In a well written yet disturbing article over at PJ Media, writer Athena Thorne tells readers, "Yes.  They are going to arrest Donald Trump.  Deal with it."  Presumably, this is advice for nearly 75 million people.  There's something inherently futile about that.

The writer tells folks not to get upset when this happens so as not to feed into the left's "goading the United States into a civil war."  She adds that although Trump may end up in prison, he may still be able to govern.  Rightfully warning supporters not to erupt in violence, she concludes with some sticky words about voting and volunteering at polls.  What?  It ended with an unsettling fizzle.

Right after reading the "Deal with it" article, I ran across Senator Rand Paul's tweet that contained a link to "Repeal the Espionage Act" by Jacob G. Hornberger.  Originally written in relation to the prosecution of Julian Assange, it contained two paragraphs that seemed to answer Thorne's article:

[T]he problem is that they don't go far enough.  Their mindsets reflect the customary acceptance of the status quo.  The mindset is that we Americans simply have to accept the way things are and plead with the government to go easy on us.

That's just plain nonsense.  It is incumbent on the American people to start thinking at a high level, one that doesn't just accept the existence of tyrannical laws and instead calls for their repeal.  After all, isn't that what our Declaration of Independence says — that when government becomes destructive of the legitimate ends for which it was formed, it is the right of the people to alter or even abolish it and form new government?

In other words, no, I'm not going to just accept that Donald Trump is going to be arrested.  I am going to demand that GOP leaders — including all elected officials as well as America's culture leaders — form a circle of protection around Trump and say, "You shall not pass!"

In whatever form that takes, it must be done right now to avoid unprecedented civil unrest.

There needs to be a plan, first and foremost one constructed by the GOP leadership.  In a perfect world, they would have already considered different scenarios, thinking outside the box and anticipating Democrats' tyrannical moves, not only against a beloved former president, but against his supporters and the country at large.  Do we not have any GOP leaders who know how to play chess?

The person who first comes to mind as a possible leader in this noble fight is Sen. Rand Paul.  His tweet about repealing the Espionage Act came five days after the raid on Mar-a-Lago:

The espionage act was abused from the beginning to jail dissenters of WWI.  It is long past time to repeal this egregious affront to the 1st Amendment.  

A responding tweet reads, "LOL.  What a surprise.  Trump violates the Espionage Act and Rand's response is to repeal it."

There is some embarrassing truth to that.  Is it sheer incompetence that the GOP always seems to get caught with its pants down, doing things after the fact?  Writer David Zukerman recently wrote, "But it must be said:  the enemies of a free people would never get to first base but for the timidity of Republicans in Congress to oppose them."

And therein lies the crux of our problem.

The DOJ and the FBI are running roughshod over the American people, hell-bent on intimidating people into silence.  Project Veritas reported that people displaying "Revolutionary War imagery" such as the Gadsden flag" and the Betsy Ross flag are labeled as potential "Militia Violent Extremists."

January 6 attendees, most of whom did nothing wrong, are still being hunted down and turned in by friends and family — with stories more commonly heard in communist and fascist societies.  Websites like NPR and Sedition Hunters obsessively persist with posting random headshots, the majority of which are innocent, hardworking folks who went to Washington, D.C. for a peaceful protest.

The country has watched conservatives being banned from Twitter and Facebook and YouTube users bounced for uploading anything they deem "misinformation" — from questioning the COVID vaccine to climate change.

Now we are suffering with high gas and food prices, and we're being warned of coming food shortages.  While President Biden is blaming food shortages on the war in Ukraine, the mainstream media are blaming climate change, which they say is "endangering butterflies and bees."

We won't even delve into culture wars, which involve things like "The drag-queening of America's children" and dangerous gender ideology involving genital mutilation.

The people can only take so much.  We know we are under siege.  So does President Trump.

I don't believe, for instance, that a man who believed that a presidency was stolen from him didn't subsequently consider it possible that his house could be raided without notice and without good cause.  Hell, half of the Trump-supporters I know believe that it could happen to them right now just for supporting him! 

Yet they still come out.  Already, the Mar-a-Lago raid is sparking organic rallies across the country.

No, it is not acceptable, under any circumstances, that this obsessive hatred and irrational persecution ends with a perp walk and mugshot of an American president who speaks for millions of people.  It must not happen.

Susan D. Harris can be reached at www.susandharris.com.