A Democratic senator stood in front of a room full of college students last week and told them, in plain English, that she wants to scare them.
Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin said she wants to go after not just Trump, but "the people who enabled him," so that young people coming out of school will think twice before taking a job in his administration. Her words: she wants a "deterrence message."
A student in the room recorded it. It went viral. He's now filed an ethics complaint.
Same week, California Congressman Ro Khanna rolled out a bill for a "Truth and Accountability Commission." Eleven members. Chairman picked by the president. Target: Trump, his family, and his administration. Khanna says he wants investigations and prosecutions, and that this should be the test Democratic voters hold their 2028 candidate to.
Read that again. The 2028 test isn't lower gas prices or safer streets. It's who you'll prosecute.
Slotkin says she only means people who broke the law. Fine. But put yourself in the shoes of a 22-year-old with a job offer. You don't know what the next commission decides was a crime. That fear is the whole point. She said so herself.
My wife grew up under communism in Eastern Europe. When I read her the Slotkin quote, she didn't even look up. She said that's exactly how it worked there. You didn't have to punish everybody. You just had to make an example out of a few, and the young people got the message.
Here's what I've figured out after a lifetime of watching these folks, starting back in tie-dye days in California. For a lot of them, politics isn't politics. It's church. If you agree with them, you're a good person. If you don't, you're a heretic. And churches like that always end up needing an inquisition.
I don't care what anybody worships. This is America. But when a sitting U.S. senator tells college kids to be afraid of serving their country under the wrong president, that isn't accountability. That's a warning shot.
Georgia votes November 3rd. Ask every candidate on your ballot one question: do you agree with her?