What Happens When A Check Comes Due: The Mar-a-Lago Raid and Right Wing Fearmongering
Monday's raid of Mar-a-Lago was unprecedented, but the extremes to which the GOP went to capitalize off the action is truly disturbing
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The news was broken by Donald Trump himself as the former president released a statement that his home at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach was “occupied by a large group of FBI agents” who were in the process of conducting a search. Initially, a shock reverberated through the usual means, including social media and cable news. It felt simultaneously inevitable, considering Trump’s myriad legal problems and penchant for flaunting the law, and also surreal in that no former president had ever been subject to such an action.
Quickly, a picture emerged. Since leaving the presidency in January 2021, Trump had infamously transferred caches of documents from the White House to his private residence, violating, by all accounts, a mountain of statutes and rules. Reports from the National Archive, which had been trying desperately to retrieve the materials, surfaced that the haul contained classified documents and Trump had allegedly been active in destroying evidence.
This action required an extensive and exhaustive process, including the approval of a search warrant and a sign off from, at the very least, Attorney General Merrick Garland. Chances are, considering how notoriously careful Garland is, efforts were probably made to alert a handful of leadership from both parties in order to curb even the resemblance of political persecution or a hardline maneuver.
Doubtlessly, everyone within the political infrastructure and leadership of the major parties understands this was a legal and above-board operation necessitated by Trump’s disregard for the law. But that didn’t stop the Republican Party and its associated media outlets, or even Trump himself, from capitalizing on the appearance of partisanship.
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To be clear, other than a small group of true believers (who, to put it kindly, have trouble keeping up with day-to-day politics and traffic in misinformation as a pastime), everyone within the Republican Party understands this was a legitimate action. The nature of our political environment, however, necessitates a game of performative outrage designed to inflame the passions of the base in order to raise funds and bolster electoral chances.
After all, the GOP has completely abandoned even a semblance of a platform in favor of operating as a public relations front for a group of wealthy donors obsessed with the task of rolling back the progress of the 20th century, including individual rights, civil rights, worker protections, and the problem of governmental oversight. For decades now this has been developing as the party hedged its political fortunes on an appeal to white resentment and aggrievement bolstered by conspiracy theories.
Perhaps the most hyperbolic actor of the night was Mark Levin, a celebrated conservative talk radio host who joined Sean Hannity on Fox News to call the raid the “worst attack on this republic in modern history. Period.”
Despite the absurdity of this claim, it’s important to break it down as if it were actually heartfelt as opposed to performative in nature. If Levin serious here, and if his claim was made authentically, then we are to believe that the FBI removing over a dozen boxes of pilfered documents from the gilded home of a former president with a penchant for skirting the law is LITERALLY worse than
The attacks of September 11th
Pearl Harbor
The march of Fascism and Nazism
The attempted coup of January 6th, 2021
Levin’s posturing is absurd, but it’s part of a larger push by the GOP and its commentariat to re-frame these events for their own benefit. Fox News, after all, was explicitly designed for these purposes. Roger Ailes, former television adviser to Richard Nixon, envisioned the project as a means of curbing future Watergate scandals and providing a party apparatus to shift perception for political purposes. Here, we see that project operating in its purest form.
Suddenly, Donald Trump’s hoarding of classified material (material, it seems, that is so “sensitive” that it cannot even be legally described) is transformed from a legal issue pertaining to an individual to an all-out assault on the United States of America itself. This is a tactic that Trump, himself, has used extensively, turning his narcissistic drive for power and profit into a faux-movement girded by conspiracy theories and paranoia.
It’s an effective strategy, for sure, as millions of Americans both distrust the government and have been convinced by years of propaganda, political rhetoric, and cultural appeals, that the reason for their frustration and suffering and alienation is part of a large and sinister plan by evil “cabals” to destroy them and their families. Within this framework, Trump becomes a “warrior” defending them and, as a result, a demagogue with a cult-like following considered by some a modern “messiah.”
What’s most disturbing is that the Republican Party knows, full and well, that this rhetoric has resulted in violence several times over. This includes paramilitary groups that use these appeals to recruit members and stage public battles; individuals who believe the lies and carry out mass shootings and bombings; and a general escalation of tensions within the political environment that, tragically, continue to raise the temperature and make antidemocratic actions, as well as sporadic explosions of violence, inevitable.
For those who traffic in these methods, the benefits are as obvious as they are disgusting. The modern political landscape functions as a system of fundraising, and major flashpoints (including this raid on Mar-a-Lago and actual moments of consequence like the overturning of Roe v. Wade) are mined for their ability to bolster financial numbers and liberate supporters from their hard-earned money. And, predictably, Trump and his aggressive fundraising team are already using this to their advantage.
There’s no doubt that Trump and the Republican Party will post huge numbers over the next few days as supporters watch the situation unfold on their television sets and computer screens. Their base, primed to believe the government is out of control and carrying out dictatorial oppression, and given no means of action outside of donating their money, will flush every available organ with funds, including Trump’s myriad groups and associated grifters. It will be a bonanza that, depending on the details and when they emerge, might last for weeks on end.
Additionally, there are political purposes as well. In recent weeks the Democratic Party has shaken up the landscape leading into the midterms. Legislative wins like the recent Inflation Reduction Act and national conditions like the fall in gas prices has completely reshaped the consensus regarding November’s contests, and this event will be used to pitch a new narrative: vote to oppose the tyranny of a government gone mad.
Long term, the GOP will continue to use every opportunity to lay the foundation for a reactionary agenda to completely shift the basis of power and create an illiberal state that looks and functions as a twisted mirror of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. It reasons, obviously, that an out of control government overtaken by sinister forces (the essence of the conspiracy theory being constantly communicated) requires a mass replacement of “Deep State” operators throughout, ranging from bureaucrats to IRS agents to the military itself.
What Laura Ingraham is communicating here is the basis for “Schedule F,” a plan in Trump world that has been percolating for years to carry out a system-wide replacement operation to fire federal employees and put loyalists in place. The raid on Mar-a-Lago, which has nothing to do with anything here, is now being firmly entrenched as a reason to carry such a thing out. In fact, it’s probably going to become THE reason a Schedule F plan should be realized now.
Fox News has in the past few months distanced itself from Trump, a shift I’ve covered on my Muckrake Podcast, and is quickly and noticeably rallying around the potential candidacy of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Trump’s fall from favor is predictable considering the effects of the January 6th Commission’s hearings, but this incident and its controlled fallout will be useful to prepare an administration helmed by DeSantis, or whoever follows in Trump’s footsteps, to take explicit and unchallengable control. The rhetoric creates the veneer of crisis and crisis legitimizes any action, no matter how sweeping or disturbing, as an answer.
It is an incredibly dangerous game we are watching. The methods here are shameless but effective, and over the next few days, weeks, and months, we’ll undoubtedly watch the Republicans continue to ratchet up tensions. After all, it’s all they’ve got.
I know only too well how dangerous this is. My husband is a Fox and Trump cult follower and when he saw how delighted I was about the search, he got VERY angry. He had begun to let go some, but now he is energized. He is representative of many others out there who believes the only way to get truth is from Fox Propaganda. It is VERY hard to watch ESPECIALLY in my own home. He thinks I have gone crazy, but I will NOT be silenced! Thank you, Jared, for your great wisdom and always speaking the truth!
This wasn't a raid. It was a lawfully executed search warrant where the agents seeking the warrant established probable cause and were able to get judicial approval of the warrant. DeSantis is infinitely worse than Trump because he's more intelligent and has shown his tendency toward dictatorial behavior as governor of Florida. The only people who have gone mad are the MAGA mob due to their constant digestion of lies and rumors.
I find it especially shameless of Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham and other Trump supporters who have law degrees to attack the search warrant and execution of the warrant as an "unlawful raid." They went to law school, and they had to learn the proper requirements for a valid search warrant under the Fourth Amendment. Laura's call to execute the proposed "Schedule F" to wreck the Federal civil service and replace it with incompetent Trump loyalists is particularly stupid here. Does she not know her American history and remember why we implemented a civil service system to begin with? It was because President Garfield was shot by disappointed office seeker Charles Guiteau, and died of infection after botched surgery. Does she really want to repeat that dismal history? She banks on her followers' ignorance of history. The Republicans are indeed playing a very dangerous and shameless game, and we have to use all our power to stop them.