The former president’s allies have portrayed the indictment as an act of war and called for retribution, which political violence experts say increases the risk of action.
I don’t think the slippery slope argument is good enough to justify continued inaction at this point. Could a Republican president try to use a domestic terrorism EO against liberal groups? Yes. But they’d have a hard time finding any liberal groups calling for gun owners to take retributive action against the government over decisions they don’t agree with. The EO would have to be worded so that only groups that make terroristic threats would be targeted, and that kind of conduct simply doesn’t exist outside of the MAGA death cult.
If Congress would actually back legislation that would classify the Proud Boys or similar groups as terrorist organizations, I’d be advocating for that instead. But they’ve already blocked one such attempt, and I firmly believe that we’ve reached the point where continued tolerance of violent rhetoric is going to get people killed.
I don’t think the slippery slope argument is good enough to justify continued inaction at this point. Could a Republican president try to use a domestic terrorism EO against liberal groups? Yes. But they’d have a hard time finding any liberal groups calling for gun owners to take retributive action against the government over decisions they don’t agree with. The EO would have to be worded so that only groups that make terroristic threats would be targeted, and that kind of conduct simply doesn’t exist outside of the MAGA death cult.
If Congress would actually back legislation that would classify the Proud Boys or similar groups as terrorist organizations, I’d be advocating for that instead. But they’ve already blocked one such attempt, and I firmly believe that we’ve reached the point where continued tolerance of violent rhetoric is going to get people killed.