The Monster Screaming the Loudest

Tony Gilroy's magnificently written Andor concluded last month, the timing of its release as perfect as its message and the performances that brought so many unforgettable characters to life. In America, we are living through a real-life version of Andor right now, with our own version of Imperial stormtroopers raiding businesses, restaurants, and even Congressional offices in search of regime enemies--real or imagined. The time for taking sides, and acting on our convictions, is now.

As political speeches go, it was epic in scale and prophetic in tone.

The venue was the chamber of the Imperial Senate, the speaker Senator Mon Mothma of Chandrila. In the wake of the Empire's slaughter of countless Ghormans as part of a plan to strip mine the planet for a mineral needed to complete the Death Star project, Mothma had decided that the time for direct confrontation with the Empire and its self-appointed emperor, former Senator Sheev Palpatine, had come.

After challenging the official Imperial lies about events on Ghorman, Mothma finished her speech by saying that, "The monster screaming the loudest, the monster we helped create, the monster that will come for us as all soon enough, is Emperor Palpatine." Mothma is assisted in her escape from the Imperial capital of Coruscant by the show's title character, Cassian Andor.

Unfortunately, on Friday, May 30 in Manhattan, there was no Cassian Andor on hand to prevent Trumpist agents from illegally entering the office of Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and accosting members of his staff in search for alleged "rioters" who had protested ICE and Trump regime immigration policies one floor below Nadler's office.

As the New York Times coverage of the incident noted,

There were no riots reported on Wednesday at the federal building on Varick Street, though protesters and immigrant rights advocates gathered inside and outside the building earlier in the day. The immigration court is on the fifth floor and Mr. Nadler’s office is on the sixth.

It was just the latest blatant violation of the separation of powers and basic constitutional due process requirements by the regime this year.

The raid by regime agents on Nadler's office comes less than a month after former Trump attorney and acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba falsely charged Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) with assaulting ICE agents during a Congressional oversight inspection of the ICE contracted immigrant gulag at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey.

This isn't simply about the regime targeting Democrats.

It's about the regime and its willing accomplices in ICE, HSI, the FBI and elsewhere--agents of coercive, violent power--attacking the regime's political opponents: no matter where they are, no matter how valid and constitutional the activities of regime opponents are in a given situation. At the macro level, it's a conscious pattern and practice by the regime and its agents to begin normalizing the use of coercive power to try to silence or even incarcerate those who challenge its unconstitutional acts.

In the Nadler Manhattan office incident, DHS agents acted without any statutory authority to conduct "security checks" on congressional offices, potentially violating both constitutional separation of powers principles and the Speech or Debate Clause. Their actions could constitute federal crimes under 18 U.S.C. § 242 if they willfully deprived congressional personnel of clearly established constitutional rights while acting under color of federal law. 

Providing security for Congressional offices is the job of the United States Capitol Police, and none of their officers were on hand to interdict and turn back the Trumpist agents who violated Nadler's office and terrorized his staff.

Right now, the monster screaming the loudest is Trump, and entirely too many federal cops are acting like Imperial stormtroopers, carrying out his unconstitutional orders without question. It's past time for him, and them, to start paying a price for their attacks on the Constitution, the Republic, and us all.

I doubt that the U.S. Capitol Police have sufficient manpower to provide all House district and Senate state offices with protection from future such regime incursions, but House and Senate Democrats would be well advised to make exactly such requests for protection and immediately.

If you have a Democratic House or Senate members representing you, tell them to ask for the maximum possible U.S. Capitol Police protection at the district or state offices and tell Senate Democrats to refuse unanimous consent on any legislation or nominees, including funding bills, until the regime ceases its unconstitutional acts.

And any so-called "federal" agents who engage in the acts described above should be subject to impeachment resolutions. Even if the resolutions don't pass, calling out individual Trumpist agents by name can help to generate a "chilling effect" of its own, stigmatizing those who break their oaths to uphold the Constitution and making their monstrous behavior known to their families and friends, as well as the communities in which they live.

In the weeks and months ahead, it may be necessary for each of us to make a life-altering decision: whether to confront the regime ourselves, in concert with like-minded people loyal to the constitutional Republic.

For myself, I made that decision 33 days after I turned 18 when I took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I will live by that oath until the day I leave this world for whatever lies beyond.

Thanks for reading the Sentinel. And just a reminder: you can get 30% off my new book about past episodes of unconstitutional surveillance and political repression, the Triumph of Fear, by going directly to the Georgetown University Press website and using the code TGUF...and this code can be used by anybody, so spread the word and thanks for being a Sentinel subscriber!