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.”
Slutkin is a CIA trained and no doubt shadow state bootlicking member right along with Brennan. These shallow stooges feel it’s AOK to voice threats and intimidation as she does…it’s literally all they know , and lying too for certain.
Disturbing message especially from a Jewess who to an oath to respect and protect Americans. A clearly Hitlerian start towards our young. She just threw our Civil Right and Constitutional rights into the toilet.
Show me the man, I will show you the crime…..
What a joke. PT, you must know its the formation of hades?
Toodles
I remain amazed how the formation of h€££ just barrels onward.
Christians, remember to offer thanks and blessings before meals.
Oh pardon, this is a political blawg. ☺ religion unpermitted. 😂
I remain amazed how the formation of h€££ just barrels onward.
Christians, remember to offer thanks and blessings before meals.
Pardon the quirk in my machine.
Few things feel better than finally nailing a flip in Flip or Fail after several close attempts.
Correcting the Professor’s homework once again.
Slotki’s supposition is astonishingly clear, even when her statement hides behind alleghorical disguised references.
It was “Sharpen the guillotines!! We can get you high discounts if you lack one from the Somali and cartel war lords’ slave trade. The days of the Reign if Terror are in our hands. FOLLOW ME!!”
Allow me to explain a fundamental that escapes the view of liberal Prof Turley. As Carl Schmitt revealed, politics is fundamentally adversarial. There is always a rival, adversary, even an enemy, that due to the intense danger presented by that enemy, political groupings will arise and form laws to deter or defeat the rival. In so many words, that’s my version at least. Slotkin gets this and she applies a message of deterrence.
It is actually not a bad message because where this administration has gone so wrong that even a 3 time Trump voter like me would be disgusted with the corruption, the lies, the broken promises, and the excesses in the immigration enforcement– there are a lot let me tell you, it’s disgusting the lack of due process and outright abuse by ICE– but if it has all gone so wrong then she is doing youth a favor by telling them to steer clear.
From the jungle, — Saloth Sar
Liar.
Trump is the big fat liar. How many times did he promise not to start a new war in the Middle East? 30? 50? Where’s my tariff rebate check? Where’s my DOGE rebate check?
Where’s the Epstein files, and i mean the embarrassing things not the sterilized version?
Why did Trump stop the investigation into the goofy kid who shot him in Butler? I guess he might have razored his own ear since he’s a wrestling hall of famer, that performance was as good as Ric Flair. Wooo!
This guy is the liar not me . SS
e difficult by sanctuary cities and states not cooperating with handing over the criminal illegals.
You are so very wrong, the tone of the democrats and their helpful media, as well as lifelong political employees in the government, has been to treat everything Trump has done as evil and authoritarian. Yet not one progressive democrat has had their rights ignored or lost by being imprisoned, so far. Give examples of excesses in immigration enforcement? Politicians always break their promises, look at what Joe Biden said before 2020 and what he did in office, as well as a host of other democrats, like Virginia’s governor. The election showed that lies win while telling the truth or trying to be realistic does not. The worst thing for the DNC would be to spend all their time investigating Trump and his administration and other supporters! They will pay the iron price come 2028 if they do not meet their promise of affordability, as they will not be able to blame Trump like they did in this election and having their mainstream media buddies sell it to ignorant voters. Give examples of Trump corruption? And tell me their was no corruption in Obama’s administration or Biden’s? There is always something that skirts the law or looks very wrong, but is usually brushed aside as “that’s politics” unless your name is Trump or you support him. Political attacks like the ones Slotkin has made numerous times now are liked to violence and may get someone hurt. She is one of the worst and should be banned from politics in my opinion. She was part of that group that had to make a video about how people in the services did not have to obey “illegal or unconstitutional” orders, and shows she learned nothing from it. Please, give examples of outright abuses by ICE? Protesting by blocking LE agents from doing their job is obstruction and a felony, if people were hurt while doing it, they should have known better, while illegal immigrants using vehicles or weapons on ICE agents deserve what they get, IMHO. I blame sanctuary cities and states for making ICE’s job difficult.
It strikes me as more akin to Voltaire’s cynical and sarcastic observation, “It is good to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.”
Stalin must have heard this one
Comments like Slotkins’s cause me to wonder. Once it becomes known that having in the past had the wrong political sentiments or affiliations is justification for arrest, trial, and ???, how many such malefactors will submit peacefully to an arrest warrant, vs. decided to “take a few with them”? Seems to me that “policing” under those circumstances (mass arrests for thought crimes) would entail risks that would absolutely dwarf the risk environment in which police now operate. (Is this a seditious assumption?)
I saw a comment recently, I think maybe in one of Professor Turley’s blogs, coining a term I hadn’t seen before: i.e. “Democrat Party Jew.”
That may help explain the seeming fascination with the Liberal Left. I am reminded of the teacher whose class of young children was recently the target of a terrorist to attack. The attack was foiled when the terrorist’s vehicle got trapped in the hallway after crashing through the synagogue gates and he couldn’t escape to carry out his attack. Despite the attack the teacher reported that she “and Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed agree on just about everything.”
https://www.thefp.com/p/they-were-lifelong-democrats-then
El Sayed is not terrorist, We Americans are sick of Jewish power groups like AIPAC and ADL trying to scare us goys from liking or voting for anyone with a Muslim name. And for the record Obama wasn’t even Muslim. After decades of this crud we are sick of it and especially sick of “our greatest ally” you know what that is right? The ones who knew 9/11 was coming google “odigo software company” oh wait let me help
https://www.haaretz.com/2001-09-26/ty-article/odigo-says-workers-were-warned-of-attack/0000017f-dbc4-df62-a9ff-dfd7beff0000
El Sayed is CAIR … a soft-spoken terrorist affiliate. Pull your head out.
Slotkin is just the typical drama queen white woman Democrat.
The fact that she is Jewish, and yet supports those anti-Semitic Muslim Brotherhood lovers, like Mamdani, Al-Sayed, Homar the brother-banger, Tlaib, Pressley, Chiquita AOC Kruschev, etc. tells you everything you need to know about her and the majority of Democrats these days.
Democrats OWN hypocrisy.
The woman in the photo here looks very Polish. Michigan has a longtime notorious reputation for anti-semitism often associated with Henry Ford. How do you know she’s Jewish? Maybe she just had a Jewish ancestor, but that doesn’t automatically make her Jewish!
I feel like someone needs to SLAPP some sense into her.
The paying field is lopsidedly uneven. DC — judges, juries– is a safe zone for (D)s and a Star Chamber for the GOP. Nixon found that out.
THIS. Republicans are foolhardy not to pass reforms to Federal Courts venue Rules in criminal cases. Just include West Virginia as a potential venue for criminal conduct occurring in the District, Virginia or Maryland and vice versa. Congress has this power to make Rules of Procedure for the Federal Courts.
Democrats are the fascists they have been searching for.
The reason that they call you “Fascist” is because Fascism is the exception – “Fascists” don’t have political rights, they don’t get to speak, and if they win elections you don’t have to seat them and if they are seated they don’t get to exercise the powers of their office. After all, would you have allowed Hitler to become Chancellor? It’s just their excuse that resolves the cognitive dissonance between their own self-regard as lovers of democracy and the things they do to frustrate democracy when they don’t like the results.
“Venezuelan Opposition Leader Maria Corina Machado Warns Americans About Democrats’ ‘False Promises’”
It’s not their False Promises that scare me.
It’s the promises they really mean that are terrifying.
A deterrence message is coercion. The threat of harm is classified as what? It’s more than a threat after the Kirk murder and DJT attempted assassinations and murder of a fireman present at rally. Being republican or association with conservatives is a crime apparently.
Collections of red cap purchasers?
Another flighty, emotional, impulsive woman that feels rather than thinks.
Slotkin married Dave Moore, a retired Army colonel and Apache helicopter pilot, in 2010.[134][135] They had met in Baghdad during Slotkin’s third tour in Iraq and lived in Holly.[136][137] The two filed for divorce in 2023.[137] Slotkin had two stepdaughters while married to Moore.[138] She is Jewish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elissa_Slotkin#Personal_life
what is it about Jews and the Left? is the Torah not a thing for these idiots? Maybe she should be placed in a concentration camp to give her a dose of her own medicine?
Talmud.
I’m just trying to imagine how a blind man became an Apache helicopter pilot.
This is so offensive. Zionism as a political ideology that existed before WWII, went on steroids and meth after it. And today it is the Israel lead by Netanyahu that are the exterminationists in Gaza and wherever else they spread their malign violence.
Jews who repudiated Zionism like Norman Finkelstein or Max Blumenthal or Aaron Mate or whomever, they are to be applauded. This is not even a left right issue, there are plenty of right wingers sick of the Israelis abusing their heibhors and destabilizing the wolrd. if you think it is a left right thing, then you trapped in MAGA propaganda.
An Italian American can return to live in Italy, a Polish American in Poland, and a Hungarian American in Hungary. Yet you object to a Jew returning to live in Israel, the ancestral land where his forefathers were born. Denying Jewish people that same connection to their homeland is not just a double standard; it is inherently antisemitic
Israel denies the ability for Palestinians to return to their homeland, the place that Israel has claimed as solely for itself.
IRoughly 800,000 Jews were systematically driven out of Arab and Muslim nations. They were stripped of their citizenship, faced violence, and forced to abandon billions in property without any right of return or compensation. Yet you demand a ‘right of return’ exclusively for Palestinians while completely ignoring the forced expulsion of an equal number of Middle Eastern Jews. That is a clear double standard.
Have you ever considered the scale? The Arab states had almost 600 times Israel’s size. When war broke out in 1948, a tiny Jewish population of 650,000 faced the combined armies and resources of Arab nations totaling over 40 million people. 650,000 vs. 40,000,000.
The gap in weaponry was massive. The five Arab armies invaded the newly declared state with professional military structures, regular tanks, an air force, and heavy artillery. The Jewish community started the war with no tanks, no heavy artillery, no warships, and no combat jets, relying on small arms and civilians, including Holocaust survivors.
Israel accepted the 1947 UN Partition Plan for two states, which Arab leadership rejected in favor of war. The Arabs who remained in Israel became equal citizens. Today, over two million Arab citizens have full voting rights, serve in parliament, and serve on Israel’s Supreme Court. Do you see the same in the Arab lands?
Hamas was voted in by the Palestinian population in Gaza, and its founding charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews… “From the river to the sea.” Do you understand what that means?
Israel is the tiniest of specks, surrounded by almost 600 times its area, yet you hold this double standard against the Jews. Try reversing the picture and make the Jewish state almost 600 times larger with a massive population. What would you say then? Would you still hold the double standard?
Anonymous, you ran away: is it because you can’t stand the truth?
The Wikipedia article seems to indicate that she had a messed-up family background. Some people are able to overcome that and recover from it, but some are permanently damaged.