Putting partisan politics far above patriotism (if he has any), top Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin is outright threatening vengeance on foreign leaders who work with the Trump administration.
Yes, he washes it through rhetoric about fighting “authoritarianism in our country,” but that’s simply cover for goonish threats.
Raskin (D-Md.) issued it on the “Pod Save America” podcast, after progressive host Tommy Vietor cited (surely left-wing) Latin America experts as urging Democrats to warn off “any foreign government that participates in the extraordinary rendition of American citizens.”
Reality check: No one is proposing any “extraordinary rendition of American citizens.”
Democrats keep trying to confuse people into thinking Team Trump is doing that, as cover for their efforts to fight the administration’s deportations of illegal migrants — which is not remotely authoritarian.
Naturally, Raskin ran with Vietor’s implied point, specifically pointing to El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele as someone Dems “are not going to look kindly upon” “when we come back to power — and we will.”
His complaint is that Bukele refuses to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia (a Salvadoran citizen) back to the United States.
Abrego Garcia has never had any legal right to be here, though the Trumpies erred in sending him home without clearing an outdated 2019 order that said he could be deported, but not to El Salvador because he claimed a gang there was gunning for him.
(Bukele has eviscerated all the Salvadoran gangs, infuriating US “Latin America experts” of the kind Vietor surely relies on.)
Raskin’s also plainly peeved that Bukele is assisting the Trump “deport violent-criminal illegal migrants” efforts, but that’s still no reason to issue threats to a foreign prez.
Republicans have never punished foreign leaders who helped President Barack Obama in his initiatives; it’s insane to drag other countries into our domestic disputes.
Raskin dresses it up with his noise about “the descent into fascism in America,” but he’s the one destroying nonpartisan norms of our politics.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
