My Rules or Else! Or "Lock Him Up?"

We live an era where too many of those who believe in privileged rule also believe in those entitlements that benefit rich incumbents over those in clearly different (and lower) economic strata. Farmers accepting massive federal farm subsidies, fund managers living with the carried interest rule (that often accords them a lower tax rate than their clerical assistants), businesses and rich individuals (including ultra-right-wing members of Congress like Marjorie Taylor Green) who slorped down federal pandemic relief, those who earned their degrees when tuition rates and inflation rates were still linked, etc. are among those conservatives railing against any forgiveness of federal student loans today.

This notion of a two-tiered legal (“entitlement”?) system has grown in popularity, particularly within the MAGA crowd, even when it applies to criminal liability. They use the words “entitlement” and “socialism” to oppose the very economic disparity they seem to enjoy and the words “patriotism,” “rigged,” “witch hunt” and “woke” when it comes to criminal accountability of rioters and political/cultural realties they despise. Immigrants are not poor people fleeing cartel-wars, from ultra-violent organizations which mostly generate income from US addicts and are built on illegally imported American guns… they are people that the Democratic Party is importing to “replace” White Christian Republicans.

While secretly, most elected Republicans find the sycophantic loyalty of the “base” to the whims of Donald Trump distasteful, most have discovered without blind obedience to Trump’s beck and call, their political careers are shot. Remember what GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said after a GOP vote in lockstep failed to convict Trump of the House Articles of Impeachment? “There's no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day [the Capitol insurrection]… The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president, and having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.” His take was that the impeachment path was not appropriate after a president left office. There were other, more appropriate forums for that criminal accountability, he maintained.

While House Minority Leader, Republican Kevin McCarthy only favored the possibility of congressional censorship, his words after the above Senate failure to convict were clear nonetheless: “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack [1/6/21] on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.”

A little over a year and a half later, even as vast pools of additional evidence of Trump’s seemingly obvious criminal activity – from pressuring the Georgia Secretary of State to “find” enough votes to overturn the election results, his knowing failure to turn over all classified documents within his possession even after a federal subpoena (documents which only became clear after a warranted search of his home), his tax games in New York, etc., etc. – GOP candidates and elected officials are quite prepared to let Trump avoid any criminal accountability, joining in the “witch hunt” chorus that has not yet worn thin among GOP loyalists.

In July, Attorney General Merrick Garland seemed to suggest that the Department of Justice was finally ready to move against a former sitting president, by saying, ““We will hold accountable anyone who is criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the legitimate, lawful transfer of power.” Really? On August 28th, LA Times editorial writer, Doyle McManus summarized the pros and cons of indicting and then trying Donald Trump. Here are some key excerpts:

“First, that it’s unseemly for a president of one party to prosecute a former president of the other. It would set a terrible precedent, making the United States look like a ‘banana republic.’… That’s a fair point — except failing to prosecute the author of an attempted coup would set a terrible precedent too.

“Second, prosecuting Trump would further inflame the nation’s division, even inspire violence. One of Trump’s lawyers has warned bluntly that an indictment would unleash ‘mayhem.’… That’s an even worse argument. It amounts to a rioter’s veto: Let our guy walk or we’ll burn the country down.

“Anti-Trump Republican Mona Charen recently offered a more nuanced version: Indicting Trump, she warned, could make it easier for him to win a second term in 2024. But that’s not how prosecutors are supposed to make decisions — even assuming they could predict the political impact of a trial.

“Finally, several former prosecutors have cautioned that winning a unanimous conviction is harder than it looks, and the case against Trump might not be a slam-dunk… If a single juror refused to convict, former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig warned, ‘Trump would claim that as an acquittal.’… This argument is more persuasive. But it isn’t a case against prosecuting Trump under all circumstances; it’s an argument against bringing a shaky case.

“There’s still a big downside to a decision not to prosecute, another former prosecutor, Donald Ayer [former Principal Deputy Solicitor General during the final three years of the Reagan Administration. In 1989, he was appointed by President George H.W. Bush as Deputy Attorney General during 1989-1990 and Georgetown Professor of Law], told me. ‘If we have clear evidence, the message of failing to bring charges would be that we don’t stand up to people who try to overturn a legitimate election,’ he said.”

For me, there is one more big reason to indict and prosecute. The message for future American politicians would otherwise become the destruction of the last vestiges of democracy we could ever claim.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the very foundation of our nation was the rejection of an imperious ruler… it was King George III then, and it just might be King Donald Trump today.