The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation; that away Men are but gilded loan or painted clay… Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; Take honor from me, and my life is done.
—William Shakespeare, Richard II
I hate to say it—and this is the first place I’ve said it publicly—but my personal doomsday clock for how close MAGA-style Republicans are to getting the civil war they’ve spent the last 40 years jonesing for is telling me that it’s now about 2 seconds to midnight. The inhabitants of the great cesspool at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue should be well pleased. The rest of us can only repeat what every previous victim of the human impulse to carnage and destruction has long since been forced to acknowledge. Knowing what’s coming has never saved anyone from disaster except those with the means to escape it. Einstein made it through the last world-wide cataclysm. Anne Frank and Sophie Scholl did not.
From Ken White at the Popehat Report comes a long inquiry into the morality of political violence, ending with this concluding paragraph:
I think I have been perfectly clear. However, for the benefit of people easily offended by implication over bluntness, I think there is a plausible argument that it is morally permissible, and even morally necessary, to use political violence against the Trump Administration and its agents and supporters under the current circumstances in America. The arguments in favor are likely to grow.
Here is my response, edited to correct the name of the of the Border Patrol “commander at large” apparently in charge of ICE operations in Minneapolis:
I’m afraid I feel compelled to offer a different answer than the one Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. gave their lives to defend. No community is morally obligated to suffer what Gregory Bovino and his murderous thugs have done in Minneapolis to Renee Nicole Goode, Geraldo Lunas Campos, and Alex Pretti. Any community attacked the way ICE has attacked Minneapolis is morally justified in taking up arms against their attackers and driving them back to the sewer that spawned them. Our Declaration of Independence, as well as our own right to defend ourselves, says as much.
Practically speaking, of course, an armed response by a community under siege in the circumstances that Minneapolis finds itself in today would simply result in ending the lives of a few depraved assholes in exchange for the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands of innocents. Abstaining from violence in these circustances has nothing to do with morality, but it does have everything to do with a resistance that is prudent as well as courageous. That’s why I agree, for the moment at least, that Governor Walz has the right strategy, if not the right tactics, to respond to the Federal Government’s atrocities. If we’re serious about our resistance, more consistent and more effective tactics will come to us eventually. In the meantime, sadly, we can count on continuing news of blood and cruelty that a genuinely moral person will find extremely hard to endure without striking back.
We see you. We won’t forget. We won’t forgive.
So when is some foreign army gonna come grab our disgusting dictator and spirit him off to an unknown destination? Will they let us see the Epstein files afterward, do you think? And what’s the likelihood they’ll be wanting our oil as compensation for the favor? The 21st century is just getting so confusing.
This document could have been published by the German Nazi Party of 1933. It betrays our democratic constitutional order, threatens our most reliable allies, and makes white supremacy the cornerstone of our future foreign policy, It is nothing less than a blueprint for the creation of a fascist international. Every citizen of the United States who values the democratic traditions of this country should renounce both it and the filth it represents, shun the people who dared to write it, and drive them all from office.
Judging by his extended prance before the nation’s grand assembly of military poobahs this past Tuesday, Secretary of Cosplay Hegseth seems to have decided that Britain’s 18th century royal navy had developed almost the perfect formula for military effectiveness.
He did, however, trim the original just enough to take all the fun out of it. This may have seemed a bit weird for someone reputed to be both a drunk and a misogynist, but it was perfectly in tune with the Trump administration’s oft expressed infatuation with ignorant belligerence. Oorah! Semper Fi!
…Putin decides it’s time to drop a 10 megaton ICBM warhead on Quantico while Secretary of War Cosplay Hegseth is lecturing 800 generals and admirals on personal hygiene and lethality make-up essentials? What will the rolling MAGA clownshow have Ms. Leavitt say then?
If you can’t defeat Chicago, attack Memphis. If you can’t defeat Ukraine, attack Poland and Romania. It appears that Trump has something to teach Putin about diplomacy after all….