I'm VERY glad Scott Warren was found not guilty.

However, I suspect Trump's goal wasn't imprisoning Scott Warren specifically, but rather menacing any potential future Warrens, to ensure that basic human decency toward a dehumanized group carries implicit threat of retribution. https://twitter.com/MicahWright/status/1197305393010970624

The government's position in the case is clear: the people in the desert are meant to die. If you act to prevent them from dying, the state considers you a criminal.

You'll face court time and the real possibility of jail time. You'll lose a year of your life fighting it—at best

To be clear, the people are out in the desert because our government has for years been deliberately closing down any other routes in, without making any alterations to the economic realities that still incentivize the trip.

They're meant to die. It's strategic and deliberate.

If they weren't meant to die, the government wouldn't prosecute attempts to prevent their death. That's the tell.

There have in the past been governments who menaced and prosecuted people who attempted to thwart their attempts to kill a hated minority.

We know their names.

I think Trump and his administration and Republicans in general would've liked to see Scott Walker jailed, and again I'm very VERY glad he won't be.

But I think the main thing was delivering a message about how human decency will be viewed in their regime.

Mission accomplished.

And if you doubt that the desert passage is a deliberate attempt to murder a dehumanized population, I recommend this long listen, to which I was about to link before it sprouted up in my mentions all by itself. https://twitter.com/ToniBradfield2/status/1197472690233327617?s=20

Whether the Warren trial stands in US history as a clear signpost of the moral depravity of a happily defeated supremacist political movement, or just an early indicator of future horror, is on us.

We've seen this script before.

They want what they want; they are what they are.

The question we should all be asking ourselves is this: how am I prepared to show up for dehumanized people?

What risk will I take to defy a government that pursues genocide?

The heroes of history aren't heroes because they kept safe or quiet—nor are the heroes of today.

Scott Warren is hated by his government for saving lives of people the government wants dead. They tried to put him in prison.

He'll be resented by comfortable people—people like me and you—who see the challenge his example forces them to confront, but would rather ignore it.