Republicans are shocked, shocked that Trump was indicted. Lest we forget, Aaron Blake of the Washington Post reminds us that Trump has repeatedly called for the indictment of other presidents and, in 2016, his political opponent. Who can forget the chant “Lock her up,” a refrain that was truly unprecedented in presidential politics.
A persistent idea undergirds reactions by Donald Trump and the GOP to Trump’s indictment. Sometimes it’s explicitly stated, and sometimes it’s more implicit: Indicting a former president and a candidate in the next election is beyond the pale. It’s even election “interference” or the stuff of banana republics.
Trump ceded the moral high ground on this idea long ago.
He has advocated for the prosecutions of each of the last four Democratic presidential nominees — every single one since 2004. In two cases, he did it during the campaign, even suggesting they should be ineligible to run.
And that’s to say nothing of the many other political opponents he has suggested should be prosecuted. He even, in some cases, actually agitated for that outcome when he held sway over the Justice Department.
‘Lock her up’
The “lock her up” chant leveled at Hillary Clinton is the most well-known entry in this long succession. Trump at times merely goaded his 2016 rally audiences to go down that road, but at other times he endorsed it. He said late in the 2016 campaign, “Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted and should be in jail,” and he even told Clinton to her face at a debate that if he were president, “You’d be in jail.” He added at a later debate that “she shouldn’t be allowed to run.”
By 2020, Trump gave a similar treatment to both his predecessor as president, Barack Obama, and his then-opponent, Joe Biden.
A month before the election, Trump tweeted, “Where are all of the arrests?” He added: “BIDEN, OBAMA AND CROOKED HILLARY LED THIS TREASONOUS PLOT!!! BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN – GOT CAUGHT!!!”
“But these people should be indicted, this was the greatest political crime in the history of our country — and that includes Obama and it includes Biden,” Trump added during an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network the next day. “These are people that spied on my campaign.”
Open the link and read the test, although it may be behind a paywall.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hello Diane: After listening to Trump talk about Pence on January 6, I think the threat of jail itself is a red herring. That noose was real. I think he made it clear to all of us . . . he is capable of murdering (or having murdered) anyone he considers “disloyal” to his totalitarian ambitions. CBK
Violence and the threat of it is essential for fascism to take power. This is not accidental. Allusions and outright symbols of violence dominated Nazi posters and literature. Creation of extraordinary military/police functions that create public fear use that experience to be seamlessly added to the state apparatus when they plan to come to power (see Florida today and the Texas Rangers for precedent). Fascism needs martyrs and violence as fuel. The cult is desperately trying to make Ashli Babbit their Horst Wessel. Wessel, a young Nazi SA thug, common thug, likely a low level pimp, was murdered in a street fight, likely of his instigating. Goebbels took a horrible, schmaltzy, nationalistic (yes, I saw what I did there) poem Wessels wrote, had it set to marching music, and it became the official anthem of the Nazi Party.
There were many events of violence leading up to the taking of power. In the biggest media event until then, a Nazi thug was being arrested by a group that included a beloved left-wing police captain in Berlin. The policeman was murdered in the raid on the thug. Goebbels, sensing an opportunity, turned it into a party, quasi-state funeral that brought a million to the street. Goebbels had taken a common criminal and a policeman opposed to them, and joined them in death to become martyrs to the cause and one of the biggest rallies Nazis had until they took power.
Although Nazis were ostensibly partners of Papen’s chancellorship, just prior to Hitler’s ascension to the post, they used violence in the streets to keep pressure on their political negotiations of centered on “law and order.” Never forget that violence for fascism is about the replacement of governing systems, not protecting the in which they take power. Conflict over compromise. Dominance over democracy. Violence is a feature, not an anomaly.
Here are two good examples of political violence, two from right attributed to the left, the other from the left with a twist ending:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altona_Bloody_Sunday
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potempa_murder_of_1932
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Paul_Anlauf_and_Franz_Lenck
I can’t count.
GregB “. . . Goebbels, sensing an opportunity, . . .”
I am reminded of how the legislature acted just this last week with the “Tennessee Three.” It’s as if they were waiting for even the slightest of opportunities to come down on or expel their black legislators.
It seems to have backfired, however.
And just as an aside, I actually laughed out loud while Gene Robinson on MSNBC was discussing the Tennessee legislators’ racist voting when he shrugged, smiled, and said, “They just couldn’t help themselves.” CBK
Agree completely. Open carry laws also fit the bill. Wonderful letter to editor in today’s NYT describing former Tennessean’s horror on learning his 28 year old daughter saw a man with a pistol stuck in his jeans while at a Nashville Starbuck’s. That shock and feeling of impotence about doing something was the intention.
It is also apparent, at least to me, that Traitor Trump wants Biden to be impeached more than twice.
One of the Traitor’s most vile and most loyal elected members of the House of Representatives, with a toxic gutter mouth, has attempted to get Biden impeached the most.
“House Republicans have introduced more than a dozen impeachment resolutions against President Biden and his officials, far outpacing Democrats’ formal impeachment efforts at this point in former President Trump’s term.”
https://www.axios.com/2022/09/30/biden-impeachment-republicans-trump-comparison
Guess who it was that has introduced the most attempts to impeach Biden. If you do not have a clue, the answer is in the third paragraph if you click that link above.
Yes, I’ll never forget how he loomed over Hillary, threateningly, during their debate–how he had said he could “shoot someone on 5th Avenue,” how yard signs where we live in Ohio said, “Hillary for Prison!” Trump’s a fascist, like Mussolini, whom he physically resembles.
Yet his cult loved it. In a rational world, he’d have been cited for stalking, intimidation, or both. We basically saw everything we’ll ever need to know to understand that just by viewing those few seconds. Note how it’s described as a political tactic here: