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Republican governors are lobbing threats and prepping militaristic displays of power ahead of the “No Kings” demonstrations planned for Saturday.
President Donald Trump has vowed to bring “very heavy force” against people who protest his authoritarian-styled military parade that day, and it seems to have prompted conservative leaders to adopt similar rhetoric.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has already vowed to deploy the National Guard, and he told protesters who “cross the line” to beware.
“FAFO,” he wrote on X, using the acronym for “f--- around and find out.”
In a follow-up post, he said the National Guard will be deployed across the state to maintain “peace and order.”
An editorial from the Houston Chronicle, the paper of record in Texas’ largest city, denounced Abbott’s rhetoric as unwarranted tough-guy talk, given what demonstrations have actually looked like in the state:
That seems like an overreaction. Yes, it’s true that small protests have sprung up across Texas, inspired by the Los Angeles demonstrations that started Friday. One protester was arrested in Dallas, and a handful in Austin. And the No Kings protests planned for Saturday, which have been in the works for weeks, are likely to be much larger.
But there was no serious indication Tuesday that Texas was on the verge of exploding. No burning cars. No looting. No mayors imposing curfews.
Nonetheless, Abbott said Thursday that he had ordered more than 5,000 National Guard troops and 2,000 state police officers to be deployed.
And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has offered similar sentiments.
“The minute you cross into attacking law enforcement, any type of rioting, any type of vandalism, looting, just be prepared to have the law come down on you,” DeSantis said at a news conference Tuesday. “And we will make an example of you — you can guarantee it.”
There’s broad agreement across the political spectrum that people who commit crimes should face legal scrutiny, though Trump’s pardoning of violent Jan. 6 insurrectionists obviously undercuts this argument. But the comments from DeSantis — a man who signed an anti-protest law widely decried by nations across the globe, and who argued on a right-wing podcast that Florida drivers have a right to hit protesters with their car if they need to “flee” to safety — sound like little more than threats designed to shield the ego of America’s president and wannabe “king” before he hosts his expensive and potentially destructive military parade.
That said, there are still hundreds of protests scheduled across the country. So as of now, it doesn’t seem as though efforts to instill fear in protesters are bearing much fruit.