Militias: The plot to kidnap Whitmer
It might have been a bloodbath, said Elie Honig in CNN .com. Last week, federal and state authorities charged 13 right-wing militia members with plotting to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and incite a civil war, or “boogaloo,” by trying her for “treason” ahead of the presidential election. These thugs allegedly planned to either snatch Whitmer from her vacation home or storm the Michigan Capitol. This was not just “idle, fantastical chatter.” Authorities say members of a militia called the Wolverine Watchmen trained with firearms and detonated a bomb made of fireworks and pennies to assess the damage to “human silhouette targets.” They bought a Taser, extensively surveilled Whitmer’s vacation house, and planned to detonate bombs on a nearby bridge to distract police officers. “Grab the f---ing governor,” said one. “Just grab the bitch.”
The conspirators’ “insane plot” was a reaction to Whitmer’s “arrogant” imposition of pandemic restrictions, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The governor has moved aggressively to shutter nonessential businesses and require mask wearing indoors and outdoors, and recently reinstated a pandemic emergency without the consent of the state legislature—an act the Michigan
Supreme Court last week ruled was illegal. But while Whitmer’s policies have “exceeded her legal authority,” the recourse is the law and courts, not a “tin-hat crazy” abduction scheme. You’re leaving something out, said Nancy Kaffer in the Detroit Free Press: Whitmer is a woman. Plenty of governors have instituted get-tough measures to combat Covid-19, and yet only one became the target of a far-right, all-male group’s “homicidal rage.” That’s “no coincidence.”
President Trump egged these morons on, said Rex Huppke in the Chicago Tribune. When heavily armed, anti-lockdown protesters stormed the Michigan Capitol and menaced Whitmer in April, Trump tweeted “Liberate Michigan” and called them “very good people.” Some of the plotters, we now know, attended that rally. When the head of our government feeds the anti-government fantasies of right-wing extremists with words like “tyranny” and “liberate,” that’s incitement. This episode bodes “very badly for the fall,” said Greg Sargent in The Washington Post. Trump has repeatedly said he’ll claim any Biden victory is illegitimate and call upon his supporters to mobilize in the streets. The Michigan plot suggests they’ll take him seriously.