Night Raid on Mar-a-Lago

 

Julius makes his move.

Democracies are not easy to build, because they depend on a series of gentlemen’s agreement. Should anyone violate the terms, things can collapse.

That has now clearly happened in the US, as it happened in Canada in March. Former presidents are not to be prosecuted. Their homes are not to be raided. This looks like political intimidation, even if there is good cause. Nixon was preemptively pardoned. Nobody has gone after Hillary or Bill Clinton, despite much evidence. Even Ferdinand Marcos was allowed to die in peace. Harass opponents, and they have every reason to refuse to leave power once they get it. Your next election may be your last. Or maybe the previous election.

Some online pundits have referred to this as the Democrats “crossing the Rubicon.” 

Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon led to civil war. 

Perhaps there is some really compelling explanation for the recent raid on Mar-a-Lago. I cannot conceive of one. Especially when you compare inaction on Hunter Biden, for example. Add to this the recent ruinous judgement against Alex Jones for, in effect, expressing an unpopular opinion. Compared to inaction on the “Russia hoax.” Add to this the recent passage of a bill doubling the size of the IRS, as if in preparation for using that agency to go after political opposition. 

As the Canadian government has already been doing, suppressing non-violent protests and freezing assets.

So much for vain hopes of Canada’s salvation coming from south of the border. Maybe after the revolution is over…

For it looks to me more like a pre-revolutionary situation than a civil war. I think people are soon simply going to stop obeying authority. Once this happens, a government may resort to violence, but if a significant proportion of the population refuse to buckle, they must collapse. In China, we see people in large numbers refusing to pay their mortgages. In Sri Lanka, they stormed the presidential palace. Canadians have begun to refuse to use the ArriveCan app or answer questions at the border from the health authorities. Dutch farmers are slow-rolling the roads. 

If and when any one of these resistances succeeds, the revolutionary fever spreads; as we saw in the Arab Spring, or in the fall of the Berlin Wall, or in the revolutions of 1848. The kindling is everywhere, and the authorities everywhere are playing with matches.

We live in interesting times.