Shock and Awe on the Campaign Trail

American Greatness ^ | 28 Apr, 2024 | Roger Kimball

[MtnClimber]

I would wager that a million or more words have been written about the trials and tribulations—but especially the trials—of Donald Trump. I have written quite a few myself, here at American Greatness and elsewhere.

Some stories from the left are of the gleefully salivating variety. “Goodie! The Bad Orange Man is Getting His and Might Even go to Jail. Hallelujah!”

But it is my impression that more and more commentary has a worried, if not an out-and-out tone of alarm. Former Attorney General William Barr is no fan of Donald Trump. But he recently announced that he was endorsing Trump because the likely alternative—Joe Biden—was so much worse.

I suspect that, with the passage of time, that endorsement will be seen to mark a turning point in l’affaire Trump. If even an anti-Trump figure like Bill Barr has lined up behind the former president, a rearrangement of the stars is underway.

Note well: The primary fulcrum of this change is not an assessment of the relative merits of Trump vs. Biden. Rather, it’s a reaction against the perversion of the DOJ and the coercive power of the state under Biden. Trump is the most obvious victim. But any opponent of the regime is a potential target.

“Shock and Awe” is the popular phrase military folks use to describe a strategy of using “spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy’s perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight.”

That is a good description of what the Biden administration is attempting to do to Donald Trump. Thanks to the incisive reporting of Julie Kelly, Mike Davis, and others, we now know that there was extensive co-ordination between the Biden White House and the myriad prosecutors, attorneys general, FBI agents, and other official factota to formulate a strategy to indict, intimidate, and neutralize Trump as a political actor.

The commentator Andrew McCarthy is no more a fan of Donald Trump than is Bill Barr. I don’t know that he has gotten around to endorsing Trump, but he, too, has been appalled by the perversion of justice on view in the scramble to “Get Trump.” In an important recent essay, McCarthy outlines some of the ways in which Biden, as President of the United States, has been colluding with (not to say directing) the “shock and awe” legal assault against Trump. Regarding District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s so-called “hush money” trial in New York (really, it is a “hush Trump” trial), he points out that Bragg chose as his lead prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, “one of the very top lawyers in the Biden Justice Department — the associate attorney general overseeing the government’s civil, civil-rights, antitrust, and tax-enforcement activities.” McCarthy notes that “Most prosecutors see themselves as working in law enforcement; Colangelo specializes in anti-Trump enforcement.”

He goes on to observe that

it is highly unusual for a lawyer in so lofty a federal perch to decamp to a county DA’s office for a line-prosecutor post — even allowing that the county is in the Big Apple and the trial gig is a prosecution of Donald Trump, which will make Colangelo a very famous fellow. But in this instance, it is a seamless transition. Prior to joining the top echelon of Biden’s Trump-hostile Justice Department, Colangelo had worked at the New York attorney general’s office — where Bragg was then a top deputy and where Colangelo specialized in lawsuits against Trump and his organization. It was Colangelo’s work against Trump that Bragg touted in running for district attorney in blue, blue Manhattan.

That’s my emphasis but Colangelo’s bias.

McCarthy’s entire essay is worth reading, as is “America in the Shadow of Lawfare,” a long essay by Kenin M. Spivak that appears in The American Mind. Spivak rehearses what has become a familiar litany of abuses of state power to take down Trump. It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. But in this case, I believe it would be more accurate to say that familiarity has bred complacency. Clear your mind of what you know about these cases and ponder this partial list of Spivak’s inventory of extravagant legal abuse.

Beyond E. Jean Carroll’s so far successful defamation cases funded by billionaire Reid Hoffman and failed efforts in 36 states to take Trump off the ballot for purportedly engaging in insurrection, Trump is a defendant in five active criminal or civil actions, and an unindicted co-conspirator in two additional criminal cases, all brought by partisan progressive Democrat prosecutors seeking hundreds of millions of dollars of fines and more than 100 years of prison time.”

And note these two points:

“The timing of these cases was coordinated to inflict maximum inconvenience and cost on Trump, and to make it impossible for him to campaign actively.” “State and federal prosecutors met in the White House to refine their cases and for purposes that have never been disclosed.” The timing was coordinated. State and federal prosecutors met in the White House to refine their cases.

Why are people not up in arms over these revelations? We are not talking about something that is happening in Bolivia or Venezuela. It is happening right now here in the United States of America. The regime party is coordinating with the instruments of legal enforcement and the media to keep the chief opposition candidate off the campaign trail and make it impossible for people to vote for him. That party is also actively attempting to bankrupt him. As Spivak notes, “No sitting or former president of the United States has ever before been indicted, let alone faced a coordinated, multi-layered legal attack.”

It is hard, I suspect, for most people to grasp the enormity of what is going on all around us. A Rubicon has been crossed, and advance troops are already besieging various outposts of our taken-for-granted institutions and assumptions about our social lives. If the regime party succeeds in taking down its chief opponent, it will be open season on all of us. Spivak is correct: “The United States is now seeking to financially destroy and incarcerate a former president who is also the leading opposition candidate for that office. This is what happens in Third World countries, which routinely confiscate assets of and imprison, the opposition. Regardless of whether Trump prevails in his trials, America has crossed a line from its republican past into something very ugly.” Verbum sapienti satis est: i.e., don’t say you weren’t warned.

[MtnClimber]

Why aren’t republican DA’s taking out corrupt democRAT politicians by the dozens? And the leftist lawfare lawyers too.

[Liz]

Only a braindead Democrat like Bidumb would define a “crime spree”
as something involving a person who was never convicted of a crime.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

And why aren’t Republican Congressmen and Congresswomen screaming about this nonstop from the rooftops? It’s all happening very quietly, out of sight. Probably less than one in ten Americans know what it is happening and what this denouement means for the Republic and our futures.

[ClearCase_guy]

America has crossed a line from its republican past into something very ugly.

The other side isn't playing by the rules. For them, it's "Calvin Ball". If we adhere to all the proper behavior, we will lose. If Trump becomes president, he must not be a normal president. New ball game.

[Liz]

If an anti-Trump figure like Bill Barr has lined up behind the 2024 presidential president,
we can expect earthshaking events....perhaps even a rearrangement of the stars is underway.

Barr’s change is not an assessment of the relative merits of Trump vs. Biden.
<><>it’s a reaction to Biden’s perversion of the DOJ
<><>Biden using the coercive power of the state against Trump
<><>Bidumb’s rank display of force to paralyze his opponents
<><>Biden’s unholy desires to destroy opponents’ will to fight
<><>a foreboding that any opponent of the Bidumb regime is a potential target.

[rlmorel]

“Calvin Ball” indeed.

(Just last week I finished reading the entire works of Calvin and Hobbes, which took me about a month and a half! I had temporarily traded my volumes of the complete Far Side with my brother…:)

[Blurb2350]

Which do you prefer, Far Side or Calvin & Hobbes?

[stanne]

“The timing of these cases was coordinated to inflict maximum inconvenience and cost on Trump, and to make it impossible for him to campaign actively.”

It must be particularly galling to them that Trump is using this as his campaign

He gets free press. People see how anti constitutional his opponent, Biden, is

Trumps ratings climb on a daily basis.

[DeplorablePaul]

Obama launched the gigantic conspiracy to destroy Trump. The left has thrown everything against him short of assassination. This is the application of the Brezhnev doctrine. Once a country goes communist, it can never go back. This Obama era will not end well.

[stanne]

“ Barr’s change is not an assessment of the relative merits of Trump vs. Biden.
<><>it’s a reaction to Biden’s perversion of the DOJ
<><>Biden using the coercive power of the state against Trump
<><>Bidumb’s rank display of force to paralyze his opponents
<><>Biden’s unholy desires to destroy opponents’ will to fight
<><>a foreboding that any opponent of the Bidumb regime is a potential target.”

Em… you listed the reasons Trump ran. This craps been going on since before Reagan was shot. Trump watched McCain then Romney hand it over to Obama.

He finally said screw it these GOP wimps are worthless. Probably just democrats in disguise I’m going in.

[Gaffer]

If we’re talking about MSM, Biden and the Democrats/Rinos here then it’s more like “Schlock and Maw.”

[Rurudyne]

Thus the accurate Schlock and Drool description as it all falls apart.

[OrioleFan]

The latest Epoch Times had an article about how state Bar Associations are going after lawyers who represented President Trump in any challenges to the 2020 election results, and any lawyers who represented the J6 defendants. The whole purpose is to intimidate, sanction, and disbar any lawyer who represents targets of the Biden Department of Injustice. This is particularly troublesome in California, Georgia, DC, New York and even Florida and Texas.

Liberal ABAs are bastardizing ABA Rules 8.2 and 8.4(g):

ABA Rule 8.2: Judicial and Legal Officials states that a lawyer shall not make a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge, adjudicatory officer, or public legal officer, or of a candidate for election or appointment to judicial or legal office. This rule aims to maintain the integrity of the profession and the fair and independent administration of justice by preventing lawyers from making false or misleading statements about judges, adjudicatory officers, or public legal officers.

ABA Rule 8.4(g) prohibits a lawyer from engaging in conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, mental or physical disability, or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law. This rule aims to promote a diverse and inclusive legal profession and to prevent discrimination and harassment in the legal system.

[rlmorel]

That is a great question, and halfway through the reading of the Calvin and Hobbes, I realized in a flash that I had been asking myself the same question. And the answer is:

My favorite Cartoon is stil...hands down, "The Far Side".

But my favorite Cartoonist is Bill Watterson.

This may seem like splitting hairs, but I did reach that conclusion for reasons that make sense to me.

The Far Side appeals to the fundamental, ingrained sense of humor that has formed in me throughout the course of my life. There are elements to my sense of humor that are dark, twisted, bizarre, and whimsical.

For example, there is my favorite Far Side Cartoon below:

I suppose there are some who would look at it and not get the point. Others might get the point and think "What is so funny about a plane full of people having their remains scattered across a mountaintop when they hit it at 500 mph?"

I look at that, and it hits me squarely in the funny bone: In life, my experiences are full of things where I simply did not get it. Whatever it was, the indications were staring me in the face, literally shouting at me and hitting me over the head with a 2x4 yelling "HEY! DUMMY! THIS IS A CLUE! DON'T YOU SEE WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?"

It is like the first time you are fiddling around with a jackknife trying to push on something, and the blade folds up on you, severely cutting your finger. I knew the blade did not lock, I had several cases where the blade had folded in a premonitory fashion that should have warned me, but...being the dimwit I was, or simply caught up in the stream of doing things, I didn't get it. And when it folded and cut my finger badly, I am sure I had a look of utter surprise on my face!

And that is what tickled me about that specific cartoon. Those two guys, seeing the mountain goat in a hole in a cloud, instead of thinking they were going to crash, wondered how on Earth a mountain goat could get up into a cloud! It is so ludicrously human that it is hilarious to me! And the Far Side is chock-full of those types of things.

When I read Calvin and Hobbes in depth, I was blown away by the intimate human expression of what it was like to be Calvin, or to be around Calvin, like his parents, teachers, neighbors, etc.

And I have never had children. But I was one. And I see every bit of my childhood as a little boy in Calvin. And I imagine every parent of a child like Calvin understands completely, as do ostensible friends, teachers, etc.

I remember all too well being six years old. I remember being stuck in class. Daydreaming. Drawing pictures of airplanes. Hating girls. Being called on by the teacher for an answer to something, while I was in the middle of a heated battle with the representation of her on the planet Zorg.

Homework. Having to go to bed when I didn't want to. The willingness of me to sacrifice my entire future life for one single snow day today. Sledding down hills. Christmas. That awareness that there were times my parents had no idea what to do with me, or how to treat me (this, in a family of six kids) I completely felt like, and identified with Calvin.

I remember that so well, I feel it in my bones rather than remember it.

And I realized just how well and talented Bill Watterson portrayed all of those things in heartwarming fashion. It is a talent like I have rarely seen, perhaps closest in Charles Schultz of Peanuts fame. (His characters in Peanuts, though, were all adults portrayed as children, IMO)

Interestingly, I rarely, if ever, recall Ted Larsen making political statements in his comics. But Bill Watterson certainly, and sometimes very pointedly did.

I read up on Watterson, and he comes across to me as a Lefty. But I forgive him this in his cartoons...he is generally pretty gentle in making his point, so...I don't hold it against him.

I loved that you asked me that question, because I thought deeply about it after I was done reading his works and had spoken only tangentially about it to my brother.

[MTBobcat]

Most of them are compromised, and if they’re not, they don’t want the same legal treatment from the Marxist Biden DOJ and state/local affiliates that Trump and his loyal supporters received.

Just look at what Jack Smith did when he threatened Trump’s driver with legal consequences if he refused to lie for Smith to help his case.

These Commies don’t mess around now that they fully control the judicial system and have no fear of being jailed themselves.

[MTBobcat]

If they’re going to call him a dictator, and also a racist for wanting to deport the do-nothings and criminals that are a large part of the illegal alien population, may as well really act like one and let’s get this ideological conflict started.

[Blurb2350]

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I share your fondness for The Far Side, but I'm less enthusiastic than you when it comes to Calvin & Hobbes, perhaps because I experienced childhood as a girl and not as a boy! A current cartoon I like is Bizarro by a guy named Piraro. He's a devout lefty, but his work is very clever. He has farmed out his weekday panel to another cartoonist and only draws his elaborate Sunday panels. The little numeral by his signature indicates the number of secret objects hidden in the panel -- the firecracker, the eyeball, the flying saucer. He puts these in all of his toons.

[rlmorel]

I have enjoyed some of the Piraro's work, because it tends to hit my funny bone in the same place.

And I understand fully why you wouldn't share Watterson's six year old boy viewpoint of the world.

But I suspect, if you ever did raise a six year old boy, you might fully understand the mother and father's perspective!

[blueunicorn6]

The Democrat Party Organized Crime Syndicate has had a successful run of over 100 years.