Horowitz: Defund prosecutions or bust: Time for conservative noisemakers to put up or shut up

Do conservative media figures, influencers, pundits, and elected officials actually want to solve the weaponized persecution issue, or do they just want attention, ratings, and nominating Trump for president as an end to itself? Honestly, it’s the same question we must ask about every important issue of our time – from biomedical tyranny and transgenderism to climate tyranny, the debt-inflation crisis, and the border invasion. What is the endgame?

We’ve heard it all after the first two indictments of Trump. “We’ve crossed the Rubicon,” “We’ve become a banana republic,” “There’s no turning back from here.”

So it’s interesting how our government’s biomedical tyranny apparently didn’t cross the line … or burning down our economy … or destroying our energy … or aiding the cartels in the border invasion … or sending billions to Ukraine … or, with the weaponized DOJ, holding ordinary citizens and Trump supporters in prison indefinitely pretrial on non-violent criminal charges for two years. But if Trump himself is the red line, then fine. I’ll take it. But what are we going to do about it?

If we believe the DOJ is dead serious about locking Trump up for the rest of his life, and especially with the latest indictment being heard before an extremely far-left D.C. federal judge (and jury pool), what is the plan to save the country and Trump himself? While these endless indictments are designed to prop Trump up with primary voters so that he secures the nomination, what is the plan the day after he secures the nomination?

It would be one thing if these same conservative “thought leaders” actually showed leadership over the years and helped make red states truly red. Perhaps, one could suggest that the federal government is already irremediably broken, so we will lose the federal election anyway; however, we’d be able to seek refuge in red states to live out our values and be protected from federal persecution. But thanks to a lack of strategic focus in down-ballot primaries to this very day (with Trump often endorsing RINOs against our candidates), the red states are a joke. And the one governor seeking to make a red state truly red is now vilified by the majority of these same commentators for daring to seeking the presidential nomination.

And yes, because these very same commentators and thought leaders refused to prod Trump during his four years in office to remain focused and actually appoint people to the Cabinet who share our values, the swamp grew. The swamp drained him and us, rather than the other way around. The deep state thrived because Trump’s own shallow state, with very few exceptions, was full of those who were the epitome of everything he campaigned against – almost to the point that it looked like he was trolling us with record numbers of Koch brothers and Goldman Sachs alumni. It would be easier to list the top Cabinet members and advisers who were not globalists.

Nor is his articulation of issues and personality the best presentation of our anti-elite values if we want to win over hearts and minds.

So yes, we have a very weak hand to play. Which is very unfortunate, because what the DOJ is doing is deadly serious. Officials are essentially criminalizing the harboring or articulation of a political position if they deem it to be false or if individuals who hold that same opinion commit a crime. Again, Trump’s own campaign officials admitting they felt the stop-the-steal stuff was a crock is yet another example of how Trump is his own worst enemy and not our best bet going forward if we actually believe in what he clearly doesn’t. But that still does not negate the fact that you can’t criminalize “misinformation,” even if it is demonstrably false, much less if it’s in dispute. After all, by this standard, every Biden HHS official should be in prison for knowingly saying that the vaccines stopped the virus, even months after they knew it wasn’t true.

I agree with those Trump supporters who assert that this is much bigger than Trump; officials want to criminalize our existence. So the prosecution of political opponents – whether Trump or ordinary citizens – needs to be shut down immediately. This is an existential threat and an imminent problem.

As such, they have an obligation to walk us through the game plan. What happens when the D.C. gulag courts convict Trump after he is already the nominee? What happens when the shameless secretaries of state of Wisconsin, Nevada, and Arizona refuse to allow Trump’s name on the ballot? Also, are we 100% sure Trump wouldn’t take a plea deal to drop out? Shouldn’t we get that in writing?

Finally, aside from the mechanics of ballot access as a convict, do we really think his negatives could carry him through a general election? Perhaps if Biden becomes evidently comatose in public, Trump could win a low-turnout affair, but in that case Democrats will invariably swap Biden out for a fresher face who will now face a Republican most people outside the core base are sick of.

So what is the pathway to keeping Trump out of prison and stopping the persecution of all of us who have less money, power, and support? What is the pathway to pardoning those rotting in prison for simply stepping into the people’s Capitol while those who burned, beat, looted, and destroyed remain out of prison? Yelling Trump’s name all day and commentating aimlessly without policy objectives, as has been the case for the past few months, will not change anything.

Defund or bust

Obviously, nominating the man who believes in Trump’s campaign rhetoric more than Trump does and doesn’t turn off every voter we need to win would be one way to pardon Trump. But even that might be too late to stop Trump serving at least some time initially in prison. As such, there is only one solution at this point: defunding the prosecution.

Republicans control the House. Without the House signing off on a budget come midnight of October 1, the DOJ gets no funding. Republicans must return from their ridiculous six-week recess and, while Biden and Senate Democrats are on vacation, build the case for defunding the prosecution of Trump (and other political targets). This is a PR war and will require them to command the full attention of political news rather than coming back a few days before the fiscal year is up without any sense of unity. Then, they must stand their ground on the defunding provision and use that brinksmanship to captivate the public with a sense of unity of purpose over defending the First Amendment the way they unified against the attacks on Brett Kavanaugh. They should also place a rider in the bill providing a motion for defendants to assert political prosecution in the D.C. district and move their cases to other parts of the country. The budget is the only critical item over which Republicans wield a degree of ownership, and that leverage must be used now.

Trump is mistaken to call for impeachment of Biden instead of defunding his own persecution. I’m not opposed to impeachment, but that requires support from the Senate. Unlike a budget fight, where the status quo benefits us because it means zero funding, with impeachment, the failure to convict means Biden remains in office. Worse, no more than 20 Republicans in the Senate would back it, thereby backfiring on us because Biden will have the support of every Democrat plus at least half the Republicans.

Yes, the fact that the Senate GOP is so horrendous is a legacy of a conservative industry focused more on making noise and money rather than outcomes. It’s why we are about to elevate lockdown leftist Jim Justice to the Senate from a red state like West Virginia and why we have made no strides in moving that chamber to the right in decades.

Red states should retaliate

Beyond a defund fight, we must pressure state attorneys general, governors, and legislatures to begin interposing against federal tyranny and backing targets of political prosecutions. I’ve outlined a blueprint here.

Moreover, if the latest indictment survives a motion to dismiss in the D.C. court, then red-state AGs should respond by targeting Democrats for indictment who incite crimes based on political speech. For example, a number of Democrats called for people to get out in the streets and riot for George Floyd. The toll of the damage is incalculable. So should they be charged?

What about human smuggling? 8 U.S.C. §1324 prohibits someone from “encouraging” or “inducing” illegal immigration. The statute was just upheld by the Supreme Court (U.S. v. Hansen) as roping in actions related to facilitation and solicitation of illegal immigration, such as document fraud and human smuggling (not just advocating for illegals). Again, if liberal judges now believe you can criminalize a belief and political speech, then certainly Biden admin officials who are actively smuggling in illegal aliens and protecting them from Texas law enforcement should be charged in every red state on human smuggling. They are also flying illegal aliens into the airports on an admission program never approved by Congress. States should mimic Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and prosecute Democrats for state crimes mirroring these federal statutes.

The DOJ is hitting Trump on 18 U.S. Code § 241 – conspiracy against rights – for believing Congress had the authority to accept a different slate of electors, thereby overturning voting rights. Well, what’s an even greater right than voting? Owning a business, going to church, breathing without covering your human tail pipe, and bodily integrity. Every red state should make it clear that they will prosecute all COVID-fascist elected officials on these provisions.

For my entire career, all our industry has done is talk. Pundits will indulge an issue and treat it like an existential crisis, while ignoring the leverage points, the policy outcomes, and pivotal down-ballot primaries that will actually redress their stated grievances. Or worse, they often cover for the status quo Republicans – as many of them did with the McCarthy speaker’s fight in January. Ironically, the reason we have McCarthy is because of Trump, yet Trump himself has not pressured McCarthy to fight to the death on a defund provision.

All the conservative and MAGA Inc. industry seems to care about at this point is Trump as a person. So let us see if that level of devotion is finally enough to focus on an outcome that will actually fulfill their stated objectives. If not any other existential threat, maybe Trump himself will motivate them to take it to the next level. Grift or grit?