On thugs

Those of us who tried to stop Trump from ever coming to power—and who then tried to stop his return to power—were accused of hysterics, of Trump Derangement Syndrome, when we talked about authoritarianism and the death of liberal democracy. Yet masked government agents summarily executing protesters in the street, under the orders and protection of the president, is now the reality and even the defining image of the United States—or at least the defining image of Minnesota, and the model will soon be exported nationally if it isn’t stopped right now by coast-to-coast revulsion and defiance. Let all those who denied what was happening, or who justified it, including in the comments section of this blog, hang their heads in shame forever.

People will say: but Scott, just recently you wanted Trump to overthrow the gangster regime in Venezuela! You want him, even now, to overthrow the bloodthirsty murderers in Iran! That makes you practically a Trumper yourself! How can you now turn around and condemn him?

Difficult as this might be for many to understand, my position has always been that I’m consistently against all empowered thugs everywhere on earth. If I’m against Trump’s personal thug army executing (so far) two peaceful protesters, then certainly I should be against Ayatollah Khamenei’s thug army executing 20,000 protesters, and Putin’s thug army executing however many it has. I’m also aware that, for Trump and his henchmen like Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem, Khamenei and Putin and the like are models and inspirations. No one can doubt at this point that Miller and Noem would gladly execute ten thousand or ten million peacefully protesting Americans if they expected to get away with it.

When two thugs fight each other, I favor whichever outcome will lead to fewer of the world’s people under thug rule. Or if one thug can still be defeated in an election and the other thug can be defeated only in war, then I favor electoral defeat where it’s possible and military overthrow where it isn’t.

This is a stance, I’ve learned, that will lose you friends. People will say: “I get why you’re against their thugs, but how can you also be against our thugs?” I’m writing this post in the hope that, even if people hate me, at least they won’t be confused. I’m also writing, frankly, in the hope that a few days will go by with me having discharged my moral obligation not to be silent, so then maybe I can do some science.