The past week and a half have shaken conservatives regarding individual rights, privacy, governmental intervention, and weaponization of federal authority. The United States has already been subjected to some of the most authoritarian policies in history. The Biden administration and his federal bureaucracy mandated COVID-19 policies that removed rights and closed businesses across the country. They kept people from enlisting in the military, worked with corporations to punish the working class, and demanded all comply or get shown the door socially and financially. Now, just months before the November midterms, this fascist regime has taken two new turns for the worst.
The first flex of authoritarian power was through the highly criticized Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 within the U.S. Senate. With all Democrats voting for the piece of legislation while all Republicans opposed, the bill will pass Friday morning. The legislation will approve more than $433 billion in government spending on issues such as IRS audit intervention and climate change. The Senate Democrats will concentrate on the fact that they should see a $300-billion-dollar tax revenue from the changes, such as tax credits to families that use clean energy, but are avoiding how the bill fully militarizes the IRS.
Nearly $80 billion was dedicated to enforcement tactics, such as arming employees that work with auditing taxpayers in the case of the 'use of deadly force,' as well as being physically fit enough to deal with 'life-threatening situations on the job' per the application process on their website. Ironically enough, the IRS eventually removed this section after Republicans criticized them, but the intent was stuck there. Democrats may want to reduce inflation caused by the disastrous policies of a geriatric tyrant. Still, they want to fix it with a gun aimed at everyday working-class Americans.
The second step was the FBI raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago. The former president stated that his house was raided by 30-plus FBI agents who did not show him the search warrant issued. Even more egregiously, the search warrant got signed by a local magistrate judge who previously recused himself due to his own biases in prior cases involving the 45th president. It has been days since the raid took place, and the American public still has not heard a peep from the Attorney General, the FBI, or anyone from the Department of Justice on what the reasoning was for the raid.
The purported reason is the investigation into Trump withholding classified documents that National Archives requested for return. While the public understands that the government may want these documents returned, this is not unusual for the intelligence community or federal government employees. This withholding of documents is known as a de minimis violation to those who work in the FBI, according to former Assistant Director of the FBI, Chris Swecker. Other employees have come out against the usage of a raid into a former elected official's home as being unnecessary and a blatantly ridiculous use of force for such a minor perceived violation due to it happening pretty often, even amongst FBI agents themselves.
So, why the raid? Why so many agents? Deservedly, many on the right call this one of the most egregious flexes in governmental punishment of political opposition they have seen in their lifetimes.
If there are any positives from the past week, it is the position Democrats placed themselves in headed towards 2022 and 2024. Republicans are not only using dangerous acts of governmental intervention to their advantage but also advocating for the abolishment of entire federal agencies.
This position is where Republicans need to be on the political battlefield. Push back against tyrants in the most extreme measures possible to lessen the likelihood of government expansion happening again. The only way to stop government extremism is to respond in kind, which is where the GOP has to be in retaliation to these acts.