This election, Democrats have careened to the far left with calls to pack the Supreme Court, unleash a flurry of impeachments, and investigate Republicans. Few, however, have been as honest as Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) about the purpose of such threats. Slotkin recently said the quiet part out loud in an interview at my alma mater, the University of Chicago, admitting she wants to deter young people from even considering supporting the Administration… if they know what is good for them. Slotkin seemed to go full Col. Walter Kurtz in the middle of the interview.
The Chicago Thinker, an outstanding student newspaper at UChicago, posted an interview with Slotkin, in which she describes the strategy to deter young Republicans from getting involved in government, at least in supporting the Administration.
Like many of her Democratic colleagues, Slotkin is promising that, if Democrats are given back control of Congress, they will unleash a tsunami of investigations of Republicans supporting President Trump: In the clip of the exchange circulated on X, Slotkin states:
“I want to look at these signature cases and not just focus on the president, but on the people who enabled him. I want young people coming out of school to say, should I go work for the Trump administration? Like that sounds fun. I might get an opportunity. I want them to be like, Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that. I want that deterrence message.”
“That deterrence message” is all too familiar to many Republicans. After January 6th, the Biden Administration used the riot to unleash a scorched-earth campaign against Trump supporters and groups.
In an interview with CBS News, Justice Department official Michael Sherwin explained that they wanted to send a message with the harsh treatment of Trump supporters.
He explained that “our office wanted to ensure that there was shock and awe … it worked because we saw through media posts that people were afraid to come back to D.C. because they’re, like, ‘If we go there, we’re gonna get charged.’ … We wanted to take out those individuals that essentially were thumbing their noses at the public for what they did.”
Of course, if Sherwin and his colleagues hoped to “Trump-proof” the nation, they failed in spectacular fashion.
However, that did not stop Jack Smith, who used his position as Special Counsel to seize the telephone records of Republican members of Congress while ordering carriers not to tell the members (some of whom were investigating Smith). We also learned recently that Smith collected information on over 600,000 Trump supporters and even tracked who bought MAGA hats.
Other Democrats have struck a similar chord, including former Obama aide Susan Rice, who promised in February that things would “not end well” for Trump supporters.
Slotkin has been open about her desire to start a series of virtual show trials featuring Trump supporters to send a message to others. In a September 30 speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Slotkin compared the planned investigation to cleaning up Europe with what the Poles called “the Iron Broom”: “The goal here is to have a list of signature cases that go after some of the most obvious and harmful abuses of taxpayer dollars.”
To her audience’s delight, she dangled possible 20-year sentences for figures ranging from the former CIA officer named Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to even U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
This appears to be a case of those abused becoming abusive figures. I criticized the Trump Administration for its investigation of Slotkin and five other Democrat lawmakers over a 90-second video urging military members to refuse illegal orders. While President Trump called the video “seditious” and “punishable by death,” I viewed the video as clearly protected speech. In my book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, I argue for the elimination of sedition as a crime.
Perhaps President Trump would have been better off adopting Slokin’s rationale and simply say, “I want them to be like, Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that. I want that deterrence message.”
Slotkin has now surrendered any high ground that she had after the grand jury declined to return an indictment in February. The problem, it seems, is that simply the wrong people or party were targeted in such investigations.
The interview is evidence of the devolution of our politics where leaders are now fueling an anger addiction and promising unblinking rage in government. With many of her colleagues, Slotkin has gone full Kurtz.
In the film Apocalypse Now, Colonel Walter Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando) explained the secret to his success in suppressing insurgents. The key was to act “without passion, without judgment, because it is judgment that defeats us.” In that way, he explained, he made “a friend of horror.”
As Kurtz said, “Horror [now] has a face” and it is seen in the rogues’ gallery of our politics of rage.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
WHY would young people, who tend to be idealistic, be attracted to the MAGA party, which is what the former Republican Party has become? The leader of the party is a convicted felon, a malignant narcissist and sociopath who is also a racist, a xenophobe and a chronic, habitual liar who disrespects women. He has a private police force that abuses migrants and kills innocent people, including US citizens, so far without consequence.
He claims to be a “genius” because he can remember 5 words. He claims to be a “perfect physical specimen”, but is morbidly obese and has a spray tan and bad combover. He lied to get into office by promising to immediately lower grocery prices, the cost of energy, the cost of housing, airfare and everything. He also lied about “no new wars” and then started a war based on a lie. He surrounds himself with sycophants.
He sides with Russia, an enemy of the US, and ignored a sanctions law passed by Congress by agreeing to purchase diesel because the price is through the roof because of the stupid war he started, even though Russia has been helping Iran to bomb us and is using the proceeds from the diesel sales to help finance the war against Ukraine. He throttled down the Starlink satellite that Ukraine needs to defend itself from Russian attacks because he’s trying to help Russia defeat Ukraine, which is our ally.
He also lied about Project 2025, denying knowing anything about it and then one day one, signed 180 Executive Orders drafted by the architects of Project 2025, many of whom he hired. One provision of Project 2025 is the unitary executive theory which is anti democratic. Everything he does is to enrich himself and his oligarch cronies, and rewards donors by cutting back on consumer and environmental protections and refusing to enforce regulations.
He admires dictators and tries to be one. He uses the presidency as a means to enrich himself and his family and the wealthy, accepts gifts from foreign governments in exchange for which he lowers tariffs, and lies about who pays tariffs.
I could go on and on, especially about the ways in which Trump is trying to undermine democracy, how he pushes the limits of presidential power, and is trying to rig the midterms because polls show that Republicans are predicted to lose, but I ask again: why would idealistic young people vote for Trump or Republicans?
Question asked, question answered.
Daily TDS post from ANON!
Trying for TDS post of the day???
You know it is considered gauche to masturbate publicly like this, don’t you?
So that’s what “pointing and laughing” is called now???
Nixon defends call to put opponent Moody in jail
Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon defended her recent call to put her GOP opponent Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.) in jail over accusations she approved of mishandling taxpayer funds into a charity called Hope Florida.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6156794-nixon-defends-moody-jail-call/
It’s hard to characterize Angie Nixon as being anything other than a full-throttled Marxist. This is what Democrats represent today.
So Slotkin wants young voters to vote against their futures. Figures.
Notice the rage democrats express for President Clinton. With one phone call he could have saved tens of thousands of lives.
So she’s a fascist who is honest about being a fascist. The rest of the Dems pretend not to be while perversely labeling as “fascist” anyone who believes in freedom.
Slotkin has been psychoanalyzed for major emotional injuries? Any childhood illnesses?
I searched Google for trauma and her mother divorced her father in the 80s coming out as gay. Elissa lived through the AIDS holocaust as her mother cared for the dying. Yes, the horror, horror. She was 10 years old at the time.
She has stellar credentials. Cornell, Columbia, CIA, tours in Iraq and studied Arabic in Cairo are accomplishments. She’s an active lgbtq supporter.
Imo, Slotkin is ill stemming from emotional injuries beginning at age 10.
She’s done remarkably well otoh. Progressives are nihilistic and don’t think objective morality exists.
AI doesn’t think objective morality exists either. Mob mentality determines the oppression at any given time and oppression is the penalty phase.
If young people have even a modicum of common sense they will vote Republican. What have communism and Islam brought any country? Repression, poverty and death. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung, Pol Pot, Castro and Ortega. Starvation, labor camps, show trials and firing squads. Tell a joke about comrade Stalin, 25 years in the camps. Make an image of Allah again death.
All you have to do is look Afganistan and Iran to see the benefits of Islam. Women as chattel, covered head to toe, morality squads beating women to death for their clothes, husbands beating women for disobedience. Killing your own daughter because a Muslim raped her so she is no longer a virgin and unmarried and that dishonors the family. They throw homosexuals to their death off high buildings. You will adhere to Islam or be killed.
It’s not hard to find the facts they are right there on the Internet if you are not to lazy to look. Vote for the Democrats and that is your future. Good luck young people.
The brainwashing at all levels has been going on for decades. It is the logical conclusion
Proclamation 80—Calling Forth the Militia and Convening an Extra Session of Congress
“On April 15, 1861,…President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling forth the state militias, to the sum of 75,000 troops, in order to suppress the rebellion. He appealed ‘to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union.’”
Proclamation 92—Warning to Rebel Sympathizers
“[On] July 17, 1862,…I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim to and warn all persons within the contemplation of said sixth section to cease participating in, aiding, countenancing, or abetting the existing rebellion or any rebellion against the Government of the United States and to return to their proper allegiance to the United States on pain of the forfeitures and seizures as within and by said sixth section provided.”
______________
Abraham Lincoln was a Great American President.
Now President Donald J. Trump MUST implement his rendition of “The Lincoln Era”; close the border; rescind rebel sanctuary cities; compassionately repatriate all illegal and unassimilable aliens since Jan. 1, 1863; issue mass temporary work permits with no path to citizenship; revoke birthright citizenship; make English the sole official language; commence a war to defeat the rebellion; impose martial law; suspend habeas corpus; “smash” rebel printing presses, networks, podcasts, and social media platforms; and imprison political opponents and rebel judges, all in order to save not the Union but the Nation, eradicate communism and the communist American welfare state, and place America squarely back on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, including absolute freedom, free enterprise, free industries, free markets, private property, and minimal taxation and regulation, alongside infinitesimal constitutional government.
What’s distressing is the Democrats are completely devoid of any program which transcends measures to injure other people and toss cash to people on their client list. The Democratic Party in our time has not one redeeming feature. You can read the words of partisans on this site and see what that looks like in individuals.
C.S. Lewis and Boris Pasternak come to mind.
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
There is a fine sentence in Bunyan:
“It came burning hot into my mind, whatever he said, and however he flattered, when he got me home to his house, he would sell me for a slave.”
There is a fine couplet, too, in John Ball:
Be ware ere ye be woe
Know your friend from your foe.
One last word. You may ask why I send this to an Australian periodical. The reason is simple and perhaps worth recording: I can get no hearing for it in England.
— Lewis, C. S. “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.” God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, edited by Walter Hooper, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970, pp. 287–300.
The private life is dead – Pasha Antipov (actor Tom Courtenay) in “Doctor Zhivago” 1965 film
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.“
I preferred the Mafia Democrats to the tyrannical Karens and ‘experts’ and Commies in the current cult.
Richard J. Daley was in most respects a person to admire.
==
Roosevelt, Johnson, and to a lesser degree Carter sought and made a lot of policy mistakes. Clinton made fewer, although a very unedifying human being. Those eras were qualitatively different than our own.
X,
Chicago would be a cleaner, safer, and more prosperous city if it could get the likes of Daley in charge again.
People no longer get to choose between Republicans and Democrats.
They must choose between Republicans and Crazies.
Abandonment of enforcement of immigration law
==
Systematic vote fraud
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Implacable opposition to any sort of spending reduction conjoined to unlimited public sector borrowing.
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Government programs as cash cows for well connected grifters (an abnormal number Somalis).
==
Government by AutoPen
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And the various appalling legal circuses involving Merrick Garland, Jack Smith, Juan Merchan, Arthur Engoron, and Alvin Bragg.
==
The cult of St. George Floyd.
Large cities are only livable and conducive to human flourishing if they are orderly and the laws enforced consistently. I know this having grown up in a large American city during the 1960s-1990s urban crime wave.
Turley: “Slotkin seemed to go full Col. Walter Kurtz“
Or maybe full Fascist.
Off-topic: Story that I haven’t heard in the news before today that is right up JT’s alley
https://justthenews.com/nation/free-speech/south-korea-traps-prosecutes-ex-trump-ambassador-comments-us-soil-american-media
What is incredibly disappointing is the realization that these Trump haters who want Trump and his administration to fail really want the United States to fail. Many, if not all, who did not support Biden and his administration never wanted him to fail (even though it was clear that he was destined to), because that would have meant that the U.S. failed. Absence of support is not equivalent to wishing failure. The left initiated this downward spiral of selective political vindictiveness beginning with the IRS targeting Tea Party groups for selective audits (Lois Lerner) and have continued it for more than a decade since Trump’s campaign for President in 2015. Because the left started it I believe that this political vindictiveness can only be ended by the left when and if they clearly and concisely called off the dogs. However, Elisa Slotkin just demonstrated why this would never happen. The only potential good that will likely come from her commitment to encourage the mob to continue to go after her political enemies is the realization that the mob will eventually come for her.
Vincente
Slotkin and her ilk remind me of the Bolshevik Jews who put all of their faith in Stalin and were shocked to find themselves in Siberian labor camps
She would not hesitate to align herself with Islamist would do to her like Hamas did to the Nova festival attendees All for power!
Trump runs a fascist authoritarian regime. It needs to be opposed in every way possible. Of course there will be investigations and prison sentences. Of course we want it will know that collaborators will not be tolerated.
I voted for Trump three times.
You are a fascist.
And he’s won the Presidency at least twice! Undefeated intergender electoral champion of all time.
I voted for Trump three times.
Because you say so ?
The border has been secured – as US law requird.
Illegal aliens are being deported – as US law required.
Pretty much everything Trump has done has been either US law or US policy for decades.
The First incarnation of DOGE was under President Obama and VP Biden was put in charge.
The only difference is that Trump DOGE was not mostly a slight of hand, and he put someone competent in charge.
Facism is
Everything inside the state
nothing outside the state
nothing against the state
Benito Mussolini
That is the left view of govenrment – not Trump or republicans.
YOU are the fascist – Slotkin’s remarks above are facism.
I have a sincere question for you. If the supporters of Mr. Trump – who won a majority of the so-called “popular” vote in 2024 – take your comment and Slotkin’s at face value, why should Mr. Trump leave the office of the President of the United States at the expiration of his term? Do you expect him to leave the office? I don’t think many “fascist authoritarian regime” leaders have willingly left the office, which means that your fantasizing (and Slotkin’s) about harming these people is either very foolhardy (one would expect you to be targeted by RWDS for stating this) or insincere because you believe that Trump will follow the law and vacate the office thereby giving you the opportunity to harm him and his supporters.
While the dem’s have a seemingly positive advantage going into the midterms, the truth may be very different. The fascist side of the dem’s was on full display during the biden reign of terror. They supported and implemented wherever possible every tool in the Stalin/Musslini/Hitler playbook. Freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, privacy, dissent, security and association were all under attack and badly compromised under the biden non-watch. The bizarre behaviors promulgated by the HHS/NIH/CDC/NIAID departments during the covid debacle destroyed the badly needed scientific inquiry and expert advice that could have led the USA out of the hands of incompetent bureaucrats and into the land of common sense. As a scientist, I lament the wanton and casual destruction of the rules of science during 2020-2024 era with previously competent MD’s losing their collective minds in the drive for compliant, virtue-signalling behaviors instead of using the method that yields a more certain truth. The Fauci diaries have given the world a glimpse into the hubris of these ossified bureaucrats and their fragile egos. That man is still pissed at losing out on the Nobel prize for his mediocre work on AIDS in the 80’s.
The Trump admin has had its hits and misses but is still preferable to the dem’s lack of any plans whatsoever except identity politics where their divide & conquer strategy, buttressed by the massive payouts to the identity slivers has fostered a climate of budget grifting that spares no one. The worst thing that can happen going forward would be to give the dem’s control over anything because, as they’ve shown previously, they just drive the nation off the road and into oblivion.
“He [Michael Sherwin] explained that ‘our office wanted to ensure that there was shock and awe … it worked because we saw through media posts that people were…'” Precisely.
Modus operandi: sending out anti-Republican, anti-conservative, anti-Trump messaging, then tracking results through the media.
Slotkin and Democrat candidates continue to use legacy/MSM media for unrelenting, pounding messages promoting their ideology, period. Picture this analogous example:
NBC, ABC, Washington Post, NPR, and NYT (as well as Google search results) (reminder: ALL independently-rated as Left to lean-left) sieve the national news daily to spin, slant, and broadcast only the selected news that casts Trump and Republicans and conservatives in a negative light.
They then conduct or co-sponsor a “poll.” The participants/respondents are obviously voters who are consumers of NBC,ABC, WaPo, NPR and NYT. The vast majority of national polls are conducted by left-leaning pollsters. And the leading questions (which would never be allowed in a legal setting) walk participants toward the door that the pollster wants them to go.
Just like Michael Sherwin acknowledged, “it worked because we saw through media posts….”
Is there a better way to “to deter young people” than to make sure that every thing they hear, see, read, or are taught —promotes one political ideology or message over another?
Lin,
Well said and an excellent analysis of leftist MSM and their slant for Democrats.
The upside, unlike leftist MSM polling, is ratings do not lie. We have and are seeing trust in MSM falling to all time lows, profitability falling, layoffs as advertising revenue falls with audience ratings. Meanwhile independent media is gaining. Fewer and fewer people are buying what MSM is trying to sell.
What the likes of Sherwin fail is there are real grass roots organizations like Turning Point USA that is attracting young people who are not interested in the socialism, illiberalism, the far left Democrats are trying to force on them.
Conservatives use chatGPT as do progressives. It’s all anxiety ridden, terrorism.
Funny how it is that Trump called for, initiated and is now actually carry out retribution against Democrats and foreign born peoples who are elected federal government officials, and you people don’t see that as retribution? Thank God Biden gave out those preemptive pardons. Trump will do the same in 2027.
Retribution for what, precisely?
There is no question that the Democrats could overplay their hand. But, boy, what a hand they have to play. Trump and company have given them a royal flush. Jonathan, you were rightly critical of the Biden’s and the heavily politicized DOJ and IRS of the Biden administration. But you’ve had NOT ONE WORD to say in this blog or elsewhere that I’ve noticed about the unprecedented corruption of Trump and his family and insiders, with the DC swamp rising to a record flood level. I’m assuming this is because of your gig with FOX News, which reticence speaks poorly of your professed objectivity, which I previously admired. What have you to say about that?
Go back six to twelve months. I can remember multiple times when Turley was critical of Trump or his administration.
Moreover, thanks for personalizing what I just said about manipulative legacy/MSM media. Your perception of what you note is precisely based on the selective information you read or viewed via media. I may be wrong but I would bet that you have zero personal information or involvement in events depicted therein.
Has anyone at NBC, ABC, NPR, WaPo, NYT reported on the below/attached regarding Georgia Democrat Raphael Warnock? (I can think of multiple others in the Democratic Party)
“Allegation TypeDetailsRent-Free HousingAccepted nearly $1 million [from Ebeneezer Baptist Church] in housing without disclosure.False Financial DisclosureAllegations of filing inaccurate financial reports regarding outside income.Voter Registration MisconductInvestigated for late submission of voter applications while chairing the New Georgia Project.Interference in Child Abuse ProbeArrested for obstructing a police investigation at a summer camp.Custody DisputeAccusations from ex-wife regarding custody agreement violations.
Notice the reporting sources, New York Post and Fox News, (clear minorities in the media theater).
https://www.nrsc.org/press-releases/warnocks-long-list-of-underreported-problems-2022-10-14/
Because the ‘unprecedented corruption’ exists only in your imagination.