Below is my column on Fox.com on Democratic leaders rushing to outdo each other to ride the rage in the aftermath of the shooting of Renee Good. They are promising everything from arresting ICE officers to defunding the entire agency to stripping officers of their immunity. They are the latest “I am Spartacus” moments and it is playing well to their political base.
Here is the column:
“Say her name.” From Portland to Philadelphia, the mantra is being used by politicians to fuel the anger over the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis. While many of us have noted that the shooting appears to fall within the guidelines set by the Supreme Court for the justified use of lethal force, there is an effort to make Good the personification of a “resistance movement.”
Across the country, Democrats are holding “I am Spartacus” moments like a low-budget casting call for B-grade actors, chest-thumping demands for everything from the defunding of ICE to the arrest of law enforcement officers. Sen Cory Booker (D., N.J.) was widely ridiculed for his own such moment years ago. However, he found that while most people found his self-aggrandizement cringeworthy, many longed for such demonstrations.
From Portland to Philadelphia, Democratic leaders are engaging in performative press conferences to try to outdo each other in declaring the shooting of Renee Good “murder” or declaring a “war” with the federal government over the enforcement of immigration policies.
The tone was set almost immediately after the shooting by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who not only declared the officer a murderer but called claims of self-defense “bllsh*t” and told ICE, “get the f–k out” of the city.
When many of us denounced his conduct, he mocked his critics by apologizing if his profanity “offended their Disney princess ears.”
Frey seemed to trigger a race to the bottom. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and others rushed to the nearest camera to condemn the officer and fuel the rage. Democratic politicians seemed to struggle to find ways to up the ante with new levels of profanity or escalated threats. Rep. Dan Goldman (D., NY) is facing a serious challenge from a Mamdani-endorsed socialist in the primary and has fought to out-rage the competition.
Goldman not only called for the arrest of the officer but also moved to strip all ICE officers of immunity. Goldman is, of course, protected by immunity as a member of Congress and, as an heir to the Levi-Strauss fortune, can afford any litigation. However, he wants to strip protections for law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line every day. It seems that no price is too great to secure Goldman a third term.
In Portland, Mayor Keith Wilson and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, expressed outrage over ICE being in the city after a shooting. It did not seem to matter that the wounded were two suspected Tren de Aragua gang associates who were shot after allegedly trying to run over ICE officers.
Portland Police Chief Bob Day finally confirmed that Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras are Venezuelan criminal illegal aliens with ties to TdA. He admitted that the Portland Police Department hesitated to disclose the suspected gang connection because it did not want to be accused of “historic injustice of victim blaming” by law enforcement.
He then began to cry, saying, “It saddens me that we even have to qualify these remarks because I understand or at least have attempted to understand your voices, your concern, your fear, your anger.”
In Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner and Sheriff Rochelle Bilal took the performative press conference to a new and absurd level.
Krasner, who has been known to make sensational and unfulfilled pledges in the past, told ICE to stay out of the city, and portrayed their conduct as criminal, adding, “You will be arrested. You will stand trial. You will be convicted.”
Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal then went full Spartacus in an embarrassing demonstration more befitting an Antifa activist than a law enforcement official. She called ICE officers “fake, wannabe” law enforcement and claimed that they were violating both “legal law” and “moral law.”
Bilal pandered to the mob, warning the federal government that “You don’t want this smoke. Cuz we will bring it to you.” She added that “the criminal in the White House would not be able to keep” ICE agents from heading to jail.
These are leaders who are openly playing to the mob. In my forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I discuss how elected officials often try to enlist mobs to advance their political agendas — only to be consumed by the unrest they helped fuel. This yielding to a “mobocracy” was one of the critical dangers that the Framers sought to deter through protections against majoritarian tyranny.
The problem with these “I am Spartacus” moments is that you need an actual Spartacus. Instead, we have the violence without the cause.
We have the same figures who have trafficked in rage for centuries, including recently in this very city.
In Minneapolis, a Black Lives Matter leader seemed to advocate violence as a vehicle for change, suggesting that the prosecution of officers in the George Floyd case only occurred because protesters burned down part of the city in 2020. She told protesters to ignore “don’t set [the city] on fire” pleas.
In the movie, Caesar is asked if he, too, had “left us for…the mob.” Caesar responds, “I’ve left no one, least of all Rome. This much I’ve learned … Rome is the mob.”
These politicians are attempting to harness the power of the mob to direct it against their political opponents. One Antifa activist called for people to “show up with guns and end this,” adding that “this is what the Founding Fathers gave us the Second Amendment for.”
In reality, what we are watching are calls and performative rage that led not to the American Revolution but the French Revolution. If history is any measure, these “new Jacobins” will find that they are no more protected from the rage than their opponents, as today’s revolutionaries become tomorrow’s reactionaries.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the author of the forthcoming “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution,” which will be released on Feb. 3 as part of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
America will fall like the Roman Empire if the perverse politicians once again open the gates for the barbarians to enter. On the other hand, there is the perpetual growth of the national debt.
In Frey’s case he made his case – “Profanity is the effort of a feeble brain to express itself focibly”.
Call it what it is, hate and rage. It is all Democrats have to offer. They have nothing else. No real solutions. Open boarders, failure. Soft on crime, failure. Lax oversight and anti-fraud measures, failure. Green energy, failure. Obamacare, failure. Public education, failure. Censorship, failure. And so on.
So, they are going to have to try to milk the hate and rage till the mid-terms. Expect more rage rhetoric and crazy talk from the far leftists and Democrats.
It sounds like rage, but there is cool calculation behind their actions. Democrats see the millions of illegals as a power source in the future.
They are trying to slow Trump’s enforcement of border law in the hopes that not too much ground is lost before the Democrats come back to power.
Dear Mr. Turley, as long as the far-left corner of the Democratic party have their media lap dogs pushing their agenda, I hardly see an end in sight to their madness. The core issue with this group is: white men are responsible for all of our trouble.
As it should be. ICE are violent lawless thugs. Public anger about them is part of the democratic process.
Over twenty years ago, I wrote that left is the new right.
Over twenty years ago, I wrote that left is the new right.
How outside of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals”, could you come up with a storyline that presents these communist Democrats encouraging and justifying attacks on law enforcement doing law enforcement actions is somehow or other “the new right”?
Insurrection Act. Trump will use the active duty military to put down the Jacobins. We will have no French Revolution. Last year ATF stated 700 million guns in circulation. Tactics and marksmanship will rule the day. Do you think we will allow Democrat Socialist to harm or kill us? Overthrow the Republic? Shut up sit down before you get hurt.
Amen, brother!
My opinion is, I doubt it. But both you and the Democrats can dream together that he does that.
“Tactics and marksmanship will rule the day.” You’ll have put your Commando Keyboard aside and will be at the front as a leader, rifle clenched in a brawny hand, yelling “Follow me!”????
People dreaming of being a leader on the winning side of a civil war invariably have never been sent to a civil war while serving in our military.
“ These politicians are attempting to harness the power of the mob to direct it against their political opponents.”
So? How is that any different from how Trump uses his mob of supporters against his political opponents?
That is how Jan 6 started. How ironic.
When Democrats had control of the House Republicans and MAGAs were always raging about civil war and the need to divorce from the union and all that rage. Turley never issued any calls to tone down the rhetoric or gripe about the manufactured rage. I guess it’s dependent on who is in control of government. When Republicans get into a fit of rage it’s ok, but when Democrats get into a fit of rage it’s an issue. If it sells books it seems it’s ok.
“If it sells books it seems it’s ok.”
X=great idea! Please sit down and take all those inspiring, insightful, thoughtful, and POSitive comments of yours and put them in a book! Why waste so much time on this blog telling us how wonderful the good professor and his MAGA followers are! SO much more visibility with a book! I’d love to see your name at the top of Amazon’s bestseller list!
Jan 6 was a Pelosi-rrection with Whitmer conspiratorial elements of entrapment, Capitol punishment, and nationwide witch hunts and warlock trials. #HateLovesAbortion
So? X, you’re ok with harnessing the power of the mob to direct it against their political opponents?
or is this whataboutism? are you saying the left harness the power of the mob to direct it against their political opponents?
That’s bad.
The problem with that is, thepower of the mob is never harnessed.
Trump never used a mob of supports. Jan 6 started 2 weeks before when speaker of the house Nancy denied Trumps and capital police the assistance of the national guard to keep the capital safe. This was a mob attack designed and implemented by the democrats using insider fbi agents.
The difference? Trump was in the right, Democrats are in the wrong. That is, the election was a rigged embarrassment that should never have been conducted in such fashion. Currently, the 10M or so illegals that the Biden admin allowed/brought in to our country was completely lawless and an attempt to gain power forever more. And now the Dems and the Left are anti-law enforcement. It’s pretty straightforward to see the difference,
X says: “So? How is that any different from how Trump uses his mob of supporters against his political opponents?.”
Straight out of Saul Alinsky’s communist operations manual. You can’t even get your fellow Marxists from the Marxist website to support you, X/Anonymous/George/Svelez:
https://www.marxists.org/admin/janitor/faq.htm”
Why don’t you have works by author X on the Marxists Internet Archive?
The writer is alive and well and politically active. The MIA’s Charter forbids us from building an archive for a writer who is still politically active. There are several reasons for this:
(1) It ensures that the MIA stays out of current disputes and
(2) remains independent of all political parties and groups; Also,
(3) if a writer is still alive, they can build their own web site.
This does not prevent the MIA from using material also from politically active writers in an editorial role or in support of a subject section, so long as we have the author’s permission.
354 days left in 2026 for daily cringe-worthy personal failure from X.
You mean Dems are mimicking the INSURRECTION SPEECH of January 6? Stirring the crowd into a Shaker Frenzy? Sounds like its time for a new round of insurrection hearings and a Hollywood presentation of the facts so we can then have perp walks and show trials!
Democrats follow progressive principles and exercise liberal license to entertain abortive ideation.
Trump thanked the people at the Capitol, wished them well, and asked them to return home peacefully.
Hardly an example of Occupy, Antifa, BLM Inc, Democratics et al.
You mean Dems are mimicking the INSURRECTION SPEECH of January 6?
Wrong – Democrats are repeating the INSURRECTION SPEECH of July 1st. Almost verbatim Candidate Biden repeatedly telling Americans his rioters engaged in the multi day assault on the White House were “A courageous group of Americans”.
Sounds like it’s time to adopt the Ashley Babbitt tactics: shoot them down even if they aren’t throwing Molotov Cocktails like the July 1st White House assaulters were.
You know… pour encourgez les autres, Admiral Byng style.
Frankly the crowds of protestors have been less than overwhelming. Chicago yesterday may have had 500 or less people and mostly provided a traffic hazard to themselves. That’s truly smart, holding an outside protest in Chicago or Minneapolis in the dead of winter.
Those protestors should have been on the benches of Greenland protesting the imminent American invasion
Trying to explain the difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution to these yahoos is a study in Futility.
American Revolution – (Insert picture of the constitution here) 250 years of history.
French Revolution – (insert picture of Guillotine here)-250 year with 5 republics and 2 empires and then there is Macron
“Say her name.”
Laken Riley
Wait, weren’t Democrats unalterable opposed to sedition? I guess only when it might thwart their desires, or provide an opportunity for hypocritical chest thumping. Otherwise, they’ll chest thump their own sedition.
A plague on hypocrisy!
weren’t Democrats unalterable opposed to sedition? Um… you got receipts?
Sheriff Rochelle Bilal Could only arrest someone for whom she holds an arrest warrant. Her office has no police powers for patrol or arrest without a warrant.
It makes her performance even more hollow.
This is how fascists always operate. Fascists like Frey and Walz and Omar and Jayapal and Mamdani use their inflammatory rhetoric to stir their brownshirt mobs to action, then stand back “in wonder and amazement” that something like a violent encounter could occur. Weak-minded individuals fall for the lies, and dutifully take to the streets.
fascists like Frey and Walz and Omar and Jayapal and Mamdani … you should by know that they are all DSA’ers. Stop lying.
The political Left, particularly in Minneapolis, has worked itself into a frenzy over ICE and Ms. Good. Symbolically, this behavior resembles the Tarantella of Italian folklore, a dance in which the victim must move frantically or face death. Consequently, to keep the movement alive, we are likely to see a continued frenetic escalation of violence in the days ahead. Compounding this instability, Minneapolis faces a secondary crisis as the epicenter of the largest fraud schemes ever uncovered.
Symbolically? From Italian folklore (which is at best an exaggeration, if not a lie – you do that a lot here.) to MN 2025.
Anything else today?
The origins of the Tarantella are deeply rooted in folklore and myth, primarily linked to a condition known as “tarantism,” a hysterical or delirious state believed to be caused by the bite of a wolf spider, Lycosa tarantula, commonly referred to as the tarantula.
According to legend, victims—often women of lower socioeconomic status—would fall into a trance, experiencing convulsions, restlessness, and uncontrollable emotions after being bitten, particularly during the summer harvest season.
The only known cure, as per the myth, was to engage in a frenzied, non-stop dance to music played at a rapid pace, which was thought to help the victim “sweat out” the venom through physical exertion.
It’s pretty ironic that Spartacus claims to be a champion for democracy.
“Democracy means I get what I want! Fascism is when I don’t! Waaaaahhhhh!”
Who are you quoting?