Trump is escalating threats for dissenters — and now suggesting jail: analyst

Former President Donald Trump is speaking more openly than ever about criminalizing dissent, Aaron Blake wrote for The Washington Post.

"At a rally Monday in Pennsylvania, the former president said for at least the fourth time that criticizing judges and justices either is or should be illegal. And for what may be the first time, he directly said people who do so should go to jail," wrote Blake.

He noted that at the rally, the former president said anyone criticizing Supreme Court decisions "should be put in jail" — "the way they talk about our judges and our justices, trying to get them to sway their vote, sway their decision.”

This is not just extreme and unconstitutional, but also "a standard that most likely would have landed Trump in jail long ago," said Blake, since "few modern political figures ... have spent so much time attacking judges and others involved in the judicial process, in an obvious attempt to apply political pressure."

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This comes as both Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), try to blame Democratic rhetoric warning Trump threatens democracy for two assassination plots against him in three months.

"For someone who has so strongly objected in recent weeks to the idea that he’s an authoritarian or a threat to democracy, Donald Trump has a funny way of showing it," wrote Blake.

And it also comes as Trump has set about a ruthless pattern of trying to browbeat and criticize any judge who rules in a way he doesn't like — suggesting, yet again, he wants a different standard for himself as for anyone else.

"It’s been so extensive that it’s difficult to dismiss as Trump merely blowing off steam and expressing disagreement; he’s sent a consistent message that prosecuting one of the most politically powerful people in the country — him — and ruling against him will come with a price," wrote Blake. "Presidents before Trump generally avoided criticizing the courts, but it isn’t illegal. Now he suggests that it should be — at least for anyone not named Trump."