Friend,

In light of President Biden’s speech defining the dangers of the ultra-MAGA movement, I thought I’d share some context about just why the far right are losing it over him saying what we’ve been saying for years: the threat of fascism – and of political violence is very real, and Trump’s actively encouraging both. 

The FBI raid has backed Trump and his ultra-MAGA allies into a dark and dangerous corner. Trump has deployed his usual playbook of throwing out a bunch of lies and seeing what sticks: the raid was illegal, they planted evidence, the docs were declassified anyway, they belong to him. 

Of course, each lie has lost traction, even with his most faithful. So as Trump’s grip loosens, he and his circle have resorted to making the idea of prosecution incomprehensibly egregious to the Ulta-MAGA faithful. Increasingly, since the raid occurred a few weeks ago, that has meant resorting to the threat of political violence. 

And of course, this doubles as a dare to the DOJ to move ahead with a prosecution. By doing this, whatever happens post-indictment, will be President Biden’s fault they’ll say. That means attacks on FBI officers, riots in the street, the inevitable doxing and targeting of the DOJ officials involved in the case. It will all be normalized as a rational response to a “politically motivated” prosecution. 

They want us to be scared, worried, and concerned about what an indictment on a former President means. They want all the normies in the American public who rightly believe that Trump committed a crime to ask: “is it worth it?” 

We know after January 6th that no GOP leaders will stand up to Trump or denounce his incitement of political violence. They’re complete cynics, willing to sacrifice a peaceful democracy for the sake of continuing their policy agenda and ultimately inheriting the MAGA movement (of course we all know that sycophants like Josh Hawley have less of a chance of inheriting the crown as Don Jr..) 

Of course, there’s a whole ecosystem of institutions that the Ultra MAGA has either co-opted or created to continue this normalization. The American Conservative Union, Turning Point USA, the Conservative Partnership Institute, Heritage Foundation, and the NRA are all active participants in this attempted destruction of our republic. Just look at how their responses have tracked Trump’s since the FBI raid. If it seems like they’re operating from the same playbook, it’s because they are. 

So how did we get here? How did we get to the point where a whole segment of our political system is actively defending a lawless former President from this flagrant and indefensible behavior? 

For too long the pro-democracy political class (that includes me) underestimated exactly how far they would push it. How far they would go for the sake of continuing their political movement. 

But the good news is that Americans are waking up. We know what they’re capable of, and we’re forming a historically diverse political movement to stop it. 

We’re out here building the largest pro-democracy coalition our country has ever seen. Will you support us, Friend?

-Reed