Impunity for friends, fear for critics

By David French

America learned everything it needed to know about Donald Trump’s second presidency hours after it began. He pardoned or granted clemency to the men and women who violently stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. And he ostentatiously removed the security detail for John Bolton, his former national security officer, who had criticized Trump after an acrimonious departure from the White House.

The combination of those two orders sent the clearest possible message. His friends and personal allies would enjoy protection, favors and perhaps even immunity from the law. His critics and foes, on the other hand, should live in fear.

Virtually every significant event in his administration has followed that pattern. Why does he turn on Ukraine? Because he sees Volodymyr Zelenskyy as his enemy. It was, after all, a conversation with Zelenskyy that led to Trump’s first impeachment. Vladimir Putin, by contrast, has no comparable history with Trump.

How does Pete Hegseth escape accountability for one of the most grotesque violations of operational security in modern times? By being Trump’s friend and ally.

Trump is attacking law firms that he dislikes, dismantling elements of the federal bureaucracy as vengeance against the so-called deep state, and defunding universities that he believes are strongholds of woke ideologies that he hates.

There are few populations he despises more than immigrants. His administration’s systematic attacks on their rights to free speech and due process — and their right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment — are exactly in line with Trump’s ethos.

It’s no wonder that Lisa Murkowski, a longtime Republican senator from Alaska, told attendees at a conference in Anchorage, “We are all afraid.” The rest of her words were sad, but true: “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real.”

Yes, it is real, and it has been real since Day 1.