When Downmarket Mussolini made pardoning January 6th coup participants one of his first official acts in his second term, I talked a little bit about the necessity for a fascist regime to be able to call on extrajudicial violence and intimidation, from an irregular cohort of fascist vigilantes in the larger populace. Although Trumpism doesn't necessarily have a singular organized group of vigilante supporters, the evidence of their connection to fascist street gangs and right wing extremists, as well as the regime's willingness to encourage extrajudicial violence from their supporters in response to political opposition, are both extensively documented in even mainstream media sources.
As such, I don't think it's particularly surprising that Trump's numerous conflicts with the judicial branch, and authoritarian propaganda designed to intimidate federal judges ruling against his regime, have inspired threats and harassment targeting at least eleven judges and their families.
https://archive.ph/uvGEH
These judges ruled against Trump. Then their families came under attack.
"In March, the judiciary launched a task force to propose steps for maintaining the security and independence of courts and judges, according to a memo from the judiciary’s administrative arm to federal judges and other court staff.
Such efforts, however, have done little to quell the broadsides from Trump and his allies. Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, has referred to the judges who ruled against the administration’s interests as “out of control” and said they “need to be removed.”
One federal judge told Reuters that the Trump administration’s inflammatory rhetoric encourages the hostility aimed at judges and feared it ultimately would inspire true believers to violence."
“The Justice Department doesn’t understand the fire they’re dealing with,” the judge said. “The public discussion of ‘out-of-control judges’ turns out the crazy.”
Contrary to the opinion of the judge anonymously quoted above, I am about as certain as I possibly can be that Trump's fascist Department of Justice knows full well their rhetoric is likely to inspire violence towards the jurists they're demonizing, from their rabid fascist base. In fact, I'd say they're clearly counting on it, and they want every judge in America to know that the same thing could happen to them if they rule against Trump's fascist agenda.
As an abolitionist, I'm not going to blow a bunch of smoke up your backside about the sanctity of American law, or the independence of judges who are politically appointed and happily enforced the laws of an already alarmingly authoritarian white nationalist police state in a professional capacity long before Trump came back to power. The reality however is that state-enforced fascism is a political situation with no bottom, and as such it's almost always possible for things to get worse. If American judges fear for the lives of their families if they rule against the regime, then logic dictates that less of them are going to rule against Trump's fascist agenda. You can argue that it doesn't matter because the regime is openly ignoring court orders right now, but the fact is the government is still arguing its nonsensical legal theories in court and trying to intimidate courts precisely *because* rubber stamps from judges will make it easier to transform America into a Christian Nationalist dictatorship under Donald Trump.
