Our Weaponized Government

Trump is once again the talk of the town. The FBI just raided Mar-A-Lago, ostensibly in pursuit of classified documents that Trump is alleged to have improperly removed from the White House.

As National Review's Andrew C. McCarthy notes, this 'classified document' business is just a way in the door. It's very likely a fishing expedition for January 6 dirt masquerading as a tempest-in-a-teapot exaggeration.

If they find something big enough to make an irrefutable case of incitement or some other criminal act - and it'll have to be smoking-cannon magnitude - then they'll have achieved their long-sought desire to punish the Untethered Orange Id for the temerity of upsetting the political cart they’ve long claimed to sole ownership - a desire unchecked by propriety, the law, or inconvenient facts. It'll be a Pyrrhic victory, most likely, because disqualifying Trump from running again will get DeSantis installed in the White House in a romp, with payback high on his list.

If they don't land their orange whale, they'll have yet again proved all the "deep-state" and partisan-institution claims right... again, and hand Trump the White House in 2024. Sure, there are many Republicans and conservatives vowing not to vote for Trump ever again, but a lot of those nevers' public proclamations will not jibe with voting booth behavior, and many will be voting not for Trump but against the unholy alliance between the Left and our no-longer-nonpartisan institutions.

Overshadowed by the Mar-A-Lago brouhaha is the massive expansion of the IRS in the just-enacted Inflation Reduction Act. For years, we've been told that there's a ton of unpaid tax money in millionaires' and billionaires' returns, but the 87,000 extra employees (the IRS will double in staffing) are going to run through all those richy-rich folks very quickly, and then they're going to have to justify their jobs.

Wanna know who's gonna get targeted next? Go look in the mirror.

In case you forgot, the Democrats had a provision in the earlier, larger version of Build Back Better that'd require banks to report all transactions of $600 or more. Because, of course, there's no more dangerous place to stand between a politician and Other People's Money.

You'd think our Best-and-Brightest might have learned something from the Russia collusion embarrassment and try to fix the institutional reputations their TDS caused them to shred. But, no. Politicians only ever learn a lesson when they get thrown out of their jobs, and that lesson is usually "be sneakier and don't get caught next time."

These examples of weaponized government are just the latest of many. The FBI and DOJ carried Clinton's water during her run against Trump, and twisted themselves into pretzels to excuse her own mishandlings of classified documents. Obama weaponized government in myriad ways. The Patriot Act, and before it, the RICO Act, have been used countless times by creative government types to pursue targets far outside their presumed bounds. Examples could fill an encyclopedia.

Just to cherry-pick one from today's news: Over at the FDA (which still has no sense of urgency regarding the baby formula shortage) distillers who switched to hand sanitizer production in the early days of the pandemic are facing a regulatory onslaught - today - that makes no sense unless we realize that bureaucrats live on exercising power for power's sake.

Want to know why I'm a small-government libertarian? It's right here:

As for Trump? I won't reiterate my views on the Untethered Orange Id. They don't matter for the purposes of this analysis. This move by DoJ - a move that Biden's flacks claim he was not briefed on - will guarantee his already-near-certain run for the White House in 2024. It may also, barring emergence of hard proof that Trump intended the January 6th rally to turn into a Capitol invasion, and worked to make it happen, prompt others who'd figure on running to stand aside, giving Trump the GOP nomination. If he gets nominated, he will win.

Yes, there are 2.5 years before the election, and much can change. Many Republicans and conservatives are hoping Trump either opts out or is defeated by another nominee, but there's a lot of wishful thinking in the former, and a juggernaut being revitalized by the Left countervailing the latter. The gambling markets haven't yet reacted to the raid, but they've held steady on Trump as the favorite to win the Presidency in 2024. One silver lining is DeSantis picking up support as Biden loses it, which speaks of NeverTrump swing voters getting fed up with this administration.

This move against Trump is a massive gamble, one likely made by people who are so cocooned in their echo chambers that they don't realize the multiple forms of blow-back it will generate. As I noted above, even if they finally bag their elusive prize, this will motivate a whole lot of people to "vote the bums out," and give a gift-wrapped talking point to every single GOP hopeful - from President to dog-catcher, to run on.

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Yours in liberty,

Peter.