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Trump, We might as well face it, he will never cede center stage.

At every turn, trump never ceases to surprise us with his ability to turn himself onto the center stage while, at the same time, torpedoing his "enemies," those who stand in his way as he grabs for power and money and, perhaps, more important to him, what passes as adulation. We might as well face it, he will never cede center stage. He and Trumpism are going to be features of American life for a very long time. Trump and other dictators and wannabe dictators deserve their own chapters in the pages of books about abnormal psychology. On second thought, Trump deserves an entire book about his abnormal psychology.

The compass for dealing with Trumpian chaos is that he is ever the perpetrator, not the victim. Given his lifelong propensity to lie and avoid responsibility, for anyone to believe him about anything tells us more about them than him. His former wife, recently deceased tax deduction had him pegged to a “T.” He is The Donald: he exists entirely in the third person, no “I” or “thou” at all. My understanding is that the Puritans were not persecuted in England, although they did move to Holland where they were distressed by the exposure of their children to views they disagreed with. Hence their departure to New England where they established an intolerant community that, amongst others, kicked out Roger Williams, a believer in religious freedom, and founder of Rhode Island. And so the standard narrative of the Puritans escaping persecution is a myth. Note that these 'nice' people put bounties on indigenous people within 10 years of landing on Plymouth Rock. They have not persecuted heroes, they were contemptible.

Well, speaking of the first arrivals to America, the Pilgrims were certainly in search of a place where they could experience "religious freedom." But then, an ugly truth entered the picture. Those early Pilgrim settlers decided they were, again, in danger of being victims — this time by witches! Now, you would think they took some lessons from Henry Vlll when it came to religious persecution. Or how about Queen Mary l, better known by friends and foes as, "Bloody Mary." Then, of course, in the soon-to-be-famous year for discovering America, 1492. Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella launched The Inquisition '' where, long before Hitler's book-burning campaign, it was the people that were burned at the stake in public for a cheering audience. So when the Pilgrims decided to burn and/or hang women because of the vaporous crime of witchcraft, religious persecution was launched in America. Which is to say, the current White Christian nationalism, and the faux cries for religious freedom from Republican members of the House and Senate, are an assault on the Constitutional protections of freedom from religion. Fact: There is no persecution of Christians in America. Yet, these Christians are determined to destroy the Establishment Clause found in the First Amendment. Why? So they can purloin the name of Jesus to persecute everyone else in his name. While Trump plays to Christian victimhood, he has become the master of it without getting all tangled up in the faith.

One of the things that I find interesting is that, in the past, claims of persecution were more closely tied to specific actions. There was always a background animus but persecution, in itself, required specific harmful actions. Now, I see that persecution is framed as having encountered people who have an opposing identity or belief. We see now that the very existence of people from different tribes is framed as a threat. When I look at the discourse on the Right, all I see is that they start any discussion with "Left", and "socialist". This creates an impenetrable barrier that makes reasoning impossible. It is not just that they disagree with people on the Left, it is that, by their very existence, they pose a threat. All arguments become ad hominem ones. I think that the term persecution is wrong. We are really seeing persecution hysteria. During the Red Scare, there was little in the way of real threat. However, there was tremendous hysteria. People were pointing fingers as they got more and more agitated. We need to understand persecution hysteria and push through it.A lot of what we see in the Right Wing Media is persecution hysteria. We need to tune this out in order to see the real persecution threat. Trump and many of his Republican allies are a very real threat. They want to take very clear actions in order to persecute Americans.

Persecution? He was driven to elementary school in a limousine. I wish I had been persecuted. And, as I noted earlier here, alas, the entire MSM has acquiesced and the word "raid" is everywhere in headlines and cable news crawls ... But it wasn't a raid: it was a search, a lawfully conducted and judicially warranted search carried out with decorum and without any mindless havoc of a "raid."Yes, a warrant being issued to search the residence of an ex-president in a federal investigation is unprecedented. But so is the behavior of an ex-president giving rise to probable cause underlying the issue of such a warrant. I do not feel for him and his due should have come long ago. No. This reaction of "defensive human instincts" is by his cult and his cult alone. Americans keep talking of his supporters like they're normal. But, they have succumbed to a cult of personality. They are unwell. To treat all of this as normal is to continue to feed into delusion and keep us from fixing the problems we face. The National Narcissist should recount who he and his supporters have persecuted. Immigrants. LGBT. Women. Educators and Politicians on the Left. Lawful protesters. Minorities. Civil Servants. Whistle-Blowers. Judges. Innocent civilians in other countries. Life on the planet.

The records had been requested for months. A search warrant was properly presented and served to regain documents that belong to the American people. Documents were not securely stored.Every one of these so-called “persecutions” was just Trump ignoring and even laughing at the law, as he has always done, with the result here that action was required just to get the documents that belong to the United States. There is ample evidence that Trump destroyed documents, and he hasn’t bothered to deny it. He considers any action against him an opportunity to stir up the people who defend him to death. It doesn’t matter to them that the country is facing destruction at their hands, nothing really matters but their fanatical desire to maintain control over all women, and anyone else they see as a threat to their masculinity. They look at social evolution as a threat. What he and they need is a healthy dose of justice- and punishment- not impunity. Not so much persecution as prosecution. Based on the nature of this action, and Trump's efforts to hide that he had them, I think we can be reasonably confident that the materials in question are not trifling. And one reason I can think of for why the FBI needed to move in to seize it is the very real possibility that those materials were top national security secrets that somebody was going to sell to an enemy nation like Russia or China.

The search warrant must describe the thing law enforcement is looking for in particular detail, and that evidence must be related to proving a crime. Also, it must be shown that the particular items are likely to be found at the location to be searched. A judge does not allow law enforcement to just go looking around someone’s residence fishing for evidence. Especially if it’s an ex-President’s residence. Trump can show us the warrant. The Courts did. Probably the same reason he won't release his tax returns.By law, Trump was given a copy of the warrant, and a list of items seized. The search warrant describes what the authorities were looking for and the list of seized items describes what was taken.Trump can show it to anyone he cares to share it with. The affidavit is sealed and not for public consumption until a judge deems it to be ready for release so as not to jeopardize the investigation. At some point, the public at large will know what the facts are that justified the search. Be patient…

What they found, at least in general terms, is available to Trump in the inventory the search of his palace provided. He is not releasing it, although he could. The Justice Department is not releasing it, in keeping with longstanding policy protecting the suspect in an investigation. So before concluding that the search produced nothing, ask yourself why Trump is whining but not showing his cards."The governmental duty is not to protect the suspect but the public."That's a fundamental misunderstanding of law enforcement, jurisprudence, and constitutional law.The government's duty is not to protect and calm the public. The DOJ's duty is to investigate and then give 'due process to the person or persons involved. If the government's duty was to protect and calm the public then Trump truly failed to do just that on Jan. 6th. Instead, he encouraged and continued to allow the chaos and rioting to continue for hours that day. Protecting and calming the public was the last thing he wanted. The public will be just fine and will eventually find out the results of this investigation.

The federal government doesn't need to say squat to America about what they are or are not doing during an investigation. The reason we know anything happened is that Trump disclosed it. The FBI said nothing before, during, and after and will remain silent about the whole affair until they reach the determination that a crime was committed. If I knew with 100% certainty that I did nothing illegal I would never once mention my house was searched search by the FBI. Who would want that scrutiny? If innocent, the FBI would. find nothing and their inaction would be absolute proof of my innocence. The end. Trump is a criminal and all he is doing is blowing smoke. It stings when many outsiders speak of American glory in the past tense as if they have figured out the country's future. Some leaders will leave behind a legacy. Trump will leave behind a stain.

The Conservative Whine as I call it is relentless. They claim persecution when they can't be the dominant power, a power they feel entitled to abuse at will without shame or accountability. Someone or the government is always trying to take their money, freedom of choice, or guns. They claim religious persecution but never stop at trying to impose their religious beliefs on others and interjecting them into our secular government or public schools. They feel threatened by the mere existence of immigrants, blacks, and LGBTQ people. They are in for a very rough road in our world that is shrinking. People that learn how to get along, be tolerant, and recognize the intrinsic rights of all people will succeed. Elizabeth A. Castelli finds no "precise origin point" for what she calls the “Christian persecution complex.” There probably isn't a precise moment, but for me, it was the appalling speech by Pat Buchanan at the 1992 Republican Convention when he proposed that the "constitution protects freedom of religion, not freedom from religion". Draw a straight line between that speech and convention and the current Supreme Court's crusade for the supremacy of the supposedly persecuted white evangelical Christians.

Reference
Punitive Surveillance
108 Va. L. Rev. 147 (2022)

GWU Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2021-37
GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 2021-37

Kate Weisburd
George Washington Law School
Date Written: March 20, 2021