The Future Of The Nation …

Posted on by under Election 2020, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

There is much debate, though I personally believe it is cut and dried, about whether or not a former president can be prosecuted for crimes committed while in office.  The debate isn’t about whether the crimes were committed, but simply about the precedent it would set to prosecute, about whether it’s true that nobody is above the law.  I think Charles Blow is spot on in his assessment in yesterday’s New York Times …

We Can’t Afford Not to Prosecute Trump

By Charles M. Blow

Opinion Columnist

24 July 2022

We all learn from failure.

Our mistakes become the bridge to our successes, teaching us what works and what doesn’t, so that the next time we muster the will to try, we’ll succeed.

But nefarious actors can also learn from failure. And that, unfortunately, is where we find ourselves with Donald Trump. His entire foray into politics has been one of testing the fences for weaknesses. Every time a fence has failed, he has been encouraged. He has become a better political predator.

With the conclusion of this series of hearings about the Jan. 6 insurrection, it has become ever clearer to me that Trump should be charged with multiple crimes. But I’m not a prosecutor. I’m not part of the Department of Justice. That agency will make the final decision on federal charges.

The questions before the Justice Department are not only whether there is convincing evidence that Trump committed the crimes he is accused of but also whether the country could sustain the stain of a criminal prosecution of a former president.

I would turn the latter question around completely: Can the country afford not to prosecute Trump? I believe the answer is no.

He has learned from his failures and is now more dangerous than ever.

He has learned that the political system is incapable of holding him accountable. He can try to extort a foreign nation for political gain and not be removed from office. He can attempt a coup and not be removed from office.

He has learned that many of his supporters have almost complete contempt for women. It doesn’t matter how many women accuse you of sexual misconduct; your base, including some of your female supporters, will brush it away. You can even be caught on tape boasting about sexually assaulting women, and your followers will discount it.

He has learned that the presidency is the greatest grift of his life. For decades, he has sold gilded glamour to suckers — hawking hotels and golf courses, steaks and vodka — but with the presidency, he needed to sell them only lies that affirmed their white nationalism and justified their white fragility, and they would happily give him millions of dollars. Why erect a building when you could simply erect a myth? Trump will never willingly walk away from this.

Now with the investigation into his involvement in the insurrection and his attempts to steal the election, he is learning once again from his failures. He is learning that his loyalty tests have to be even more severe. He is learning that his attempts to grab power must come at the beginning of his presidency, not the end. He is learning that it is possible to break the political system.

Not only does Trump apparently want to run again for president; The New York Times reported that he might announce as soon as this month, partly to shield himself “from a stream of damaging revelations emerging from investigations into his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election.”

Trump isn’t articulating any fully fleshed-out policy objectives he hopes to accomplish for the country, but that should come as no surprise. His desire to regain power has nothing to do with the well-being of the country. His quest is brazenly self-interested. He wants to retake the presidency because its power is a shield against accountability and a mechanism through which to funnel money.

Should his re-election bid prove successful, Trump’s second term will likely be far worse than the first.

He would tighten his grip on all those near him. Mike Pence was a loyalist but in the end wouldn’t fully kowtow to him. The same can be said of Bill Barr. Trump will not again make the mistake of surrounding himself with people who would question his authority.

Some of the people who demonstrated more loyalty to the country than they did to Trump during these investigations were lower-level staff members. For the former president, they, too, present an obstacle. But he might have a fix for that as well.

Axios reported on Friday that “Trump’s top allies are preparing to radically reshape the federal government if he is re-elected, purging potentially thousands of civil servants and filling career posts with loyalists to him and his ‘America First’ ideology.”

According to Axios, this strategy appears to revolve around his reimposing an executive order that would reassign tens of thousands of federal employees with “some influence over policy” to Schedule F, which would strip them of their employee protections so that Trump could fire them without recourse to appeal.

Perhaps most dangerous, though, is that Trump will have learned that while presidents aren’t too big to fail, they are too big to jail. If a president can operate with impunity, the presidency invites corruption, and it defies the ideals of this democracy.

A Trump free of prosecution is a Trump free to rampage.

Some could argue that prosecuting a former president would forever alter presidential politics. But I would counter that not prosecuting him threatens the collapse of the entire political ecosystem and therefore the country.

47 thoughts on “The Future Of The Nation …”

  3. I think we’re past the point of whether Garland et al will indict—the question is where they’ll feel they have the strongest case(s). And it won’t be nearly as soon as we’d like. In the meantime, fearless young Fani Willis in Georgia is hard at work!

    I just posted another cri de coeur acrostic on this topic.

    Liked by 1 person

    • I think you’re right … and I bet money that he’s wishing he didn’t take this job right about now! Yes, Fani Willis is impressing me!!! She’s like a dog with a bone, and if the courts will step back and let her do her job, we might see some real progress!

      I’ll go check out your latest acrostic in a minute! Thanks!

      Like

  4. The approach of the mid-terms are the last warning. There are indeed candles of hope out there in the gathering darkness of Ignorance and Intolerance, but they will not be enough to stem the tide then crush (yes it has to be crushed) this march to the end of the USA.
    Apathy and Fanatical Ignorance, possibly different sides of the same coin are steadily rolling along until they reached the edge of the table and tip off.
    During the Third Punic Wars 149–146 BC, Cato the Elder would end each speech with ‘Ceterum (autem) censeo Carthaginem esse delendam’ – ‘Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed’.
    Whereas I would not dare to try and put a modern version into Latin, an English equivalent will do:
    ‘Furthermore, I maintain that Donald Trump is a base and opportunistic traitor to The USA. Win Back America,’
    I would suggest each person here adopts that in each post or comment wherever and whenever. Your opposition needs to ramp its rhetoric. Time is running out.

    Liked by 4 people

    • Oh heck yes! As I said when some members and former members of Congress ignored their subpoenas for the January 6th committee, if I ignored a subpoena, the cops would be at my door bright and early the very next day! “Equal justice under law”??? I don’t think so!

      Yes, I feel a revolution heading this way … if only people will wake up!!!

      Liked by 1 person

  6. Forget sustaining the stain of a criminal prosection, think about the international stain on the integrity and honour (or what is left of it) of America if he is not prosecuted. No country will ever trust Ametica again.

    Liked by 3 people

    • Trust is a funny thing, isn’t it? It takes a long time to build up trust in any relationship, whether between two individuals or two nations. But it takes only a second to break that trust, and once that happens, it can never be quite the same again. You are right … the U.S. is on a dangerous path and whatever it takes, Trump should not ever be allowed to run again. In my book, he should be in prison for the rest of his life for what he did to the people of this nation, but nobody reads my book.

      Liked by 2 people

  8. Oh this is such a good article and I almost mentioned the Axios piece to you earlier..it is a doozy…also I hope you read Robert Hubble today…all three basically saying warning..look out for what is coming…as America sits around fat dumb and brainwashed..
    It just makes me ill how utterly stupid and apathetic and clueless people are!

    Liked by 2 people

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