A buddy of mine, from my military school days, voted for trump, and complained about the cost of eggs, but he loved his $ 9.00 slice of New York cheesecake.
The National Sheriffs Association Reveals Fealty to Trump, Not the Law
"A MAGA sheriff and one of Joe Arpaio's "papers please" posse won election here..."
By Jessica Pishko January 30, 2025
In the run-up to President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the CEO of the National Sheriffs Association (NSA) Jonathan Thompson — not a sheriff — claimed that news stories about “mass deportation” were a symptom of left-wing hysteria. In an interview with Wired in December of 2024, he said, “It’s synthetic hyperventilation…It’s all designed to scare people, and it won’t happen like that, period.”
Yet, a month later with Trump poised to move into the White House, Thompson sang a different tune. Describing the Biden administration as a time when sheriffs across the country were exiled to the sidelines, he said, “It’s literally like going from a dark, cold storage room with air on full blast to a room that’s wide open with opportunities and that’s welcoming.” He added that at least some of the sheriffs in his organization had already been meeting with Trump’s transition team.
Other sheriffs echoed Thompson’s view. Sheriff Mike Chapman of Loudon County, VA echoed the sentiment, saying, “The law enforcement community could not be happier with the results of this election.” Sheriff Kieran Donahue in Idaho told a reporter that “most [sheriffs] are on board, even eager, to support an immigration crackdown.”
It seems clear that sheriffs across the country foresee themselves as having more political power during the Trump administration. As I described in my book, during his first term, Trump met with sheriffs around two dozen times on issues from fentanyl to immigration to the state of criminal justice reform. They served as the background to many Trump photo ops and endorsed his third presidential campaign.
In addition, sheriffs are poised to assist Trump in his most illegal and inhumane promises, including “mass deportation,” silencing dissent, and permitting law enforcement to use their discretion without limits.
Perhaps one of the NSA’s biggest tells is the organization’s approval of many of Trump’s most controversial nominees, which indicate just how much the sheriffs want to please Trump and the amount of political power they expect to wield. The group of lawmen proclaimed .. https://www.sheriffs.org/sites/default/files/National%20Sheriffs%20Letter%20Endorsing%20Pam%20Bondi.pdf .. their support for Pam Bondi for U.S. attorney general, a Trump loyalist who has not only stated her intent to help Trump pursue politically-motivated prosecutions but has also continued to deny the 2020 election results. (Bondi has not yet been confirmed.)
The sheriffs also wrote in support of Tulsi Gabbard as the director of national intelligence, citing her “demonstrated commitment to bridging national intelligence and local law enforcement priorities positions her to make a significant impact.” Gabbard, whose nomination is opposed by the editors of the conservative National Review, has unusually cozy relationships with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Perhaps no endorsement is more concerning than the NSA’s support for Kash Patel as FBI director, whom the group described as “reflect[ing] the credentials, skills, temperament, commitment, and experience for this critical position.” The letter goes on to explain how the NSA believes Patel will ensure the county officials have access to power:
Mr. Patel promised NSA – if confirmed – his unwavering dedication to working hand in glove with local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement at the rank and file and leadership levels. His commitment to the reciprocity of access-to-advise is essentia l to combating the most serious security and policing challenges ahead.
Patel is a political actor uniquely adept at courting Trump’s favor. He sells a variety of merchandise including a “$250 steel wall art of an orange Punisher skull with Trump-style hair.” The Punisher skull is popular with many law enforcement officers.
In his 2023 book .. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/10/kash-patel-trump-national-security-council/679566/ .. Government Gangsters:The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy, Patel describes a “corrupt cabal” inside the federal government always trying to dethrone Trump during his first term. Most concerning of all, Patel appears inclined to enact Trump’s plan of “retribution” against the media and other political figures who have criticized Trump. By emphasizing that the rot in the FBI comes from top officials, Patel has expressed support for field agents, calling them “cops.”
The one thing the largest sheriffs’ organization has remained silent on — Trump’s mass pardons and commutations for those involved in Jan. 6. My email to the organization went unanswered. (One sheriff in Florida did speak out against Trump’s clemency for those who were convicted of violent crimes.) At least one still-serving sheriff was present on Jan. 6, although he has maintained that he did not enter the capitol building.
Like many police organizations, the National Sheriffs Association and its members appear poised to take advantage of Trump’s promises to make the federal government supportive of harsh anti-immigration law enforcement. Already, the flurry of executive orders has indicated that Trump is prepared to do so despite questions of cost and capacity. By currying favor with the new administration, the NSA is showing that it is a political organization willing to ignore the violation of democratic and legal norms and not at all interested in the public welfare.
Jessica Pishko is an independent journalist and lawyer who focuses on how the criminal justice system and law enforcement intersects with political power.
As a Democracy Docket contributor, Jessica writes about the criminalization of elections and how sheriffs in particular have become a growing threat to democracy.
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Trump Aims To Destroy American Civil Society. Here’s Why He Must Be Stopped.
Trump Aims To Destroy American Civil Society. Here’s Why He Must Be Stopped.
By Tom Watson January 31, 2025
The United States has the largest GDP in the world, and the largest GDP per person of any country with more than 50 million people. While private business drives a great deal of this country’s wealth and prosperity, our public and nonprofit sectors — the intersection that we sometimes call civil society — provides the stability, structural investment and social integration that a truly liberal democracy needs to reach its full potential and highest aspirations.
For little more than a week, President Donald Trump and his gang of extremist gangsters has been trying to destroy it.
The goal has always been clear: destroy functioning government, cripple the nonprofit sector and obliterate the hard-earned bonds and benefits of 80 years of post-war American progress.
There’s no hiding from this, because it will touch every aspect of life in the U.S. Just this week, the Trump Administration illegally halted Medicaid and Head Start payments, halted veterans benefits, stopped SNAP benefits for hungry families, launched invasive immigration raids designed to terrorize communities, froze federal grants to nonprofit organizations providing direct service, cut off loans to small businesses, attacked advocacy organizations, banned transgender people from serving in the military and even went so far as trying to silence the history of the Tuskegee Airmen as part of his capricious and bigoted campaign to end DEI programs.
Makes the price of eggs seem minor.
These sadistic orders and actions affect the lives of tens of millions of Americans. Over 70 million people receive Medicaid benefits. The number of citizens impacted by Trump’s craven funding freeze is undoubtedly a majority.
I’m particularly worried about the effects on civil society, even over the short-term. Our nonprofit sector is more than 5% of GDP, and contributes $3.7 trillion to the economy each year, employing more than 10% of the workforce. Every year, Americans contribute more than 2% of GDP to charities, investing in the health and well-being of their neighbors and trusting nonprofits to fill the gap in service often left by the government.
As a consultant and analyst working in civil society — and with nonprofit organizations providing direct services and working to improve our system of justice — I find it hard to overstate just how important noncorporate commitments are to a fairer society. Yet it’s clear that for the far right, motivated by xenophobia and a desire for stripped down powerless liberal order, nonprofits and the partnerships of civil society are the enemy. They seek friction free power, and our system of institutions and quasipublic organizations blocks the greatest excesses of both hardcore libertarians and hardcore haters. (Yes, there’s an overlap).
As Democracy Docket and legal and justice organizations are showing, there is still life left in the U.S. court system — and frankly, given current radical majorities in the White House, Senate and House of Representatives, the courts are our best public options for throwing sand in the gears of the extremists seeking to destroy civil society. But I think there’s a strong adjunct role for most of us building anti-MAGA strength in the 21 months left till the U.S. midterm elections in 2026.
1. Our nonprofit sector must band together to oppose the dismemberment of American society. This means working within sectors, but also across sectors — health care with higher education, justice reform with direct services to underserved populations and the arts with everybody. We are starting to see more coalition work (particularly in my home metro area of New York) and collective action, rather than pure competition for grants and philanthropic dollars. This is a time to ramp up more of this, and be ready to stand in partnership with the best of government — and in stoic opposition to the worst.
2. Political donors of the center-left should adjust their giving habits to support more oppositional causes, perhaps shifting from purely candidates and committees to investments in independent media, regional 501c4 organizing work and legal funds fighting Trump orders directly. This goes for the big donors from groups like the Democracy Alliance to small donors used to responding to the ever more tasteless email campaigns of the big congressional committees and PACs. This is the time to change the model.
3. Individuals must speak up and speak out in their communities. Yes, the latest outrage can be numbing — don’t spend a day on Facebook debating the ludicrous “Gulf of America” malarkey — but the attempted structural changes should be loudly and vociferously opposed. Talk to friends. Use social media wisely (pick your platforms well). Know your material, and be blunt with both public officials (especially Democratic leadership) and with the news media. Most of all, don’t wait with your head under the covers, because that simply won’t work. Sometimes we’re called to act, and that time is now.
During last year’s campaign, many of us argued for the preservation of democracy and the rule of law. But too many voters heard some form of esoteric political science theory. Or they believed Trump wouldn’t dare to follow his worst instincts and put a deeply evil cadre of loyalists in charge of the federal government. Now that storm is here, the Jan. 6 thugs have been pardoned, the federal government is under attack from within, and American civil society faces a grave crisis — and a fight for survival.
That very civil society Trump wants to destroy holds dear a goal of improving the lives of everyone in this country. At this moment, I am still reminded of this quote by the great New Deal labor leader Sidney Hillman, and even as the radical storm clouds grow darker, we can hold this deeply American ideal close:
We want a better America, an America that will give its citizens, first of all, a higher and higher standard of living so that no child will cry for food in the midst of plenty.
Tom Watson is a veteran consultant to nonprofits and civil society organizations, and an instructor in the nonprofit management graduate program at Columbia University.
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