Enough cowardice: Democrats must forge ahead, without caring what the Trumpers say
Trump's delusional supporters will rage and scream no matter what. Democrats should quit trying to make peace

By Bob Cesca
November 24, 2020 1:00PM (UTC)

Even after the landslide defeat of Donald Trump, Republicans across the board continue to be terrified by Trump's disciples. Fear of the Red Hats has always been one of the primary reasons why the rest of Trump's party has refused to speak out against his ongoing horror show. It's not the only reason, but it's one of the more potent ones.
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While it's pathetic, infuriating and completely unpatriotic, I at least understand why they're doing it. What I don't understand is why the Normals are afraid of Trump's Red Hats, too.
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The tragic reality of the Biden years will be this: The Red Hats are going to scream about literally everything anyway. They already are. History has taught us that appeasement only makes the aggressor more aggressive, and trying to unilaterally play nice will only end in unilateral pantsing. In their deluded, brainwashed minds, Biden stole the election from Trump, while professional stooges like Charlie Kirk and Breitbart are already hyping up their fanboys about inevitable "persecutions" that will follow. Ivanka Trump, meanwhile, has expressed outrage over the New York attorney general's comprehensive investigation into Trump's alleged financial crimes. Fox News and the other pro-Trump propaganda outlets will link Biden to all of it, whether Biden wants to be linked or not.
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Americans tend to respond to strong, unflinching leadership, and tend to condemn weakness and half-measures. So whether it's the incoming attorney general or a congressional committee or a state and local probe, if the evidence leads to indictments, Democrats should just own it and ignore the shrieking. The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson once said, "[Mitch McConnell] doesn't care about screaming." The Democrats on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue would do well to employ the same strategy. Hold fast, power through and stop caring about the screaming.
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Measures taken by the Clinton administration to thwart international terrorism and bin Laden's network were historic, unprecedented and, sadly, not followed up on. Consider the steps offered by Clinton's 1996 omnibus anti-terror legislation, the pricetag for which stood at $1.097 billion. The following is a partial list of the initiatives offered by the Clinton anti-terrorism bill:

Screen Checked Baggage: $91.1 million
Screen Carry-On Baggage: $37.8 million
Passenger Profiling: $10 million
Screener Training: $5.3 million
Screen Passengers (portals) and Document Scanners: $1 million
Deploying Existing Technology to Inspect International Air Cargo: $31.4
million
Provide Additional Air/Counterterrorism Security: $26.6 million
Explosives Detection Training: $1.8 million
Augment FAA Security Research: $20 million
Customs Service: Explosives and Radiation Detection Equipment at Ports: $2.2 million
Anti-Terrorism Assistance to Foreign Governments: $2 million
Capacity to Collect and Assemble Explosives Data: $2.1 million
Improve Domestic Intelligence: $38.9 million
Critical Incident Response Teams for Post-Blast Deployment: $7.2 million
Additional Security for Federal Facilities: $6.7 million
Firefighter/Emergency Services Financial Assistance: $2.7 million
Public Building and Museum Security: $7.3 million
Improve Technology to Prevent Nuclear Smuggling: $8 million
Critical Incident Response Facility: $2 million
Counter-Terrorism Fund: $35 million
Explosives Intelligence and Support Systems: $14.2 million
Office of Emergency Preparedness: $5.8 million

So let’s talk about Parler. Where did it come from? Founder John Matze met his now wife, Alina Mukhutdinova, in May 15, 2016 in Las Vegas. Alina is from Kazan, Russia. She was on a two week road trip “vacation” across the USA with a friend.

(This sounds a lot like this USA road trip taken by Anna Bogacheva and Aleksandra Krylova in 2014.) washingtonpost.com/world/europe/r…

John was involved in a couple of unremarkable tech companies with college friend Jared Thomson. After a short stint working at Amazon in Seattle, and being unhappy there, he and Alina return to Vegas and decide to marry. They traveled to Russia in November 2017.

John and Alina were married December 2, 2017 in Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia. They were married in a government facility overseen by Alina’s mother, Gulnara Mukhutdinova, a longtime government functionary. Gulnara’s mother was an “Honored Builder of Russia” in Soviet times.

John and Alina traveled in Russia and in Europe extensively between December and July 2018. They returned to Vegas and launched Parler with Jared Thomson in August 2018. Almost no one joined between August and December 2018; it was in early alpha stages.

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Also, a preliminary analysis of the first several thousand accounts on Parler shows that it is the usual Russia aligned operatives that we in this space have tracked for years. This is a large scale op aligned with Russian interests.

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