not a judge’s anti-democratic beliefs.

We can be sure that Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts are counting on this eventually blowing over, just as Nikki Haley hopes that the public will soon forget her previous criticism of the unqualified, mentally incompetent person that she now wants in the White House.

But when a presidential candidate is pushing the lie that the President of the United States and the FBI sought to assassinate him, he is telling us to pay close attention. He is reminding us that events like these are not discrete and unconnected, but part of an ongoing enterprise to end our democracy of, by and for the people.

It’s up to each of us to ensure that they won’t succeed.

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