New Orleans Once upon a time, before Trump that is, the qualifications for running for political office were straight forward. You needed to be a citizen of a certain age, depending on the office you were seeking, and in some cases, you needed to have been born in the United States, as Elon Musk often reminds us that, yes, I’m dangerous, but, no, I can’t be president. All that seems to have changed now under Trump.
It turns out that there are new qualifications. If you want to run as a Republican, you have to be prepared to be held in contempt of court for disobeying court orders, possibly paying fines and maybe spend some time in jail. If you want to run as a Democrat, you have to be prepared to be arrested, seemingly for being a Democrat, especially if you are an observer of an immigration raid, escort someone into a courthouse, or try to view a federal facility charged with detention. If you think I’m kidding or being satirical, then you haven’t been reading the news.
The Florida Republican Attorney General is being threatened with contempt by a federal judge for encouraging arrests under a recently passed wacky law where the state has tried to make being undocumented a state crime. The judge ruled that the provision was clearly unconstitutional, since immigration is a federal matter preempting state action. The attorney general, recently put in the position after having been the governor’s chief of staff, is obviously on a MAGA publicity tour, but needs to be ready for the consequences. Numerous federal officials with the Department of Justice and other agencies are currently being threatened with criminal and civil contempt for ignoring deportation injunctions concerning El Salvador’s prison without due process, Africa and other countries where there is risk of life, and more. Although the government is playing “where’s Waldo” with the courts, contempt proceedings are rapidly moving forward.
On the Democratic side, the mayor of Newark was arrested along with several New Jersey Congressman for seeking to inspect a federal detention center for immigrants caught in the ICE sweeps. We’ve witnessed a US Senator from California roughhoused, penned to the ground, and arrested for trying to ask a question of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem at her press conference. Days later we saw the New York City Controller and candidate for mayor in an upcoming election gang rushed, manhandled, and arrested for escorting an immigrant to court, despite the fact that he has been serving as an escort for weeks during these times of trouble. It goes on and on.
Anyone who believes either of these provocations ending in either contempt hearings or arrests are coincidental and not part of political and policy directives, please contact me, because I’ve got some ocean front property in Arizona that I’d like to see if I can interest you in buying.
I saw a Facebook posting from a liberal Republican group, the Lincoln Project, arguing that the administration’s intention is to desensitize the public, so they become accustomed to this kind of impunity and disobedience of the law and use federal forces as a way to punish any opposition. Think Russia and other autocratic regimes, if you want to see the model for such undemocratic behavior. We’re even seeing Democratic politicians shot and killed in Minnesota, of all places.
This has to stop.