Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker—a reasonable man who follows the law and stands up for his state’s sovereignty—opposes the federal invasion of National Guard troops to his state. Trump’s disgraceful response: To insist that Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson “should be in jail for failing to protect ICE agents.” The governor, who has consistently warned of the growing five-alarm fire, responded with this accurate assessment: “Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power. What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?”
Pam Bondi, meanwhile, who is officially the US Attorney General but acts like Trump’s personal lawyer, was lashing out at Democrats yesterday at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s oversight hearing. These are public servants who were trying to do their job. Rather than providing answers to their questions—on Tom Homan’s $50,000 bribe, on deadly strikes in the Caribbean, on the Epstein files, to name a few—she smugly attacked them personally and spat her scorn for their daring to critique her Dear Leader and his actions. So much for the idea of an independent Department of Justice and the basic responsibility of the nation’s top law enforcement official to provide honest answers to serious questions.
And then there was Trump propagandist Stephen Miller saying his boss has “plenary authority” to deploy military troops, which is a technical way to claim Trump has complete and unlimited power, despite the constitutional framework that divides power between the branches of our government.
It’s almost tedious to suggest we are at a turning or that the peril is escalating. But let’s not doubt that Trump’s threats, Bondi’s attacks and Miller’s madness are the latest signs they will do anything to expand their power and further dismantle our democratic system and the values principles, rules and laws that hold it together and inspire a functioning society. They can trash the rule of law and the Constitution in their depraved commitment to create a dictatorship led by Trump. But we, the people should be neither afraid nor doubtful that their hostility to America will ultimately win. That outcome is only possible if we forsake our duty as citizens to speak out or fail to join together and publicly demonstrate our opposition to their hateful agenda.
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