This is how democracy ends. Or maybe, just maybe, as a civil war begins.
After surgically embalmed 80-year-old Nancy Pelosi flew to Taiwan to announce America’s enduring commitment to freedom, FBI thugs conducted a politically motivated prime-time home raid on the home of her sworn enemy Donald Trump.
Watching the events play out live on TV was like watching one of those old conspiracy theory movies starring Robert Redford or Gene Hackman.
In the latest Hollywood-inspired version, Trump is this year’s public enemy.
The FBI’s stormtrooper tactics at Bad Orange Man’s swanky Mar-a-Lago compound in Palm Beach, Fla. could be straight out of the Chinese Communist Party’s playbook.
Her ridiculous apology for this egregious abuse of Trump’s privacy and civil liberties was a federal judge’s warrant searching for classified documents the former president allegedly took when he was shouted out of the White House and kicked over a stolen election.
But then again, it sounds more like a big deal than a technical breach of protocol.
And a warrant from a federal judge is easier to get than a gummy 99-cent cheeseburger from a 24-hour fast food restaurant at a gas station.
Missing documents were only the pretext for a high-profile embarrassment of the former commander-in-chief
Whenever the Feds feel like kicking someone’s door down for the flimsiest of reasons, there’s always a tame judge willing to oblige.
These days, they don’t have to wake up some drunken lawyer from his Jack Daniels-soaked pit in Gopher’s Gulch somewhere in Central America. They have a Washington DC judge on speed dial eager to do their bidding.
Clinton’s Democrats are pulling all the strings in Washington. The Feds and the Justice Department are their own private army. So it came as no real surprise when raiding parties from the country’s capital swarmed into the reclaimed Mar-a-Lago swamp.
Missing documents were only the pretext for a high-profile embarrassment of the former commander-in-chief.
After all, the FBI couldn’t have cared less when the hideous Hillary Clinton — then Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee — performed a black-and-decker drill on her own laptop to examine 33,000 supposedly confidential emails.
If the Feds wanted to see what The Donald had stored on his iPad, they could always ask his attorneys.
I don’t think Trump has many secrets. He suffers from severe social media incontinence. Too much information instead of too little. Leaves everything hanging.
No, this was another shocking example of the process becoming punitive. The intention was to portray Trump as guilty – and divert attention from Creepy Uncle Joe and his shady dealings with nefarious foreign actors, via his drug-addicted, fornicating son, Hunter.
The FBI couldn’t have cared less when the hideous Hillary Clinton — then Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee — performed a black and decker drill on her own laptop to examine 33,000 supposedly confidential emails
Democrats are desperate to prevent Trump from running again after polls showed he slammed not just Biden but every other opponent. They want to shoo away California “Liberal” Gavin Newsom, a toothless, nondescript left-wing figurehead who runs crime and illegal immigration on what was once the “Golden State.”
For the record, this is not a pro-Trump column. More than a year ago I wrote for him to step aside and give the impressive 42-year-old Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a free rein in the White House.
Trump’s greatest quality was that he managed to annoy all the right people. Otherwise he is a megalomaniac dreamer.
The chilling fact here is that if the Deep State can crucify a former president, no one is safe.
Oddly enough, if this clumsy heist was aimed at destroying what remained of Trump’s credibility, it backfired spectacularly.
As of today, it looks like Trump has more chances of re-election, not less.
Even those who are by no means Trump fans have been appalled by the abuses of the FBI, the Justice Department and the Democratic establishment.
Within about half an hour of the news breaking, the usual Make America Great Again suspects went on strike in Mar-a-Lago.
The FBI’s stormtrooper tactics at Bad Orange Man’s swanky Mar-a-Lago compound in Palm Beach, Fla. could be straight out of the Chinese Communist Party’s playbook
Apart from Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel, which is currently in the process of distancing itself from Trump, the American mainstream media went out of their way to downplay the raid.
Funnily enough, yesterday the absurdly left-wing CNN network ran its main morning bulletin not on the Trump story but on the news that prices in stores were falling. Allegedly.
You couldn’t invent it.
Still, it helps the White House fantasy that America is not in recession, even though the economy has been in freefall for the past two quarters.
Democrats have embraced Meghan Markle’s take on what amounts to “the truth.”
Look, none of this gives me pleasure. As a Londoner, I’ve been in love with the United States since my first trip to Detroit as a teenager in 1969, the year of Woodstock and the moon landing.
My immediate family – not me – moved to America more than 40 years ago. My sister Vivienne is a US citizen. I’m flying to Michigan in a few days to hold a Midsummer memorial service for my mother who passed away in March.
I’ve always believed that America is the world’s last best hope. And despite everything that’s happening right now, I still hold on to that belief. Otherwise the game is over and Putin and the Chinese have won.
Call me an optimist, but for as long as I can remember I have accepted Ronald Reagan’s vision of America as a shining city on a hill.
But after watching the Mar-a-Lago robbery on TV last night to borrow a line from Paul Simon… Michigan now seems like a dream.
American friends I’ve met recently are deeply depressed about the state of their nation.
We can only hope that the FBI’s botched effort to discredit Trump will prove to be the culmination of the Deep State/Blob conspiracy to forever undermine democracy in the West (above). Secret Service agents stand in front of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate August 8, 2022 in Palm Beach, Florida
I first came here while the heat of Detroit’s race riots was still smoldering. But I can’t remember a time when this great nation was more divided. The good old guys in their pickups who showed up in Palm Beach Monday night are the tip of the iceberg.
Decent, patriotic people, even those who can’t stand Trump, are disgusted by the Deep State’s appalling anti-democracy antics.
Somehow, like Britain, America has produced a political class that regards the people who pay their wages with the utmost disdain and is willing to do whatever it takes to destroy those who have threatened its hegemony.
We can only hope that the FBI’s botched effort to discredit Trump will prove to be the culmination of the Deep State/Blob conspiracy to undermine democracy in the West forever.
For America in particular, to heal, the future requires CCP-style Deep State withdrawal and magnanimity on behalf of Trump, who should accept that he has shaken the establishment and then mercifully retire from the struggle in favor of someone like him DeSantis. This is the greatest service he could have rendered his country.
Unfortunately, I’m not convinced that will happen. But the alternative is civil war. And that’s too awful to think about.
