Donald the Dove cottons to Senate’s most bloodthirsty authoritarian

There’s a pretty compelling logic to it:

Donald Trump is unlikely to announce a running mate until the last possible second, but according to a new report, his short list now includes Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, who is undoubtedly viewed positively by the ex-president because he declares protesters should be crushed by both the military and vigilantes. Probably also winning him points is his call for journalists to be imprisoned, and the fact that he regularly kisses the ex-president’s ass. All qualities the former guy is clearly looking for!

While The New York Times reports that Cotton has “emerged as a top contender to become Donald J. Trump’s running mate” because Trump sees him as “a reliable and effective communicator in cable news interviews” and also likes that the senator served in the Army and went to Harvard, it seems pretty likely that there are other, much more sinister things, that Trump appreciates about the guy, including but no limited to:

• Cotton’s call for two New York Times journalists who reported on classified information to be sent to prison
• Cotton’s 2020 op-ed in the pages of the Times calling for the military to forcibly put an end to the racial justice protests going on at the time, in which the senator wrote, “One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers.”
• Cotton’s declaration earlier this year that citizens should “take matters into your own hands” and confront pro-Palestinian protesters with physical force, and his absolutely wild comments in an interview with Fox, in which he remarked, “Let’s just say I think there would be a lot of very wet criminals that would have been tossed overboard—not by law enforcement, but by the people whose road they are blocking. If they glued their hands to their car or pavement, it’d probably be pretty painful to have their skin ripped off.”
• Cotton’s comment, “How it should be done,” on a video showing a man dragging protesters by the feet
• Cotton’s repeated defense of Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito over those flags:

The smears directed at the Alitos are meant to intimidate the Justices into advancing progressive policies.

Justice Alito did nothing wrong.

And the liberal activists pretending to be outraged know it.— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) May 21, 2024

Dude, I forgot to make an argument!

But, yes, Cotton affirmatively defending a hyper-partisan seditionist on the Supreme Court is definitely the kind of thing that will appeal to Trump. I like his chances to be on the ticket a lot.