2 fmr snr FBI employees have reached a tentative agreement w/the #DOJ to largely settle their consolidated lawsuits alleging that they were illegally targeted for #retribution by the #Trump admin after the #FBI investigated #Russia’s #ElectionInterference in 2016, acc/to a court filing Tues.
"Bereft of any vision of positive change, this is a man who is only capable of exploiting an aggrieved people’s worst instincts—who has figured out that he can get what he wants by stoking the fear, hatred and anger of others. He uses violence, not imagination. Conflict, not collaboration. Cruelty, never kindness. Retribution, not affirmation."
"These are the tools of a weak man inciting the mob to satisfy his hunger for carnage.
A man like this sells bibles wrapped in an American flag. Desperate for dollars and loyalty, he laughably claims the bible is his 'favorite; book and that he has many of them. Empty and broken inside, he needs to compare himself to Jesus Christ on the holy weekend of Easter."
Noting that Republican senator James Lankford has stated that he was threatened by a right-wing media personality if Lankford tried to move a border bill before the election, Heather Cox Richardson says,
"It is not a normal part of our political system to have members of Congress deciding what laws to support on the basis of threats."
"Trump’s actions are not those designed to win an election by getting a majority of the votes. They are the tools someone who cannot win a majority uses to seize power.
Trump’s base is shrinking as his actions become more extreme, but he has a big megaphone, and it is getting bigger."
#Republicans#fear they will be targets in #Trump’s ‘#retribution’ campaign
TFG is already attacking those who have endorsed his #GOP opponents or have crossed him in other ways
Some allies have kept #lists of #Republicans who have been critical of #Trump in a bid to block them from getting jobs in a second term, acc/to a person w/knowledge of the #list. “You have a lot of people who want to come back in, but we remember what people have said in the past,” one longtime Trump ally said.
During a grueling primary, #Trump has told advisers that he wants to make sure #DeSantis is not the #GOP presidential nominee in #2028 & that he wants to make his #2024 loss painful, people who heard his comments said. He has floated attacking lesser-known senators for not immediately endorsing him, acc/to people who have spoken to Trump.
“#ShawnFain doesn’t understand this or have a clue,” #Trump wrote. “Get rid of this dope & vote for DJT. I will bring the Automobile Industry back to our Country.”
The provocation for Trump’s comments appeared to be a CBS News interview on Sun in which Fain said that #Biden had “a history of serving others & serving the working class,” while Mr. Trump had “a history of serving himself & standing for the billionaire class.”
"The contrast between the politics of Trump and Biden is not new news! But the contrast in this instance is striking and highlights yet again that what Trump offers to so many of his supporters is the thrill of threatened violence, the frisson of wiping away one’s opponents, the chance for vicarious transgressiveness. It’s a dangerous cocktail of swagger and situational violence."
"The Republican base actively embraces Trump’s grievances; it emulates his pettiness; it supports his childlike inability to accept responsibility. These voters are not sighing in resignation and voting for the lesser of two or three or four evils. They are getting what they want—because they, too, are set on revenge."
"Millions of Americans, stung by the electoral rebukes of their fellow citizens, have become so resentful and detached from reality that they have plunged into a moral void, a vortex that disintegrates questions of politics or policies and replaces them with heroic fantasies of redeeming a supposedly fallen nation."
The electoral rebuke that stung them bitterly was Obama's election.
These voters want chaos. They want cruelty. They want vengeance. They want power-grabs. More than anything, they want a sense that people like them are in control — and people who are not like them are being put back in their place.
As Maya Boddie reports, right-wing white Christians and their pastors — notably white evangelicals — are loving Trump's talk of "retribution" against his and their "enemies." Rather than alienating them, the rhetoric of bloodlust and enemies vanquished thrills them.
A powerful iteration of white Christianiity in the US thrives on generating an endless succession of enemies, to prove the righteousness of the chosen.
"On Wednesday, bomb threats forced evacuations, closures or stepped-up security measures at more than a dozen state capitols, in Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Maine, Oklahoma, Illinois, Idaho, South Dakota, Alabama, Alaska, Maryland and Arizona."
"Hard to keep track of all the racist, unhinged, authoritarian comments by the former president? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. … See our list of the 10 worst things Trump said in 2023."