(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . They Are Afraid. Make Them More Afraid. [1] ['Chloris Creator', 'Greg Dworkin', 'Crimson Quillfeather', 'Bill In Portland Maine'] Date: 2026-09-05 These last 10 years, I’ve become a fan of Rick Wilson, who has taught some of us how to fight more effectively in these times of stupidity and evil. Especially at the beginning of the felon’s second term, he reminded us the best way to weaken the felon was to make him more unpopular (the felon has helped a lot by losing to Iran, raising gas prices, raising tariffs on Canada, and so much more). Today we’re not going to talk about popularity, or the lack thereof. We’re going to talk about fear. So, first a little discussion, some suggestions and analysis from Rick Wilson, and then some cool stuff the dems are already doing with respect to corruption and accountability. We dems don’t tend to inspire fear in people. Part of this is because we usually don’t want to. We want people to be able to speak the truth without getting arrested, we want kids to go to school without getting shot at, we want people to be able to buy lettuce without being afraid of explosive diarrhea. The other side operates differently. They know fear is a powerful motivator. They push fearful memes on their voters – vaccines cause autism! people eating cats and dogs! kids going to school and getting sex-reassignment surgery! – and get them so afraid they vote for the GOP (note these are all lies, nothing to be afraid of, but then they get to waste their time in office on these issues instead of dealing with real problems, such as domestic terrorism, national debt, and climate change). Those are manufactured fears to inspire their voters. Real threats are made on the people who are expected to work for them. Perhaps it’s kompromatt, with the threat of bringing the DOJ on them. This functions well if the people working for them have committed actual crimes (and many have). Maybe it’s just the threat of losing a job (and many have been fired, and many others have quit). But there have also been death threats. We’ve heard about them on Ds (SOS Benson in Michigan) but there have been many on Rs (Lindsey Graham, Mitt Romney, and Lisa Murkowski all mentioned them at one time or another. Now it’s time for Ds to amp up the fear, especially among the Rs enabling the felon. Here’s Wilson’s video on this: Don’t want to watch? Here are my takeaways: Divergence in the GOP. Mike Johnson is going around saying they’re going to defy the odds, while those in the White House are getting ready to be investigated. This means they’re talking about executive privilege, ethics disclosures, lawyering up. They are afraid. Wilson wants them to be more afraid. A big reason the felon and his friends have been able to do so much criming is because Congress, under Mike Johnson, has been spineless (and mostly in hibernation). There is so much corruption. Wilson tried pencilling a list and got tired. The felon deserves to be investigated. He deserves to be impeached. But Wilson doesn’t think the Ds in Congress should start there. The problem with the impeachment play is we don’t have the votes in the Senate and the felon knows how to deflect the impeachment play (oh, poor me! give me another term!). Instead, weaken him by going after those who work for him. (This should also weaken the 2028 wannabes because they’ll have to play defense). Don’t even go after the Cabinet secretaries. Go for the bottom, like a mob rollup. Why go after the bottom? Because they won’t have the money for the expensive attorneys. Go after the aides who helped the pardon payments. The FBI staff who worked on the Epstein documents. Prepare criminal referrals (obviously not for this DOJ) Now, they may be told they’ll be protected by the White House counsel, but will they? Wilson has worked in DC, and he knows that these people, even when they were told to delete files and evidence – most of them have back ups. Docs that point to the guilty. Sometimes they exist because there’s a paper trail for money transfers. Now, they may be hoping for pardons, but Wilson lists three reasons pardons may not work. First, state charges in some cases. Second, pardons work better as leverage and the felon won’t want to lose that leverage. Once a pardon is given, that person is liberated (and can no longer plead the 5th). Third the felon could drop dead at any moment. [Personal note: I don’t think we can count on this, but I do accept that he may be sicker than we on the outside realize and that could scare some of his minions.] Wilson suggests big investigations, maybe in five different categories. Scare the h*ll out of them. Every American who has opposed the felon has lived with some fear for at least a decade. It’s time to turn it around. We need accountability or this will continue. Wilson also wrote an “Against All Enemies” Substack piece on it. The White House, meanwhile, is doing the only honest thing anyone in Trumpworld has done all summer. It is preparing for the day the gavel changes hands, hiring people who will screech “privilege” a hundred times per hearing, and quietly telling its own staff they’d better get their own legal protection. Just in case. They know the investigations and subpoenas are coming. They know the pardon isn’t guaranteed. They’re finally feeling the cold wind of reality on the backs of their necks, in a world where the swagger and boastful defiance of the “oversight” hearings run by Gym Jordan (R-Weeping Victims, OH) and Slow Comer (R-Leadpaint Junction, KY) is now a memory. They’re getting scared now. They should be terrified. Give them until November. They’ll get there. Fighting words. But is team blue getting ready to fight? I would say that they are. While the GOP is taking vacation (which I guess is better than having them work), here’s a wee bit of what they are preparing (note this was in my Friday GNR, but repetition is good): The House Dems have a corruption tracker website While Americans struggle to buy groceries and pay rent, Donald Trump is making his family richer through digital grift schemes— collecting profits through digital wallets and granting pardons to the highest bidders. While Trump and his family are using the White House to make billions, we are tracking every cent. As of January 2026, our Committee’s analysis shows that these schemes have contributed to an estimated $2.25 billion in realized profits for Trump from foreign payments, corrupt oligarchs, and others. This total rises to as much as $9.7 billion when the value of Trump’s digital assets is factored in, with as much as $600 million coming from foreign interests. President Trump should be serving the American people—not his own pockets. I took those words on Wednesday this week, so the numbers have certainly gone up. Well done, House Ds! Methodology is linked at the site. But we need more people to see this. 🎩 Janesaunt has a diary on how the House Dems also just released a report on how the felon’s pardon payment program. Here’s the link to the report, and here are some excerpts: The report details how Trump has sidelined the traditional Department of Justice (DOJ) clemency process and replaced it with a pay-to-play system in which wealthy criminals use political contributions, Trump family business ties, and well-connected MAGA insiders to secure presidential pardons. Trump’s pardons have now erased nearly $1.7 billion in restitution, fines, and forfeitures owed to victims and taxpayers, up from Judiciary Democrats’ initial estimate of $1.3 billion last year. [This means the money stays with criminals] ✂️ Pardons, Inc. Allows the Worst of the Worst to Escape Accountability. Trump has granted clemency to serious offenders based on political and personal networks, money and political ideology rather than traditional considerations such as remorse, rehabilitation, restitution and public safety. Among those receiving clemency are former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving 45 years for helping traffic hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States; nursing-home magnate Joseph Schwartz, who spent nearly $1.1 million lobbying for clemency while serving a sentence for a $38 million payroll-tax fraud scheme; and Timothy Leiweke, who donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration before Trump wiped away a federal bid-rigging prosecution against him. Trump also pardoned three participants in an international bribery case after one defendant’s daughter donated $2.5 million to MAGA Inc.; Jason Galanis, a convicted fraudster who became a witness in House Republicans’ failed Biden impeachment investigation; and Michele Fiore, who was convicted of stealing donations intended for a memorial to two murdered police officers. Others, not in government, are also tracking some of these things. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to your comments! 🐦‍⬛🐦🐦‍⬛I do a lot of other writing. Some offerings: the Crow Nickels (chronicles), about crows who want to save birdkind from extinction (Hunters of the Feather). Popular mysteries based on Jane Austen’s novels, such as The Meryton Murders. Others based on history and Greek mythology, e.g., Clytemnestra: The Mother’s Blade, for those who want another look at the characters in The Odyssey. Newest offerings: Messing with the Myths — three books so far in this series (new one is Ragnarok & Roll). 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