The crimes of the first Trump administration involved not only the occupant of the Oval Office himself, but many others inside the Executive Branch and scattered through Congress and across the country.
Before Trump even lost the 2020 election and began to lie about it, he was impeached for misdeeds in his first campaign and while in office. Some of the offenses in the Mueller Report could have led to criminal prosecution. Certainly his retention and mishandling of classified information would have led to charges. And let's not forget his 34 felony convictions for fraud, and the judgment against him for improperly reporting expenditures related to paying off Stormy Daniels.
Then there's the unresolved matter of the Epstein files. Who knows what's under that scab.
Some small fry were tried and convicted as a result of his crimes, including more than 1,500 people who had taken part in the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Only a handful remain in custody after the mob boss in chief issued blanket pardons to the rioters and individual pardons to favored minions he could spring from federal charges.
A majority of Americans seemed to be okay with the convictions of the January 6th rioters. The criminal behavior was plain to see on national television and all over the Internet. However, the acceptance that MAGA operatives had attacked the mechanisms of government at the strong suggestion of their leader was not enough to discourage voters from putting the criminal back into office in 2024.
As Americans we reject political prosecutions. The current criminal regime has taken advantage of this by generating doubt -- not reasonable doubt, just doubt -- among enough Americans to provide the buffer that the real bad elements have needed to take power and remain viable.
The Constitution describes how to get a bad official out of office, but the framers never imagined that Congress would be controlled by a corrupt president's allies, who would prevent any action to remove him. And one person's corruption is another person's ruthless politics. The First Amendment gives wide latitude to political opinion blending with religious freedom. Yes, there are election laws and supposedly guardrails around the proper roles and functions of government, but the infractions can be hard to explain to ordinary citizens. With a powerful propaganda machine pumping right wing messaging into every media channel like a toxic gas, the intellectual atmosphere is foggy and mind-numbing.
Voting out the Republicans at every level is only step one of the national detox from authoritarianism. The second, vital component is prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment of individuals who have been trying to replace representatives with rulers.
Prosecution of the people who have broken government will elicit howls from the people who relished the authoritarian crackdown on the elements of society that they hate. Many of them used to squawk at length about heavy handed government stepping on the little guy, when what they really hated was not being able to kick down themselves. Once the jackboots were aimed the right way, those brave rebels grew docile and smug.
While we are finding out what it was like to live in Germany during the 1930s, we are also finding out why Reconstruction failed after the Civil War. There were no extensive trials of Confederates. The South did rise again. They bitched and grumbled about having to extend any measure of respect to their former slaves, but they got things mostly their way. It will be even worse this time, because we have the examples of repressive regimes from the early 20th Century onward demonstrating political retribution. Fascist and Communist/Socialist governments as well as independent dictators have shown over and over the dangers of political prosecution.
In a country where government is "of the people, by the people," a politician has to be very obviously extremely criminally corrupt to avoid the accusation of political prosecution. We've had such figures. Right now we have a bunch of them. But the case has to be carefully made. That was one reason that the current occupant of the Oval Office is where he is instead of in prison: the case was being carefully and thoroughly made, and his lawyers threw enough speed bumps in to get him to the 2024 election. A rush to judgment would have failed. The careful walk failed anyway. And then the voters failed massively.
We don't know if we'll get out of the present mess in any kind of shape to seek legal action against the officials who have dragged us here. We don't know what form the MAGA movement will take after the inevitable demise of its god-king. Recovery, if it happens at all, will come in stages and could fail at any time, like recovery from addiction. For that matter, life is full of addictions. The challenge is to get hooked on beneficial things instead of destructive ones. I don't know if we can even control our predilections enough to choose which path we take. Psychology and physics both offer bleak prospects there. But there is dissent in both disciplines. I'm holding out for the things I like. I have slowly learned to be less of a dick to people, so it's apparently possible, but I guarantee that I have relapses, so maybe it's just chrome on a turd. I hope not. For any of you out there trying, keep at it. For any of you blessed to be be perfect by nature, congrats.
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