The left has tried to put Donald Trump in prison for the last decade. So far, they have not succeeded, but it’s not for a lack of trying. They’ve used every dirty trick in the book to try to eliminate their most hated political opponent. It seems like every day we find out new disturbing details about the left’s various plots to discredit and jail the president of the United States.
In Trump 2.0, they’ve become even more desperate, and they no longer limit themselves to hounding the president and his closest associates. Now, anyone who supports the president or carries out orders he issues as the lawful chief executive could find himself a target for left-wing vengeance and reprisal.
And that’s exactly what billionaire Tom Steyer, the current lead Democrat candidate for the governorship of California, the nation’s largest state, plans to do to ICE agents who dutifully carry out our nation’s immigration laws if he wins. Steyer presents his plan in no uncertain moral terms: ICE is evil because it carries out its duty, and its agents must be given no legal quarter in California.
“I’ve made it clear: ICE must be abolished. ICE is acting like a criminal organization, carrying out indiscriminate racial profiling and using violence, intimidation, terrorism, and the murder of Americans to extend Trump’s rule by fear,” he posted April 14 on X.
And he’s not talking about just protesting and refusing to cooperate with federal agents; he wants to create a full anti-ICE apparatus in the state, which contains millions of illegal aliens. He plans to push through radical legislation that would hamstring ICE from being able to identify and locate illegal aliens for removal and create a task force under the command of the attorney general (which will almost certainly be the incumbent, far-left partisan Rob Bonta) to badger ICE in the state. He even intends to work to bring back illegal aliens who have already been deported by the Trump administration.
But the second point of his plan exhibits the recent disturbing escalation in the left’s war on Trump’s immigration mandate.
He declares: “I will give the state Attorney General the authority to hold ICE’s leadership accountable for violence. My plan will pursue supervisory liability. This body of law empowers the California justice system to criminally prosecute and imprison not just the ICE agents who are committing these crimes, but the leadership directing them to do so.”
That’s right. The probable future governor of California pledged not only to go after the Trump administration, not only the top officials in ICE, but also the rank-and-file agents who faithfully execute the immigration laws of the United States.
Steyer is no moral trailblazer. He is in no way the first Democrat to call for reprisals against federal employees who serve under the current administration. In fact, it has become an all too common threat from the left since Trump reentered the White House last year.
In January, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries made basically the same threat in response to the Department of Homeland Security assuring ICE officers that they have immunity while carrying out their lawful orders.
“REMINDER: To all members of the Trump administration. The incitement and engagement in state violence against the American people is a serious crime. Donald Trump will leave office long before the five-year statute of limitations expires. You are hereby put on notice,” Jeffries said on X.
Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., called for the prosecution of ICE agents in the field, referring to them as “criminals in masks.”
“You better hope you get pardoned because you will be held accountable for the absolute disregard of the law your agencies have shown over the past year,” Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., told Rodney Scott, the commissioner for Customs and Border Protection.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and five other members of Congress, labeled the “Seditious Six,” released a video last November urging members of the military to disobey “illegal orders.” Of course, they did not mention which orders Trump had issued were illegal. But the implied threat remained nonetheless. If Trump issues so-called “illegal orders” and servicemen do not disobey them, then there will be a reckoning for those soldiers when Democrats get back in power. Leftists love their Nuremberg comparisons, after all.
To go after a political opponent with such fervor is radical enough, and the Democrats’ relentless campaign against Trump has strained the bonds of our nation. But it’s something far more radical and sinister to intimidate the federal employees and officials who work under him.
The campaign of reprisal that Tom Steyer and his ilk have been calling for is far more radical than the vendetta that led to the fall of that august republic from which our Founding Fathers took inspiration while crafting our own nation: that of ancient Rome.
By 49 B.C., the Roman Republic, which had stood for 450 years, teetered on the brink. For the previous 90 years, a series of crises had wracked the Roman state, ranging from political violence over land reform to a civil war that resulted in Sulla’s dictatorship to a conspiracy by lesser patrician families to rise up and overthrow the old ruling elite. Ambitious generals and politicians competed with each other, often violently, for an ever greater share of the wealth and glory to be had in the republic’s rapidly growing empire. (For further reading on this period, I recommend these books as a good starting point.)
Gaius Julius Caesar was one such statesman who yearned to win glory for both himself and Rome. After serving as one of the consuls (the co-head executive of the republic — think of it as similar to the presidency) for 59 B.C., Caesar was granted the governorship of three provinces on Rome’s northern frontier. While governor of these provinces, Caesar became entangled in conflicts in Gaul (modern-day France), and over the next eight years he gradually conquered the many tribes of Gaul and brought the region under Roman control.
As with almost every war of the ancient world, Caesar conducted his campaigns with brutality against the people the Romans had traditionally considered barbarians, and he became fabulously wealthy from the plunder he exacted from these tribes. As Caesar achieved greater and greater success, many senators, most notably Cato the Younger, became wary of Caesar’s growing power and popularity in Rome. Caesar was a prominent politician in the Populares “party,” a political alliance that appealed to the common people and generally was opposed by the old aristocratic elite.
Caesar’s enemies began to argue that he had waged illegal wars in Gaul without the authorization of the Senate and broken treaties with Gallic and German tribes. If brought to trial and found guilty, Caesar would almost certainly have faced the end of his political career and possibly even the death penalty.
In 50 B.C., Caesar requested that he be allowed to run for consul again in absentia so that he would not have to return to Rome as a private citizen. Both provincial governors and consuls were immune from legal prosecution during their tenures, but if Caesar returned to Rome to run for consul, he would have to leave his governorship behind and therefore open himself up to prosecution.
So, Caesar was determined to retain command of at least one province and one legion to avoid prosecution until he could run for consul again. Subsequent negotiations with the Senate broke down, and the anti-Caesar faction demanded that he relinquish his command and return to Rome. If he did not before a fixed date, he would be considered an enemy of the republic.
Faced with the choice of surrendering himself up to the mercy of his bloodthirsty enemies or taking his chances in a war with the Senate, Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the legal northern boundary of Italy at the time, with a single legion, initiating the civil war that would de facto end the republican dream.
The Senate, even the most rabidly anti-Caesar politicians who accused him of all manner of dastardly acts in his Gallic campaigns, never considered prosecuting his soldiers for any crimes. Caesar’s legions, many of which had campaigned tirelessly with him for eight years in Gaul, remained more loyal to him than to the republic and followed him into the resulting civil war.
And that brings us to the comparison to today. The legions marched on Rome in response to the Senate’s threat that their leader, not themselves, would be prosecuted. Democrats today play with fire by threatening not only the chief executive once he leaves office but also the ordinary government employees with prosecution for carrying out the president’s lawful orders.
If Democrats continue down this path, all for the blinding and undying hate of one man, then they tempt a similar reaction. The same choice that faced Caesar and his troops at the Rubicon in 49 B.C. may face Trump and anyone who served in the Trump administration if the Democrats regain power and follow through on their promises of retribution. That same doom that befell the Roman Republic may yet befall our own, for much the same reasons: ambition and petty spite.
Hayden Daniel is a staff editor at The Federalist. He previously worked as an editor at The Daily Wire and as deputy editor/opinion editor at The Daily Caller. He received his B.A. in European History from Washington and Lee University with minors in Philosophy and Classics. Follow him on Twitter at @HaydenWDaniel
