The pace of media frenzy and #TheResistance howling has picked up lately, particularly in the wake of the firing of Andrew McCabe.
But this frenzy is just a variation on a theme.
That theme is that the 2016 election was invalid, Donald Trump is an illegitimate president, and Trump must be removed from office one way or another. One of those ways is through the Mueller investigation.
None of this is new. It’s been a rolling anti-Trump thunder at least since election night.
With all the outrage over Trump’s tweets or statements or actions, I’ve yet to see a single Trump personality trait or modus operandi that was not fully exposed and litigated during the campaign. Trump won the election with full personality disclosure. So when people claim outrage over this Trump tweet or that, I mostly don’t care.
I also don’t care about the continued smoke blowing about supposed Russia collusion. At such point as someone shows me the fire, I’ll worry about it, but the smoke is just part of the attempt to delegitimize the election.
What I do care about is the intense anti-democratic (small “d”) nature of The Resistance in favor of a permanent espionage state which exploits its information for political purposes.
There were multiple chilling examples after McCabe was fired.
Former CIA Director John Brennan, who is as anti-Trump as they come, suggested that he knew information about Trump that was not yet public. Information, of course, he would have learned in his role at the CIA or through his connections:
When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America…America will triumph over you.
This is chilling stuff. Our intelligence services scoop up an incredible amount of information about all of us. There are limits on how it is supposed to be used, but when the former Director of the CIA suggests that there is undisclosed information about a President, it’s an abuse of power and a not-so-veiled threat.
Backing up this perception, Samantha Power, Obama’s former UN Ambassador and confidant, tweeted the warning that it’s “Not a good idea to piss off John Brennan”:
Power tried to walk it back, claiming it was misinterpreted, and she only was referring to Brennan’s indignation. Yet that’s not what Brennan was saying, and Power’s first tweet warning was believable. Why would she suggest that the former CIA Director’s outrage was more worthy of concern for Trump than the outrage of others?
James Comey also was threatening to come forward with information not yet public after Trump, as part of his McCabe tweets, also criticized Comey:
Mr. President, the American people will hear my story very soon. And they can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not.
Maybe it’s just Comey building up interest in his upcoming book, but again it’s a suggestion that a former Director of the FBI knows dirt about the president that hasn’t yet been made public.
None of this should surprise anyone. Reflecting a view widely shared among anti-Trumpers, Bill Kristol infamously tweeted soon after the Inauguration:
Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state.
That seems to be the attitude. And it’s dangerous.
Who elected the John Brennans of the world?
However imperfect, I’ll take our normal democratic and constitutional politics over the deep state. That’s what’s at stake in the attempt to take down Trump because he’s being Trump.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY