In common with
another diarist here, I am afraid. Frankly, I am shocked and scared, and I am not the only one. Responding to the recent pardon of the January 6th rioters, I read:
"The largest police union in the US, which endorsed Donald Trump during his campaign, said Trump’s decision to pardon more than 1,500 people convicted over the January 6 insurrection “sends a dangerous message”, in a statement on Tuesday."
The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which endorsed Trump in September 2024, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) warned that the blanket clemency offered to rioters – including those convicted of violent offenses, and several leaders of the attack on the Capitol – threatened Americans’ safety."
—quoted by The
Guardian]
The bloody police are afraid, it's not just me, nor just liberal journalists and social commentators, it's the fucking police unions and police chiefs. Now will you believe this man is a danger to everyone?
The President may be within his authority to pardon these folk, but the message he sends does not harmonise with the "party of law and order" that he is supposedly representing. That said, Biden giving blanket pardons to family members is equally dangerous in my opinion, and he has been (justly?) criticised for doing so.. Then he similarly also pardoned the likes of Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; retired General. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and the lawmakers and staffers from the House committee that investigated the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. Those lawmakers include former GOP Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, and Sen. Adam Schiff of California. The folk in this named group were pardoned presumably to protect them from a vengeful Trump. Still in all it made me unhappy that we've reached a point where this has to happen. i wonder, how long until we see the new president defenestrate or "disappear" opponents?
I hear responses already being frantically typed, "Orange Man Bad!" and the like, from presumed supporters of him. Be assured that this is not simply a knee-jerk liberal reaction to his election, it's a genuine concern to me that the USA's politics has hit a point where people need to be protected from an incoming president.
Further to the original quotation from the Police union, I would further opine that their endorsement of him also sent a dangerous message. Trump at one point called for a violent clampdown on any and all crime: "Former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for 'one real rough, nasty' and 'violent day' of police retaliation in order to eradicate crime immediately.” ¹ Is that a society that even members of the police want to live in? I doubt it. Do I want to live in a society like that? No, Sir, i do not. Torches and pitchforks do not make the world a safer place; this is not The Purge, it's not Hollywood, it's our communities under threat.
Imagine a violent, no-holds-barred police response to any 'crime'. We'd not just be looking at police shooting, say shoplifters, but potentially even gunning down someone who broke the speed limit, maybe neglected to produce ID at a traffic stop, or failed to bring a driver's licence with them on a car journey. Perhaps it would be ICE or police squads shooting undocumented immigrants, LGBT protestors, late-night revelers who are maybe singing too loudly on their staggering way home, a dog owner failing to pick up poop. How big a crime would it take? I've met some twitchy cops in my twenty years here, I imagine that a few of them (and it might only be a very rare few!) would relish the prospect of being able to solve a problem with sudden onset lead poisoning rather than an arrest and some paperwork for the courts. But that few could upend society at the behest of one man. Even in my darkest nightmares I do not think that Trump will follow through, but for sure if he issues that executive execution order I'm going to barricade myself in my house, with as much protective armament as I can muster. it would be horribly ironic if Trump, a convicted felon, were violently taken out as an unpunished criminal, hoist with his own petard.
Now let me be quite clear, I wish no-one any harm, not you, me, the shoplifter or dog-walker. Not the police, and certainly not the president. Much as I dislike him and his policies, he's still a human being, and i believe that all human life is sacred and precious (yes, even the lying, convicted felon Donald Trump). I cannot imagine the ruckus that the US would be in if he were assassinated.
A bunch of us met for coffee his morning, and inevitably, discussion turned to politics and some of the above items were discussed. We concluded that this is already Hell and we will all soon be handed a handbasket. To those who believe that I (or we) need to HARDEN THE FUCK UP, I suggest that you take a long, hard look at a man who has publicly promised to go after and punish all whom he perceives as having stood in his way in the past. Maybe he is the one who needs to toughen up, be a man and take some responsibility. That, or go out and fight his own fights rather than calling on his nasty big brother to do it for him.
¹ https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/29/trump-violent-day-policing-crime-00181619\Politico report
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