Trump suggests criticizing judges 'should be illegal,' despite his own record

[LetMyPeopleVote]

"These people should be put in jail, the way they talk about our judges and our justices," the former president said, despite the First Amendment — and his record.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-suggests-criticizing-judges-illegal-record-rcna172633

In early August, Donald Trump used his social media platform to push a curious argument: When the left criticizes judges and Supreme Court justices, the former president wrote, it’s “probably illegal.”

Two weeks later, at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the Republican went a little further, suggesting that judicial criticisms should be “illegal.”

This week, the GOP candidate returned to the Keystone State with a similar message, though this time, he included fewer qualifiers.

Link to tweet

.....But there are also broader principles at stake. Trump has now repeatedly insisted that criticizing jurists he agrees with should be criminalized, adding fresh weight to concerns that the Republican candidate is effectively running on an authoritarian-style platform.

We are, after all, talking about a White House hopeful who is threatening perceived foes with prison sentences, endorsing a “strongman” leadership style, bragging about his support from dictators, raising the prospect of a temporary American “dictatorship” and talking about “terminating” parts of the Constitution that stand in the way of his ambitions.

Trump is also arguing that his rivals shouldn’t be “allowed” to run against him, targeting immigrants with Hitler-style rhetoric while promising to create militarized mass deportations and detention camps, promising pardons to politically aligned criminals and threatening the broadcast licenses of news organizations that dissatisfy him.

And did I mention that he’s raised the specter of military tribunals for his perceived domestic political foes? Because he’s done that, too.

It’s against this backdrop that Trump wants the public to know he believes constitutionally protected speech “should be illegal.”

As a Washington Post analysis summarized this week, “For someone who has so strongly objected in recent weeks to the idea that he’s an authoritarian or a threat to democracy, Donald Trump has a funny way of showing it.”