Governor Abbott’s Deadly Gambit

Unpardonable in the Extreme

Texas governor, Greg Abbott, appears about to pardon a convicted murder who, after plowing his car into a group of “liberal” protesters, shot a man who was carrying a rifle (as is legal in Texas) and was part of the crowd that surrounded his car. He claimed self-defense on the basis of the Stand-Your-Ground laws. Nevertheless, after hearing all of the evidence, a grand jury indicted him for murder and a jury of his peers convicted him.

Now Governor Abbott intends to pardon him.

This would be one of the most, if not THE most, legally and morally atrocious acts taken by a state or federal leader in our already fraught and sordid political moment.

But this is exactly why Governor Abbott will likely do it.

MAGA Nation Wants it to Get Real

What MAGA Nation expects is not simply the cathartic political theater of the Majorie Taylor Green’s, Jim Jordans, and now former president Trump, who are pretty much limited to such performative actions.

MAGA wants real and dramatic attacks on the status quo. It wants not just theatrics and disruptions that “Own the libs.” It wants libs’ heads to roll.

MAGA wants vengeance. They want the power to impose their will. And the more, and more quickly, the better. Greg Abbott in Texas and Ron DeSantis in Florida (and others) are not just in the lead of acting in these ways They are also the leading pioneers in expanding the playing field for such attacks and empowerment.

But it’s not just about pumping-up the sense of power in the base and encouraging them, individually and collectively, to go ahead and take bold action (because, see, we’ve got you covered). It’s also about actually taking power with bold strokes that create actual facts-on-the-ground: new laws, new interpretations and flaunting of existing laws, intimidation and repression of protest, and all other manner of in-your-face defiance of anything smacking of liberalism.

The Right to White Christian Might

It’s about shock and awe. It’s about ruthlessly reinstating — by law or executive action (as with the anti-abortion laws and the pending pardon) — and by force where necessary — the state-sanctioned Right to White Christian Might that will make America great again.

And one cannot understate how increasingly important it is to MAGA Nation that these efforts are, in fact, shocking and ruthless.

If this were happening in just one or a couple of states, it might not amount to a particularly existential threat to the rest of us or to our democratic republic. But the fact is that all Republican-controlled states are working feverishly, not in concert necessarily, but in the same ways, to forge actually existing illiberal states.

They are working from a set of playbooks that have been readied and steadily (relatively covertly) deployed over decades through the funding and machinations of a cohort of super-wealthy, individuals and families, like the Koch brothers — along with a vast network of Right to White Christian Might institutions and devotees (like the Federalist Society and Steve Bannon, e.g.).

The sudden, unexpected catalyzing of the grievance-driven populist MAGA movement by Trump in 2016, and its/his seizing control of the Republican Party, provided the political “force majeur” needed to shift into high gear and into the overt use of executive, legislative, and judicial power to seize control at the levels we’ve seen.

As such, we are witnessing the rapid development and consolidation of a de facto neo-Confederacy aiming to build the equivalent of its own virtual Berlin Wall in America.

If this neo-Confederacy can emerge, it can wage a powerful domestic Cold War that will engender years, even decades, of debilitating internal strife. (I’ve written on these these issues in prior posts here.)

“Hot” war? Not a chance.

No hot war could accomplish what such a domestic Cold War could.

The Governor’s Deadly Gambit

Governor Abbott’s gambit here in looking to pardon this duly convicted murderer is to create a singularly catalyzing precedent — and to issue a militant galvanizing message — one that goes well beyond the message sent by the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse for shooting three men, killing two of them, during civil unrest in Wisconsin in 2020.

In pardoning this convicted murderer — or in even declaring that he is seeking the go-ahead from the parole board to do so — Abbott’s message to MAGA Nation is, “Anything goes.” Abbott is declaring that, “As to them, I now declare a state-sanctioned no-holds-barred “open season” for the defense of us versus them.”

With this call to arms, it’s now clear that MAGA is being led forward by leaders determined to accomplish what Trump failed to do to secure national power with his ill-conceived frontal assault and his clumsy criminal syndicalist subterfuge.

The goal is to establish a domestic neo-Confederacy that can contest for national power. The goal, broadly speaking, is regime change: replacing a century+ regime of advancing democratic values with a new regime to restore unreconstructed White Christian supremacy.

And, while this regime-change itself is likely to occur through Cold War-like subterfuge, there is every indication that, at some point, a core element of the MAGA faithful are dead-set (so to speak) on being set loose as Agents of the Lord in inflicting Judgment Day-type vengeance upon the unworthy. An Abbott pardon would signal the promise of such a day.

How to Avoid such a Very Bad Day?

In the face of this escalating threat to our United States, we will need a combination of many ordinary and extraordinary measures.

The ordinary measures will come from among the vast majority of mainstream Americans in multiple ways in communities throughout the country. This mainstream majority has been awakened and will naturally and increasingly put their collective foot down against so much extremist overreach.

And ordinary measures will come from needed mainstream Democratic Party efforts to address the legitimate grievances of so many MAGA-aligned Americans who have seen themselves, their families, and their communities victimized by decades of Trickle-down” economics.

But this will not be enough. There are critical “structural” issues that must be faced and that will only be solved through extraordinary measures. These include this short-list:

• Confronting and fixing our intolerably corrupt, overtly partisan Supreme Court that appears to be on a mission to reinterpret the Constitution in the service of these resurgent anti-democratic forces.

• Addressing the majority-rule-inhibiting electoral college.

• Restoring the Voting Rights Act or enacting an even stronger one — and then enforcing voting rights throughout the country.

If we fail to face and fix these and other major structural issues; if we fail to take the kinds of actions that Lincoln and FDR took (on the basis of majority popular support) to face-down and defeat the insidious domestic anti-democratic forces that threatened our democratic Republic, that will be unpardonable in the extreme.