Going Full Spartacus: Democrats Hold Chest-Thumping Press Conferences To Fuel Anti-ICE Rage
“Say her name.” From Portland to Philadelphia, the mantra is being used by politicians to fuel the anger over the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis. While many of us have noted that the shooting appears to fall within the guidelines set by the Supreme Court for the justified use of lethal force, there is an effort to make Good the personification of a “resistance movement.”
Across the country, Democrats are holding “I am Spartacus” moments like a low-budget casting call for B-grade actors, chest-thumping demands for everything from the defunding of ICE to the arrest of law enforcement officers. Sen Cory Booker (D., N.J.) was widely ridiculed for his own such moment years ago. However, he found that while most people found his self-aggrandizement cringeworthy, many longed for such demonstrations.
From Portland to Philadelphia, Democratic leaders are engaging in performative press conferences to try to outdo each other in declaring the shooting of Renee Good “murder” or declaring a “war” with the federal government over the enforcement of immigration policies.
The tone was set almost immediately after the shooting by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who not only declared the officer a murderer but called claims of self-defense “bllsh*t” and told ICE, “get the f–k out” of the city.
When many of us denounced his conduct, he mocked his critics by apologizing if his profanity “offended their Disney princess ears.”
Frey seemed to trigger a race to the bottom. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and others rushed to the nearest camera to condemn the officer and fuel the rage. Democratic politicians seemed to struggle to find ways to up the ante with new levels of profanity or escalated threats. Rep. Dan Goldman (D., NY) is facing a serious challenge from a Mamdani-endorsed socialist in the primary and has fought to out-rage the competition.
Goldman not only called for the arrest of the officer but also moved to strip all ICE officers of immunity. Goldman is, of course, protected by immunity as a member of Congress and, as an heir to the Levi-Strauss fortune, can afford any litigation. However, he wants to strip protections for law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line every day. It seems that no price is too great to secure Goldman a third term.
In Portland, Mayor Keith Wilson and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, expressed outrage over ICE being in the city after a shooting. It did not seem to matter that the wounded were two suspected Tren de Aragua gang associates who were shot after allegedly trying to run over ICE officers.
Portland Police Chief Bob Day finally confirmed that Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras are Venezuelan criminal illegal aliens with ties to TdA. He admitted that the Portland Police Department hesitated to disclose the suspected gang connection because it did not want to be accused of “historic injustice of victim blaming” by law enforcement.
He then began to cry, saying, “It saddens me that we even have to qualify these remarks because I understand or at least have attempted to understand your voices, your concern, your fear, your anger.”
In Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner and Sheriff Rochelle Bilal took the performative press conference to a new and absurd level.
Krasner, who has been known to make sensational and unfulfilled pledges in the past, told ICE to stay out of the city, and portrayed their conduct as criminal, adding, “You will be arrested. You will stand trial. You will be convicted.”
Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal then went full Spartacus in an embarrassing demonstration more befitting an Antifa activist than a law enforcement official.
She called ICE officers “fake, wannabe” law enforcement and claimed that they were violating both “legal law” and “moral law.”
Bilal pandered to the mob, warning the federal government that “You don’t want this smoke. Cuz we will bring it to you.” She added that “the criminal in the White House would not be able to keep” ICE agents from heading to jail.
These are leaders who are openly playing to the mob. In my forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I discuss how elected officials often try to enlist mobs to advance their political agendas — only to be consumed by the unrest they helped fuel. This yielding to a “mobocracy” was one of the critical dangers that the Framers sought to deter through protections against majoritarian tyranny.
The problem with these “I am Spartacus” moments is that you need an actual Spartacus. Instead, we have the violence without the cause.
We have the same figures who have trafficked in rage for centuries, including recently in this very city.
In Minneapolis, a Black Lives Matter leader seemed to advocate violence as a vehicle for change, suggesting that the prosecution of officers in the George Floyd case only occurred because protesters burned down part of the city in 2020. She told protesters to ignore “don’t set [the city] on fire” pleas.
In the movie, Caesar is asked if he, too, had “left us for…the mob.” Caesar responds, “I’ve left no one, least of all Rome. This much I’ve learned … Rome is the mob.”
These politicians are attempting to harness the power of the mob to direct it against their political opponents. One Antifa activist called for people to “show up with guns and end this,” adding that “this is what the Founding Fathers gave us the Second Amendment for.”
In reality, what we are watching are calls and performative rage that led not to the American Revolution but the French Revolution. If history is any measure, these “new Jacobins” will find that they are no more protected from the rage than their opponents, as today’s revolutionaries become tomorrow’s reactionaries.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the author of the forthcoming “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution,” which will be released on Feb. 3 as part of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.