Slate "The Price of No Consequences for T***p". important read.

[NewHendoLib]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/06/no-consequences-for-trump-garland-biden.html

Joe Biden and Merrick Garland are acting like Donald Trump was a crazy dream. But the threat to American democracy will only get worse the longer we ignore it.
BY DAHLIA LITHWICK
JUNE 14, 20215:40 AM

Things are supposed to feel better now—better than they felt during the Trump administration, at least. The Biden administration and the Justice Department appear hellbent on restoring the (appearance of) normalcy, boring us to death, and getting past the days of a citizenry held captive to madcap tweets. That’s why the administration is focusing on infrastructure, COVID relief, economic recovery, and the workaday acts of governance.

Except that alongside these acts of sleepy normalcy we see constant reminders of where we have been and where we are still heading. In the past few days we have learned—among other object horrors—that Donald Trump’s Justice Department seized metadata records for members of the House Intelligence Committee and their families, whom it suspected of leaking. We learned that Trump supporters have been leveling crippling death threats against state election workers. We learned that White House counsel Don McGahn had been instructed to fire Robert Mueller. We learned that in 2019, Rudy Giuliani, acting in his capacity as Trump’s personal lawyer, pressed Ukraine to announce baseless investigations about alleged Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election. And yet as Richard Painter and Claire O. Finkelstein showed last week, the Justice Department has worked to stymie investigations and litigation that would unearth at least some of these truths, in a quest to protect institutional prerogatives and values.

Perhaps this would all be understandable if we had actually turned a page. But this great unearthing taking place in the press right now has also revealed that Donald Trump and some of his (never disbarred) lawyers are presently insisting that he will be “reinstated” as president in August, that several Republican senators who lost in November will be swept back into office with him, that Trump is insisting that “audits” in Arizona and other states are going to trigger a nonexistent mechanism for his return to office. Oh and that huge numbers of Republicans believe him.

In other words, nothing that is meant to be over is actually over. Because nothing was ever really litigated in the first instance. Despite the best efforts of Robert Mueller, two impeachment trials, myriad court cases, House oversight, and a decisive election, we can all see that the worst excesses of the Trump years were pleaded, argued, sometimes proved, and then dismissed. The difference between papering over and closing a case could not be more apparent than it is now. There has been no real reckoning with the broken laws and shattered norms of the Trump presidency, nor with the ostensibly conclusive results of the 2020 election, and certainly not with the violent insurrection of Jan. 6. As Will Saletan observed last week, none of these theoretically discrete phenomena are dead or buried; they are instead not merely informing many people’s present but also rapidly distorting the future:
Two-thirds to three-quarters of Republicans continue to say that President Joe Biden was illegitimately elected. More than 60 percent say the election was “stolen from Trump.” When they’re asked who “the true President is right now,” most Republicans say it’s Trump. And more than 30 percent of Republicans reject a basic premise of democracy: that “the loser in an election must concede defeat.”


snip

last paragraph

I don’t have any prescription for how to reason with a radicalized GOP, a post-truth electorate, or a conspiracy-addled former president, nor do I harbor any illusions that tackling the problems of minority rule, racial violence, and weaponized law enforcement head on will allay the problems of creeping illiberalism. But gritting your way through it by pretending it’s not happened or happening will continue to open a bigger and bigger chasm between what we know to be true and what we want to believe. With all due respect to those who would like to continue to lecture us about the mathematically correct ratio of concern to destabilizing danger, we’ve actually done a fairly decent job of understanding that ratio intuitively all along. This is a profoundly dangerous moment, and being told to get over it is just as jarring when it comes from inside the guardrails of democracy as it was when it came from the smirking authoritarians that has replaced. That’s why it doesn’t feel any better. If anything, gaslighting about ongoing threats to democracy might be even scarier when it comes from the very people who were supposed to protect us.


hard to know where to snip because it is all worth reading.

[brooklynite]

1. Yawn.....

Once again, not indicting Trump as quickly as the blogosphere wants is not ignoring him.

[NewHendoLib]

2. the response I expected from you.

then again, it's your stuff that makes me yawn.

[brooklynite]

3. Now, I was responding to the article, not making a personal criticism, but you be you...

In the meantime, since you HAVE decided that Garland et al are "ignoring" Trump, what are you going to do about it other than complain on a political blog?

[NewHendoLib]

4. here's the thing - we have a long, long history of letting "criminals" in politics off the hook.

as for what I am doing - I am not a politician. I have my own ways for making the world a better place.

Sorry I sniped at you, but centrist type, "let it play out" positions have gotten us into a lot of trouble. I think we are just in very different places - from years of being here, you are far more middle left, I am far more far left. We can just agree to disagree about that.

[brooklynite]

5. But this has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with the mechanics ofcriminal justice.

My wife is a lawyer and a former prosecutor; the legal process does not move at the speed bloggers seem to expect (perhaps from watching too many LAW & ORDER episodes). More importantly, it doesn't happen with public briefings about the status of the investigation or the evidence compiled.

[NewHendoLib]

7. slow is fine....never is not fine. thinking Plame/Libby, Mueller, seeming all recent

examples. What happens is that bad situations become normalized. I think Lithwick is absolutely spot on. That he who I can't name has such a long history of getting away with everything steams me. And having it go on so long leads to what we are seeing - his huge cult.

[Autumn]

12. Had there been consequences for Barr in 1989 when he lied to Congress he might not have

been the AG for the orange turd.

[PatSeg]

16. Actually, I think you are both right

Justice does take time and should be thorough. Also, in the past we've seen too many people not held accountable, which only gives them and others permission to abuse the system again and again. This was especially true of the Bush administration - torture, financial crisis, invasion of Iraq, etc. Before that the Reagan administration.

I hope this time there will be indictments and accountability. We can't move forward if we don't clean up the mess from the past. "Our long national nightmare" is not over. It wasn't in 1974 and it certainly isn't today. I am willing to be patient, as I know this takes time, but I cannot accept so much abuse and malfeasance going unpunished.

Interesting and informed debate. Good to keep it alive.

[NewHendoLib]

20. Excellent point. It has to be the push/pull between Democrats of all ilks to drive the needed

change. Thanks for your important insight. I will be the first to put my hand up and say that I am impatient - especially when people are being hurt.

[PatSeg]

29. After enduring eight years of GW Bush

I remember quite clearly how disappointed I was, as well as many people here, when Obama declared we would be looking forward, not backward. It is a nice sentiment and certainly applies in many situations, but when people in power are a danger to their citizens and even the world at large, then I don't see how we can look forward. The Allies realized that after World War II and though not everyone involved in the atrocities and war crimes were held accountable, at least there was a very real and public effort to not sweep it all under the rug.

That said, I also agree with what Brooklynite said about the mechanics of the justice system. When done right, it does not move quickly and usually not in public. It is authoritarian justice systems that tend to move quickly and decisively. So for now, I have to trust that the Biden DOJ is investigating the many crimes that have taken place over the past four years and hopefully not just the small potatoes, like the January 6th insurrectionists. The people in power who incited them to violence should be held to a much higher standard.

Meanwhile, we can still be sure that our voices are heard and that we will not accept an absence of accountability for those who betrayed the country's trust and threatened our very democracy. I am exhausted and I need to see some indictments, but I will wait if I know they're coming.

[Hortensis]

10. The big unknowing complaint is that we haven't politicized it.

It's not intended, but that's what is wanted. Biden and other major party figures on TV repeatedly detailing Trump and Co crimes, explaining results of new investigations, promising swift and painful justice for all, and delivering.

That would be nice. In its Repubican-corrupt way. Until we remember that the authoritarian government they plan both could and would deliver.

All I hope is that disappointed frustration doesn't lead to striking out with claims of Democratic corruption and lack of principle, a failure of personal morality in itself. Inevitably, some will give aid and comfort -- and huge cover -- to the Republicans by doing just that. And in these very dangerous times even temporary refusal to separate the good guys from bad could be the final fatal lmistake for our democracy and our justice system.

[StarfishSaver]

14. Beautifully said!

[NewHendoLib]

21. I am utterly and completely pro-Demoratic - Democratic principles.

But our Democratic leaders must stand for those as well. I don't give carte blanche to a label.

[Hortensis]

30. "But"? You have doubts that our national leaders stand for Democratic principles?

Are there ones you worry about in particular?

Some do seem to already doubt our new AG. As a matter of principle Biden does not tell his AG how to do his job. Presidents are not supposed to do that. But they do appoint them to carry out their own ideological goals through the DoJ. Wouldn't doubting AG Garland's integrity be to doubt Biden's comitment to Democratic and democratic principles?

[NewHendoLib]

31. Sinema and Manchin primarily.

[Hortensis]

33. Oh. Fwiw, I don't regard them as Democratic leaders and of course

inevitably they've raised concern about their commitment to democracy. But I don't feel their atypical positions should undermine trust in the integrity of our national leaders, or of their liberal colleagues.

As it is, they're behaving pretty much as what they ran as in conservative-dominant states, where most voters expect them to protect both progressive programs that benefit them and Republican power. They never claimed to represent the full spectrum of Democratic Party principles.

[StarfishSaver]

13. Thank you

These folks want red meat to chew on, bloviate about and, most important, generate clicks for dollars.

Justice is not a major concern for them at all.

[malaise]

6. Excellent read

Thanks and Rec

[NewHendoLib]

8. thanks, my friend - I guess you and I are members of the "Impatient Club"!

how irrational of us!

[malaise]

9. I'd rather be impatient

than laid back or yarning about serious matters

[Lonestarblue]

11. I'm also in that club.

We watched four years of Trump corruption and illegal behavior. Mueller gathered the evidence to indict Trump for obstruction of justice the minute he was out of office. I do not know whether that is even being considered by the DOJ, but it seems doubtful. If the DOJ has no intention of following up on the Mueller investigation, then they need to announce that they have reviewed the evidence and explain why the ten cases Mueller cited did not rise to obstruction. Instead, it all seems to be disappearing under the rug.

I’m pleased that Garland has announced a DOJ initiative on the restrictive voting laws and voter nullification that Republican legislatures are passing. I know the wheels of justice grind slowly, but this is one area where speed truly is essential because the 2022 election will be upon us before we can blink. If those laws are still in place and being enforced, we will have every close election won by a Democrat overturned, and the resulting lawsuits will throw the country into chaos waiting for the courts to declare the winners.

[MadLinguist]

15. Scary the way an abused child is more angry and traumatized by the stand-by parent than the monster

This last sentence resonates:
"Gaslighting about ongoing threats to democracy might be even scarier when it comes from the very people who were supposed to protect us."

Identifying the monster, and acknowledging its monstrosity is EVERYTHING to the traumatized victim.
The long-term affects of the failure to protect by the "responsible" party are debilitating.
Paralysis and inability to trust are conditions that do not right themselves unaided.
What the hell else is a government for?

[Autumn]

17. The government has become the protector of the wealthy, corrupt and powerful

people

[NewHendoLib]

19. yes. see my post just below this one.

[HUAJIAO]

24. Hasn't it always been that way, only maybe now worse.

[Autumn]

25. It's wide open and in our faces.

[NewHendoLib]

18. Here's my other suspicion about those pleading patience - I have a feeling that they may feel

like they are protected from the damage being done - by their racial class or status, income, or both.

And that to me is unforgivable. It is the impatient - the pains in the ass - that have to drive positive change. Otherwise, it is a return to "normalcy" (hah) and status quo (double hah).

If this place ends up being bullied into centrist/moderate/apologist underground, it will be very, very sad.

[Autumn]

22. Yes. Very good analysis of what is currently happening.

Thank you for the OP and this.

[NewHendoLib]

23. thanks, my friend.

[HUAJIAO]

26. I have to remind myself sometimes that I will NOT be protected from what may come.

I have a life long history of not suffering fools lightly. In that regard I have little patience.

Sometimes it results in a success of one kind of another and other times I get myself in a pickle....

[dalton99a]

27. Kick

Justice delayed is justice denied

[Fiendish Thingy]

28. For reference/comparison, let's look at the case of former AG John Mitchell

The Watergate break-in occurred in 1972, with the coverup following in 1973-74.

Nixon resigned in August 1974.

Mitchell was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of Justice in February 1975.

Mitchell didn’t report to prison to serve his sentence until 1977.

And remember, this was after almost two years of media investigations and nearly a year of televised congressional hearings and a special prosecutor investigation.

Without a global pandemic or economic crisis.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

32. TFG needs to be prosecuted and held responsible for his crimes

[Tommymac]

34. K & R for Must Read.

We fix it now, or will PAY for it in the not so distant future.