The Life in My Years

“Please, I have kids.”

It’s the desperate plea from someone staring at the finality of death at the hands of his fellow human being. It was the plea from a man being beaten by a mob that dragged him down a flight of concrete steps, sprayed him in the face with chemicals, beat him with metal pipes, and tased him repeatedly in the back of the neck. The man heard one of his attackers scream, “Kill him with his own gun.”

“Please I have kids,” is what apparently saved the man’s life as some members of the mob that was bent on beating him to death discovered some shred of mercy and dragged the man away from the attackers, and back to his comrades.

During the attack, the man suffered burns, a concussion, traumatic brain injury and a heart attack and his career in law enforcement was cut short due to the extent of his injuries.

The man is former Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who rushed to the capitol to assist Capitol Police when he heard of the January 6, 2021 riot. It was his day off. He didn’t even have to step into the fray. But duty – and fate – called.

Fanone would later testify before the January 6th Committee and at the trials for his attackers. In the years since, Fanone and his family have been the targets of harassment and threats. This week came maybe the ultimate, but likely not the final indignity as the 47th President issued a blanket pardon for the January 6th insurrectionists. Not just the ones who entered the Capitol and strolled around, but for dirtbags like Albuquerque Head, who dragged Fanone down the concrete steps, and Daniel Rodriguez who repeatedly tased Fanone.

Trump had said that he would pardon on a case by case basis, but that was, of course, a lie (surprise), as he later claimed that it would be too cumbersome to go through all of the cases. In defense of the blanket pardon Trump told Sean Hannity, “Some of those people with the police – true – but they were very minor incidents, OK, you know, they get built up by that couple of fake guys that are on CNN all the time. They were very minor incidents and it was time.” (One of those “fake guys” who Trump referred to was Fanone).

Today, Michael Fanone is working to find protective custody, while all of other officers who did their duty feel betrayed. And threatened.

And all the dirtbags, no longer felons, are going out and buying guns.

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Meanwhile as Fanone seeks protection, the 47th President who promised retribution on people he views as foes has removed security details from Dr. Anthony Fauci, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook. All four men have been targeted with credible threats against their lives.

In August of 2022, Thomas Patrick Connally Jr was sentenced for threatening Fauci, including one email telling Fauci that he and his family would be “dragged into the street, beaten to death, and set on fire.”

Both Pompeo and Bolton have been targeted for assassination by the Iranian government.

And while I’ve found both Pompeo and Bolton to be villains in their own right, the salient point is that Trump has removed their security details, not because the threats are gone, but because he considers them to be disloyal (Bolton has been a critic of Trump but it isn’t clear what Pompeo did to anger Trump).

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Violence, malice, retribution and intimidation are hallmarks of the MAGA movement. Nobody is spared. Not even an Episcopalean Bishop who wears a bright smile, and carries within herself equal measures of mercy, charity, goodness, conviction and courage.

At a prayer service at the National Cathedral, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde stood at the pulpit and issued both a challenge and a plea to the President of the United States (Donald Trump in a church was something of a blasphemy, but that’s for a different discussion).

It was a plea on behalf of the marginalized, who feel that their lives will be upended at best or ended by the bigoted angry at worst. She pleaded on behalf of gay, lesbian and transgender children. She continued, and made a plea on behalf of immigrants who do the dirty work that most Americans won’t (literally) stoop to. And she had the temerity (in the minds of the Republicans in attendance) to repudiate Trump’s claim that other nations are emptying their jails and asylums and sending them to the United States and are now freeloading off America’s naive largess while going on crime sprees. Said Bishop Budde, “ … they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwara, and temples.”

During that sermon, I couldn’t take my eyes off of Melania Trump whose expression was one of pure, ‘how dare you lecture us’ hatred.

The blowback was quick. Trump went right to Truth Social, saying the Bishop was “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.” He ended by demanding an apology that he would not receive.

Speaker Mike Johnson, who wears his phony Christianity on his sleeve called Budde’s sermon a promotion of “radical ideology.” She quoted Jesus and she asked, kindly, for mercy and compassion – how radical.

Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), suggested that Budde “should be added to the deportation list.”

Not surprisingly, Bishop Budde has been the recipient of death threats from MAGA, something that is almost requisite whenever the idol of the movement’s ego has been bruised.

Mercy, charity, goodness, conviction and courage; traits that have been absent from the majority of the Republican Party. The Republicans, so craven and feckless, don’t possess a drop of the courage that resides in Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde.

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The actions described above, while seemingly unconnected, come together to reveal a frightening new reality that normally exists in historically authoritarian countries. We’ve crossed the line that separates democracy and authoritarianism, a dangerous realm in which loyalty is rewarded and perceived treachery is punished.

The message is clear that Trump will have your back if you’ve shown him your loyalty, even if that loyalty is manifested by the commission of a violent crime.

And what about the FBI, which has historically kept a keen eye on these groups? Will Trump loyalist Kash Patel’s FBI continue to monitor the actions of right wing paramilitary groups, or will they find they’ve been flashed the wink and the nod to become Trump’s own version of Hitler’s Brown Shirts?

Trump has threatened to use the military force against protesters. Maybe he won’t have to do that. Maybe he’ll be able to sit back and watch his paramilitary mob, his Brown Shirts, do the job for him.