Then they came for John Bolton
And we need to speak out.
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Last Friday, FBI agents raided the home of former national security advisor and current Trump critic John Bolton, ostensibly to gather evidence about Bolton’s handling of classified information. But we know better.
Everyone understands that Trump has been using federal law enforcement to harass and bully those he perceives as enemies — former FBI boss James Comey, for instance, is under investigation for posting a picture of seashells on the beach. In that context, the Bolton raid is yet another fascist escalation in Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power.
Bolton is a particularly appealing target for Trump, because, as an incorrigible warmonger and one of the architects of the horrific and unnecessary Iraq War, he is widely — and rightly — loathed. Seth Harp at Rolling Stone memorably characterized Bolton as “a black-pilled, death-worshipping ghoul drenched in the blood of Muslim children.” In 2019, Dexter Filkins at the New Yorker called him “the Republican Party’s most militant foreign-policy thinker” of the past two decades plus. He is not a man who is easy to sympathize with.
Luckily, we don’t have to sympathize with him. We do, though, need to extend him solidarity at a moment when he is under fascist attack. Bolton isn’t the first Trump critic who is facing persecution by the authoritarian state. Nor will he be the last. And the more divided the opposition is, the more power Trump will accrue.
Trump’s worst critic
Again, to be very clear, Bolton is a dangerous man who has used his time in public life to cause horrific harm.
As a senior diplomat in George W. Bush’s administration, Bolton was an adamant enthusiast for invading Iraq, a decision he still defends decades later, despite overwhelming evidence that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and that the justifications for war were lies.
Then, as Trump’s National Security Advisor from 2018-2019, Bolton, by his own account, called for Trump to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on Iran and to prepare for a preemptive nuclear strike on (nuclear-armed) North Korea. He advocated pulling out of the Paris climate agreement (which Trump has now done twice) and withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council (which again Trump did). He also, inevitably, praised Trump’s unconstitutional attack on Iran earlier this year.
But Bolton’s cheerleading for bombing Iran is one of the few times he’s complimented Trump since he left the White House. In his 2020 memoir, released before the election, Bolton said Trump was “unfit to be president” and effectively endorsed Biden: “If his first four years were bad, a second four will be worse.” He revealed that Trump had solicited Chinese help to win the 2020 election, and added, “Trump really cares only about retribution for himself, and it will consume much of his second term.”
Bolton’s words proved prescient, not least where Bolton himself is concerned. The former Trump advisor has become a go-to conservative anti-Trump television talking head, including after Trump’s recent summit with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin (see the clip below). America’s aspiring strongman has very much noticed.
Even back in 2020, Trump attempted to gear up a criminal probe into Bolton, claiming that his book had been shared with people unauthorized to view classified information. On his first day back in the White House in January, Trump revoked Bolton’s security clearance. Shortly thereafter he stripped Bolton of his security detail — a serious matter since Bolton’s faced credible assassination threats from Iran. Trump explained the decision by calling Bolton “a very dumb person.”
And now the FBI is searching Bolton’s home and office. FBI director and sycophantic Trump goon Kash Patel posted triumphantly on social media as the raid was happening that that “NO ONE is above the law.” Trump claimed to not know the details and not be directly involved. That effort at distancing was undermined, however, when Trump went on to babble that Bolton is a “low life” who “could be a very unpatriotic guy,” then asserted of the raid that “I could know about it. I could be the one starting it. I'm actually the chief law enforcement officer."
JD Vance, for his part, gave away the game by telling NBC that “we’re in the very early stages of an ongoing investigation into John Bolton” — phrasing that undercuts the idea the FBI is acting independently and in a manner uncorrupted by politics.
Even if Trump did not order the raids specifically, Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi are aware that Trump has an enemies list (Patel helpfully included it in his book), that Bolton is on it, and that their thuggish boss wants them to act like the thugs they are. Along those lines, the Justice Department is also investigating New York AG Letitia James, who successfully prosecuted Trump for fraud, and California Sen. Adam Schiff, who was one of Trump’s most vocal critics when he served in the House. A federal watchdog agency (whose head Trump replaced, possibly illegally) is also investigating special counsel Jack Smith, who prosecuted Trump during the Biden administration.
All of these cases against Trump’s enemies look flimsy. We know, just for starters, that Trump took classified documents from his first term without authorization and stored them in his bathroom at Mar-A-Lago, so any claim that his administration is sincerely concerned about national security protocols is facially preposterous.
More, all of these cases are clearly examples of revenge — and warnings to anyone who dares to criticize Dear Leader. Investigate Trump, criticize Trump, go on television with your mustache to warn people about Trump, and the full weight of the federal government will be deployed against you. Even if you are not convicted, you will be buried in legal fees and your name dragged through the mud. Trump has a lot of power, and if you oppose him, or annoy him, he will use that power to ruin you.
It’s fascism. Full stop.
This is why, even if you despise Bolton (as you should!) it’s still important to state clearly that Trump’s attack on him is a dangerous fascist power grab.
German pastor Martin Niemöller wrote about how the Nazis came first for Jews and socialists — groups which the antisemitic right-wing Niemöller despised. Niemöller initially thought that he could ally with the Nazis to destroy the groups he disliked, but he soon found that Hitler wanted to murder Lutheran Jewish converts and take over the church as well. It’s tempting to embrace fascist attacks on people you dislike or see as enemies, but if you let fascists build power, they’ll eventually get around to using it to come after someone you care about.
This isn’t just a lesson about Bolton. It’s an important principle in general — and one that you can see some leaders having trouble with.
Senate Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer, for example, vacillated when Trump came after Columbia University; he argued that the university deserved some sort of discipline for failing to sufficiently quash pro-Palestinian protests, and half-heartedly said that Trump’s defunding of the institution might have happened “indiscriminately.” Gavin Newsom hosted conservative activist Charlie Kirk as a podcast guest and let Kirk push him to declare that trans women participating in sports was “deeply unfair” to cis athletes — effectively cosigning Trump’s vicious attacks on trans people.
This isn’t to say you can’t criticize people for taking bad positions and doing bad things. Everyone should criticize Bolton; he is terrible. Schumer’s criticisms of pro-Palestinian protests are extremely wrongheaded given everything we now know about Israel’s horrific policies, but he’s allowed to express them.
The problem comes when, in the face of an ongoing fascist attack, you focus more on the criticism of the person being attacked than you do on the evils of the fascists. When someone is targeted, you need to lead with solidarity. Even a warmongering neocon like John Bolton should not be targeted for retribution when he criticizes the president.
It’s wrong to use the power of the state to target the president’s enemies, even when those enemies are people we don’t like. Principles in this case trump personalities — not because we need to take the high road, but because vigorously opposing fascism is the only road forward any of us have.
That’s it for today
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Thanks for reading.
Remember when the media lost their minds when President Clinton spoke with his AG on the tarmac for an hour? That seems quaint now.
I truly dislike Bolton and numerous other Republicans; I truly dislike the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and other militia members; I truly dislike Christian nationalists; I truly dislike neo-Nazis; I truly dislike Fox News, NewsMax and OANN. But, I truly believe in the First Amendment so each of these individuals and groups have the right to speak their minds and I have the right to dislike them and speak out against them.