Echoes Of The Revolution -- Jamelle Bouie via DIgby

[erronis]

https://digbysblog.net/2026/01/17/echoes-of-the-revolution/

Jamelle Bouie with a resonant observation about the occupation of America's cities:

All occupations resemble one another in some way, and it is striking to read descriptions and accounts of the occupation of Boston in light of events in Minnesota. "Having to stomach a standing army in their midst, observe the redcoats daily, pass by troops stationed on Boston Neck who occupied a guardhouse on land illegally taken it was said from the town, and having to receive challenges by sentries on the streets, their own streets, affronted a people accustomed to personal liberty, fired their tempers, and gnawed away at their honor," writes the historian Robert Middlekauff in "The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763 to 1789."

"Harrison Gray, a prominent merchant and a member of the council, told soldiers who challenged him one evening that he was not obligated to respond," writes Richard Archer of the same period in "As if an Enemy's Country: The British Occupation of Boston and the Origins of Revolution." "They retaliated by thrusting their bayonets toward his chest and detained him for half an hour."

Consider the language of occupation authorities as well. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and an architect of the administration's immigration policies, has called protesters violent agitators and accused Minnesota state officials of fomenting an "insurgency" against the federal government. In the same way, the British general who oversaw the Boston occupation, Thomas Gage, described Bostonians as "mutinous" -- "desperadoes" who were guilty of "sedition."

It is also hard not to hear the echo of the Boston Massacre in the killing of Good.

Bouie's historical allusions are spot on and you can't help but think about the astonishing fact that Trump is not only acting like a tyrannical imperialist monarch by putting troops in the streets to subdue the population, he actually plans to hold a UFC cage match on the White House lawn to celebrate the country's 250th anniversary. He's beyond a British king -- he thinks he's a Roman emperor.

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