Republicans are changing the letters GOP to stand for Gestapo On Patrol
Texas Republicans are changing the letters GOP to stand for Gestapo On Patrol with House Bill 2436, a bill that would exempt law enforcement officers from being charged with deadly conduct for actions taken in the line of duty.
HB 2436 is allegedly needed to protect law enforcement officers against frivolous lawsuits, but the reality is that it will give police officers unlimited authority to act recklessly and use an unjustifiable amount of force while on duty (via Texas Tribune):
It’s one of several pieces of legislation this session that aim to increase protections for police officers five years after Texans took to the streets to protest police violence. The legislation aligns with the priorities of Gov. Greg Abbott and other GOP leaders who have been firm in maintaining local police budgets and have pushed Texas political candidates to sign pledges to “back the blue.”
Critics of HB 2436 argue an exemption like this shields police officers from accountability for recklessly discharging firearms. They worry the bill removes a mechanism for holding law enforcement accountable for misconduct or excessive use of force.
“Allowing police to shoot at people without justification will make our community and our law enforcement officers less safe,” said Travis County District Attorney José Garza.
“Bad actors and mistakes do happen in every profession and our police officers, our police force, is not an exception to that,” said Yasmine Smith, a vice president of justice and advocacy for the nonprofit Austin Area Urban League. “We must hold those bad actors accountable.” (Emphasis mine)
To those who would accuse me of being hyperbolic, let’s take a look at how the Jewish Virtual Library describes Hitler’s Gestapo:
The Geheime Staatspolizei (German for Secret State Police, abbreviated “Gestapo”) was the secret police of Nazi Germany, and its main tool of oppression and destruction, which persecuted Germans, opponents of the regime, and Jews. It later played a central role in helping carry out the Nazi’s “Final Solution.”
The Gestapo units excelled in their unabated and premeditated cruelty, in their ability to delude its intended victims as to the fate that awaited them, and in the use of barbaric threats and torture to lead the victims to their death, all as part of the “Final Solution.” The units were taught many torture techniques and were also taught many of the practices that German doctors in Dachau tested on the inmates of concentration camps. During its tenure, the Gestapo operated without any restrictions from the civil authority, meaning that its members could not be tried for any of their police practices. This unconditional authority added an elitist element to the Gestapo; its members knew that whatever actions they took, no consequences would arise. (Emphasis mine)
Nazi Germany’s Gestapo couldn’t be tried for any of their police practices, nor did they suffer any consequences for the actions they took? Sounds a lot like the Texas GOP bill to me.
Unfortunately, Republicans in other states have tried in the past to turn local police into a type of Gestapo. In February 2016, Virginia proposed Senate Bill 552, legislation to classify the names of all police officers as “personnel records” and turn local law enforcement into a type of “secret police” force where officers would have been “effectively immunized from wrongdoing” and empowered “to act with impunity.”
The bill was offered as a response to what one Virginia state senator called the “war on cops.” While there have been incidents across America where police officers were shot or injured in the line of duty, the Virginia legislation was a “throw the baby out with the bath water” overreaction that should be quite troubling to Constitution-loving Americans concerned about the serious threat to liberty such legislation creates.
In a letter sent at the time from the Rutherford Institute to the chairman of the Virginia House Delegates’ General Laws subcommittee, James LeMunyon, John Whitehead (a contributor to The Strident Conservative) expressed his concerns over SB 552:
“American citizens have a right to know when government agencies and government officials have engaged in wrongdoing. Whether those individuals occupy a public office or are employed by a law-enforcement agency is immaterial.”
As the author of a book warning America of the coming police state, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, Whitehead knows what he’s talking about. The very basis of America’s creation was a call for government to be accountable to the people, not the other way around. Otherwise, we have tyranny and a loss of liberty.
It’s bad enough that Republican Party “leaders” at the state level were the creators of these two pieces of legislation, but things get really serious when we witness this Gestapo-like approach to law enforcement from Donald Trump and other Republicans in Washington (via Reason.com):
In May [2024], then-former President Donald Trump traveled to Wisconsin, a battleground state crucial to his 2016 win and 2020 loss. The stakes [were] high. He made a few big promises to match.
“We’re going to give our police their power back,” he told rallygoers in Waukesha, “and we are going to give them immunity from prosecution.”
Despite the legal illiteracy of Trump’s promise, it’s worth considering the implication that those with the most power should be held to the lowest standard.
Trump made clear [during his first term] in office that he’d fight legislation hamstringing qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that bars victims from suing state and local government employees if the way in which those employees allegedly violated the law has not been clearly established as unconstitutional in prior case law.
One thing is clear: Trump would like to see law enforcement held to a lesser standard than the public they serve. (Emphasis mine)
The fact that Republicans are turning local police forces into a defacto Gestapo is proof positive that progressive, tyrannical big government is the goal of the GOP and the Democrat Party. This is why we must break free of the duopoly and stop voting for the lesser of two evils every election cycle. A little poison will kill you just a thoroughly as a lot of poison, it just takes a bit longer.
Conservatives need to stand firm against these efforts. Liberty depends on it.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative and the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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