...
Baker, a 34-year-old yoga teacher and emergency medical technician trainee, had no previous criminal convictions and has already been held for 10 months of harsh pretrial detention, including seven months in solitary confinement. He never brought a weapon near a government building; he amassed no armed anti-fascist forces; he made no threats on a single individual.
...
The threat of kidnapping charge stemmed from a feverish public Facebook post in which Baker put out a general call for anti-racists and anti-fascists to encircle the state Capitol, should far-right groups attack it “on or around inauguration day,” and “trap” right-wingers inside with cops. In the very next sentence, though, he wrote, “we will drive them out of Tallahassee with every caliber available!” The right wing militiae were thus to be trapped in and driven out at once, on an unspecified day, by an unnamed collaboration of counterprotesters.
...
Other social media posts that prosecutors pointed to as evidence at trial included memes featuring Homer Simpson, Baby Yoda, and a picture of a kangaroo. “It was truly a surreal experience being in a literal kangaroo court,” Baker told me. His prosecution, conviction, and sentencing exemplify the government’s commitment to conjuring a left-wing extremist threat when none is there.
...
