🧩 BND Motif Index · M1755
Deterrence message
A side is said to want the other side's people prosecuted, down to the juniors, not for what they did but so that no one will dare serve that side again: the threat is aimed past its targets at the next recruits.
📜 Plots🗂️ Coercion and Intimidation🗂️ Crime and punishment
- 12claims filed under it
- 4left shows it came up on
- 13right shows it came up on
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🪜 Its family
what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it
🪜 rests on 🧩 Lawfare 🧩 Intimidation
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up (4 left-leaning, 0 center, 13 right-leaning so far), colored by the show's lean; the bar is how many of its claims each one heard
- 🐘 Clay Travis & Buck Sexton 5 claims
- 🐘 The Dan Bongino Show 3 claims
- 🐘 The Jesse Kelly Show 3 claims
- 🐘 Timcast IRL (podcast) 3 claims
- 🐘 Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words 3 claims
- 🐘 Advisory Opinions 2 claims
- 🐘 Bannon's War Room 2 claims
- 🐘 PBD Podcast (podcast) 2 claims
- 🫏 The Adam Mockler Show 2 claims
- 🐘 The Megyn Kelly Show 2 claims
- 🐘 The Michael Berry Show 2 claims
- 🐘 Verdict with Ted Cruz 2 claims
- left-leaning
- right-leaning
➕ 5 more shows
🎙️ 5 more shows
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
📰 In the news
the stories its claims were told about, the most told first (matched by our tools, so a link can be wrong)
- 📰 White House weighs mass pardons for junior staffers 2026-10-25
🗣️ In so many words
the words that carry it
💬 the tellers' own words: “I want that deterrence message sent.” “they want to use to send a message to anyone who wants to work for Republican administrations.”
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, in our words, by who told it: newest first in each; a claim's dots are the shows it came up on, in their lean's color (point at them for their names)
Told on the left 0
claims heard on left-leaning shows, and no right-leaning one
🦗 No claim heard only on the left so far.
Told on the right 8
claims heard on right-leaning shows, and no left-leaning one
- 2026-11-03 “Democrats use fear and intimidation, such as threatening to prosecute anyone who works for Trump, to seize power.” 1
- 2026-11-01 “Senator Elissa Slotkin is attempting to intimidate young people into not working for the Trump administration.” 3
- 2026-11-01 “Democrats intend to investigate influential Republicans and their associates to intimidate them.” 2
- 2026-10-31 “Democrats intend to use investigations to intimidate people into avoiding right-wing politics.” 2
- 2026-10-24 “Democrats want to use lawfare to make people afraid to work for a future Trump administration.” 2
- 2026-10-23 “Senator Elissa Slotkin is said to want Trump officials prosecuted to scare young conservatives away from the movement.” 1
- 2026-10-22 “Alyssa Slotkin wants to prosecute political opponents as a form of deterrence.” 4
- 2026-10-21 “Elissa Slotkin's actions violate the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments.” 1
Told on both sides 3
claims heard on left- and right-leaning shows alike
- 2026-10-24 “Trump will have to issue mass pardons to protect low-level West Wing employees from prosecution.” 6
- 2026-10-22 “Senator Elissa Slotkin wants to deter young people from working for the Trump administration through the threat of prosecution.” 7
- 2026-10-21 “Alyssa Slotkin intends to use the law to intimidate people from working in a Trump administration.” 7
Told in the center 1
claims heard only on center or crossover shows
- 2026-11-10 “House Democrats are said to be preparing investigations of Trump's administration, family and allies: accountability for corruption to some, revenge and deterrence to others.” 🎙️ on the shows
M1755 · first seen 2026-11-09 · what this is · how the index works