Not Even Pretending

Fascists at ramming speed

There’s been plenty written already about Tubby’s fash cosplay in Los Angeles, but there’s one under-examined angle I’d like to bring to your attention.

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial by Republican Senator Tom Cotton called “Send In The Troops, For Real.” The title is a deliberate echo of Cotton’s similar editorial from 2020, a response to the George Floyd protests, published by the New York Times and a flashpoint for discussion of the paper’s solicitude toward fascists like Cotton (which nobody bothers with anymore, since the Times and all the Prestige Press has made it clear that it’s all in for Trump).

Also echoed in the new edition are Cotton’s lurid accusations from the original — for example, that the protests were “carnivals for the thrill-seeking rich as well as other criminal elements,” and that “elites” had “excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic”— before the malignant dairy queen called on President Trump to put U.S. military personnel on the streets of American cities to preserve order.

In his 2025 callback essay, Cotton makes similarly outlandish and inflammatory claims — e.g. “left-wing street militias will burn down cities, and Democratic politicians will back the rioters” — before again calling for Trump to pit soldiers against citizens. He also uses the words “riots,” “rioters” or “rioting” ten times, notwithstanding that all the rioting is currently being done by the cops, for their incantatory power over the scared suburbanites he and Trump rely on for their power.

The only major difference is, in the original essay Cotton paid brief lip service to the idea that protest can be legitimate. “A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants,” Cotton bothered to insert. He even mentioned, in his passage on the 1992 L.A. riots, that President George H.W. Bush “acknowledged his disgust at Rodney King’s treatment — ‘what I saw made me sick’” but was moved to act because “he knew deadly rioting would only multiply the victims, of all races and from all walks of life.”

In Cotton’s new version, nothing of the kind appears. There is no acknowledgment of any legitimate cause for or right of protest, and certainly no concern for the well-being of the disaffected. Instead he echoes Trump’s claim that the presence of immigrants represents an “invasion” — accepting the logic of military intervention on American streets — and calls for the troops.

This reflects a key difference between the administration’s 2020 approach and today’s. Five years ago they weren’t confident enough to run their authoritarian rap without qualifying it with a bunch of to-be-sures. They were loonier than previous Republicans, but not quite berserk — mainly, it would seem, because some members of their mob hoped to make their bones by getting the old clown reelected, despite his grotesque mishandling of the COVID crisis.

On 2020 they did put some Guardsmen in D.C., and gassed some protestors while Tubby waved a Bible. But these were clearly just hints of fascism that they thought might tantalize the voters — and when these did not achieve the desired effect, they pulled back. It was as if they saw voters’ awareness of their own rights, and they were daunted by it.

This time, it’s more like everything else in Tubby II — they’re just letting rip and seeing if anyone stops them. It’s (Stephen) Miller Time, baby!

Newsom is suing, which is the typical response, since the judiciary is the only branch not entirely corrupted at present. Here’s hoping that and the preliminary poor polling for Trump’s armed occupation plans can prevail, even as he employs cheering soldier-flunkies as background dressing to make himself look like a wartime leader.

All may be well. They have made some tactical retreats — they did bring back Kilmar Garcia, albeit to face bullshit charges, and Tom Homan has had to break field on his thuggish suggestion that he’d arrest Governor Newsom. Since they’re in kitchen-sink-throwing mode, there’ll be plenty of such ham-handed moves.

But for me the main takeaway is that they’re trying. They’ve been freed from the need to get Tubby reelected in anything resembling a free election, notice there’s not much standing between them and our Constitutional liberties, and are pushing like mad to break through and destroy them. The June 14 protests are going to be interesting.