Greg Bovino, the former Border Patrol commander, headlined a remigration summit in Portugal this month where he posed for selfies with Martin Sellner, a far-right Austrian activist. The two discovered immediate common ground, Bovino told him: "We've never talked before, face to face, that is, until yesterday, and we were on the same sheet of music almost immediately."
Meanwhile, Tina Peters, the disgraced former Colorado elections clerk whose sentence was commuted by Governor Jared Polis, now appears regularly on Steve Bannon's show promoting conspiracy theories about Democratic election fraud. Both figures exemplify a troubling pattern: individuals who wielded government power to harm others, who faced consequences, and who are now profiting from their notoriety without a trace of remorse.
Their ability to operate openly stems directly from a government promise of impunity. When the Trump administration pardoned violent January 6 insurrectionists on its first day, it signaled that accountability for abuse of power would not come from official channels. If the Democratic Party fails to construct real consequences, citizens may need to explore alternatives.
Argentina offers a instructive historical model. After the military dictatorship fell, amnesty laws forced upon a fragile democracy allowed perpetrators of documented human rights atrocities to walk free and prosper. Citizens eventually lost patience. They organized escraches: organized, peaceful public demonstrations outside the homes of former officials, complete with graffiti, red paint symbolizing blood, music, and noise designed to remind neighbors that their community harbored those who had escaped justice. These were not violent acts, but they were unmistakably uncomfortable for their targets.
The tactic has ancient roots. Medieval villagers conducted "charivari," or rough music, gathering outside the homes of accused officials or moral offenders to bang pots and pans, stage mock parades, and perform satirical skits. These were not revolutionary acts but conservative ones, designed to enforce community moral standards and ideally reintegrate the offender. Popular justice took the form of public theater.
The dangers are real. Vigilante justice can spiral beyond accountability into pure revenge. Tit-for-tat cycles could escalate dangerously, especially in a nation saturated with firearms. Trump's enemies would face the same treatment, and the outcome could be civil conflict rather than restoration of order. The administration has already signaled its weaponization of protest law: it designated antifa as a terrorist threat and issued a national security memorandum specifically targeting doxing. Republican-controlled states are passing legislation criminalizing civil disobedience as terrorism.
Yet there are reasons for limited optimism. Federal courts have protected protesters, most recently those accused of conspiring to impede an officer. This suggests that First Amendment protections may hold even against an aggressive administration. More importantly, government repression operates on whim rather than law; an administration willing to invent charges against dissidents hardly needs legal pretexts.
Escraches announced in advance, with police maintaining order between demonstrators and their targets, should qualify for First Amendment protection. They inform the public about matters of genuine common concern. They are not anonymous attacks but announced, visible, and rooted in community moral judgment. Even if figures like Bovino and Peters currently revel in their far-right celebrity, that status could shift. In the meantime, public shaming by peaceful means remains an appropriate response to those who have escaped official justice.
Author James Rodriguez: "When the government abandons its duty to hold power accountable, ordinary citizens shouldn't wait for permission to remind their communities who the perpetrators are."
Comments