The problem with this dilemma--whether and how dems should deter those who bend the knee to Trump--is that dems have *zero* credibility as far as wielding their power against their opponents, and credibility is key to deterrence. To use the author's example, the Poles who helped the Nazis could be deterred by the resistance fighters killing collaborators because the resistance fighters had an established reputation for doing this kind of thing, which is the credibility that gave their deterrence real teeth. I witnessed similar things when I was serving in Iraq during the Sunni-Shia civil war there. Civilians in the middle were pushed and pulled by several armed factions that had violence credibility. The thing is, dems have no record of going after their political enemies or the groups who support them. It took J6th happening for dems to actually put an investigatory committee together to go after people. Outside of the J6th cmte, when have post-9/11 dems ever wielded their power when they controlled congress or the white house to investigate/punish any of their political opponents? I can't think of any. That lack of willingness to wield power when dems have it creates a deterrence credibility gap that the GOP exploits by actually being willing to punish people when they are in power. That's how you get this asymmetry in deterrence credibility.

The real question should be *how* can dems establish deterrence credibility now? My answer would be to start a coalition of blue state governors that can punish companies *now* in unison. Think the C40 mayors coalition that dems started to combat climate change in unison at the mayor level, but make it a "G10" group (governors of NY, CA, IL, CO, MA, WA, OR, NJ, NM, and VA) that coordinate opposition to Trump policies and penalties against companies who support his presidency. A coalition of dem governors could do a whole lot of damage to people/companies/institutes in unison by freezing assets of foreign leaders or tariffing their economies, prohibiting business dealings, executing tariffs on other states, and doing things like cutting off water/electricity to ICE field offices. The blue states combined have control over the bulk of the economy in this country, and if they acted in unison could actually establish some deterrence credibility from Team Blue under Trump, but they'd have to be willing to form this coalition and act in unified opposition with prejudice.