We are still eight months out from the crucial November midterm elections that will determine what is possible in Donald Trump’s last two years in office. But already ominous signs of Democrat rage or fear, perhaps both, have begun to emerge.
In recent days, at least two prominent Democrats have issued stark public vows of retribution, including prison terms for Trump supporters, when the opposition party captures control of Congress this year and then the White House in 2029.
Others appear to advocate violence and promise lawfare against Trump government agents like ICE officers. “We will find you!” one city’s district attorney vowed.
With no leadership and no attractive policy alternatives to rally their voters to donate and come out, Democrats have fallen back on appeasing their controlling leftists with promises of outright revenge on Trump supporters for his comeback victory in 2024 and the ensuing policies.
It’s a sharp reminder, if any is needed, that there’s much more at stake on Nov. 3 than simply legislative races.
In one sense, this is not surprising. Democrats on both the national and local levels have been going after Donald Trump since even before his historic 2016 upset of the notorious email deleter, Hillary Clinton, denied her the White House.
The fictitious Steele Dossier hoax, initiated and financed by Clinton’s campaign and disseminated and treated as credible by media and James Comey’s FBI, was just the beginning of years of attempts to destroy their one-time donor’s political career, his reputation and finances, and spirit.
They all failed obviously. And Trump has spent the first 14 months of his second term orchestrating a blizzard of policies, executive orders, and foreign affairs initiatives.
These include several peace initiatives around the world, attempts to negotiate an end to Iran's ambitions to develop nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. When that lengthy process failed, came this weekend's still unfolding joint attacks with Israel to destroy those systems militarily.
All of which appears to have overwhelmed a feckless Democrat Party after its disastrous 2024 defeat, leaving it devoid of leadership or energy to offer a viable political alternative to voters beyond the trite “Trump is bad.”
Now, it seems Democrats' plan is to go after both individuals and organizations that have supported Trump and his policies, such as those that abandoned DEI and Woke policies under pressure from this president.
So far, these voices of retribution involve a U.S. senator, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, known for not much of anything except his anti-gun stance, and Susan Rice, a former U. N. ambassador and leading liar during the endless Barack Obama administration.
Rice was tapped as that administration's sacrificial spokesman to explain, falsely, to the American people the 2012 murders in Benghazi of four Americans, including an ambassador, left unprotected during a terrorist attack that destroyed the consulate on the anniversary night of the Sept. 11 attack.
Rice said her claim that the deadly assault was “a spontaneous demonstration” was based on the best intelligence available at the time.
That anniversary day had seen numerous outbursts of violence across the Middle East, including the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. Libya had already been turned into a lawless state of roaming militias after Obama, without alerting Congress, ordered the U.S. military join the European effort to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi the previous year. He was killed by a mob in his hometown.
Yet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had mysteriously ordered security reduced for American staff in Libya.
An angry mob began assembling at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that afternoon. Clinton said she talked around 5:00 PM with Obama, who then disappeared in the White House.
The commander in chief was absent for 16 hours as the mob stormed and burned the consulate, killing the ambassador and an aide, and then two American contractors in mortar attacks at an annex. No explanation was ever provided for the president's absence during the international crisis.
No rescue or relief efforts were attempted. Defense Secy. Leon Panetta said you don’t send troops into an unknown situation, which would be news to members of the military who train for just such events.
Obama reappeared the next morning to vow “swift justice” on his way to two campaign fundraisers in Las Vegas.
It was left to the Trump administration, 14 years later, to announce early last month ((cq)) the arrest, extradition, and indictment of Zubayar Al-Bakoush as a conspirator in the fatal attack that occurred under an AWOL Barack Obama.
The unanswered Benghazi tragedy ignited intense controversy and widespread anger at the time. Senior White House aide Susan Rice was tapped for the unusual duty of appearing on all five Sunday morning news shows to attempt an explanation that appeared to clear Obama of any responsibility.
Like many Democrats called to testify on screw-ups, Rice later claimed she could not recall who assigned her to those appearances, who briefed her, and who wrote her talking points from alleged intelligence reports. She did, however, remember that the controversy took a toll on her family, safely at home.
Rice later admitted, “That information turned out, in some respects, not to be 100 percent correct.”
But she claimed to have no regrets over so thoroughly spreading such a false claim that, not coincidentally, appeared to clear the Obama team of responsibility for the defenseless Americans' deaths.
That preposterous claim and resulting criticism torpedoed Obama’s intent to name Rice to succeed Clinton at State. Instead, he chose John Kerry, the ex-senator and failed 2004 presidential candidate, who went on to negotiate the generous, sieve-like anti-nuclear pact with Iran that Trump ultimately canceled.
On a recent podcast with Preet Bharara, Rice denounced corporations that “take a knee to Trump,” saying they would face retribution under a future Democratic administration:
If these corporations think that the Democrats, when they come back in power, are going to, you know, play by the old rules and say, 'Oh, never mind, we'll forgive you for all the people you fired, all the policies and principles you've violated, all, you know, the laws you've skirted,' I think they've got another think coming.
Trump later said Rice should be fired as a member of the board of Netflix. The entertainment giant was attempting an $83 billion purchase of the film/television studio and streaming assets of Warner Bros. Discovery, including HBO/HBO Max, which would require administration approval.
Netflix has since withdrawn its bid.
In January, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner called the administration’s ICE agents “a small bunch of wannabe Nazis” and said:
If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities. We will find you. We will achieve justice.
James Carville, who led Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, said those who cooperate with President Trump are “collaborators” who should be treated as Nazi collaborators were after World War II.
Murphy, who is now in his third term, predicted Republicans “are going to get their clocks cleaned this November, and a bunch of people are probably gonna end up going to jail.”
Democrat Party leaders have joined in this intensified brand of rage politics, which masks the absence of realistic policy alternatives and divisive intra-party feuds.
New York Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer has called on people to “forcefully rise up.” And Democrat House Leader Hakeem Jeffries, also of New York, pictured himself brandishing a baseball bat, urging people to “fight in the streets.”
Late last year, I wrote here about the intensifying trend toward verbal threats and harsh rhetoric, noting that:
Decisions to utter words, like all the other decisions in life, have consequences. And each violent remark raises the level of what can seem to be acceptable in a civil society that once condemned such harsh talk.
About the same time, Gallup reported that substantial and enlarged majorities of Americans agreed that today’s politicians have adopted too harsh rhetoric.
Election campaigns have always been designed to create separate camps of Us and Them. But they used to argue that the Us side was better and provide reasons why.
Now, the argument is how bad and even “Nazi-like” the other side is and what “justice” (vengeance) will be wreaked upon them once victory is achieved.
