There's Only One Way to Eradicate Trumpism for Good

[Nevilledog]

https://newrepublic.com/post/206818/accountability-crime-eradicate-trumpism-democrats

No paywall link
https://archive.li/x8vv5

One of the weirder journalistic spectacles of the Trump era has been watching mainstream news organizations parachute into the hinterlands to try to understand the voters who ushered in, and continue to support, this age of cruelty in America. A recent classic was The New York Times’ herculean effort to find one Minnesota diner whose patrons were willing to talk shit about the ICE resistance in Minneapolis. There has not, however, been an equivalent effort to reveal the everyday people who saw the dangers of Trumpism coming. But this week, TNR contributor Toby Buckle returned to these pages to do just that.

I’m petty enough to enjoy a good round of “I told you so.” One of the better value propositions of your TNR subscription is that you’ll more frequently find yourself in the company of writers who recognized the dangers of Trumpism from several miles off and unflinchingly told the truth about it. That’s why Buckle’s warning that a mere election victory won’t be sufficient to right this ship has stuck in my mind: “We must undertake an ambitious program of accountability and reform in order to create liberal democracy in America again.” So here’s something else I’m going to be right about in advance: The failure to hold the malefactors of Trumpist fascism to account will only ensure its return.

This isn’t some loose theory. Perhaps the best proof of this fundamental fact can be found in recent history, as both Trump’s rise and his return were preceded by Democratic administrations that showed little regard for civic accountability. The Obama administration made the conscious decision to make “looking forward, not backward” the order of the day, to the great relief of Wall Street crooks and war-on-terror torturers. Obama extended grace to those who capsized the economy, and kept showing extreme deference to them throughout his administration.

As The American Prospect’s David Dayen reported this week, an email from recently disgraced Goldman Sachs lawyer Kathy Ruemmler to pedo-oligarch Jeffrey Epstein—in which she seeks advice on how to defend Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White from Senator Elizabeth Warren, who’d been stoking outrage about White’s constant granting of deferred prosecution agreements to corporate criminals—is perhaps the perfect encapsulation of the Obama administration’s laxity. This vacuum of accountability was filled by Trump’s right-wing faux-populism and anti-immigrant sentiment. Much of this could have been headed off.

*snip*

[UpInArms]

1. When we did not prosecute baby bush for 2 unnecessary and endless wars

or the bankers for the 2008 economic crash, we set a nasty precedent

[leftstreet]

2. This right here n/t

[LuvLoogie]

3. I forsee more deferred justice.

The establishment will take our momentum and divert it down an alley into a brick wall of centrist prudence.

[leftstreet]

4. All of our electeds are letting this bar sink so low

Not sure people realize what's happening



DURec

[Solly Mack]

5. ...

[Initech]

6. Best way is to turn off all mass produced news and opinion shows. All of it.

Especially Fox. Fox turns all your good feelings into bad feelings, and all your bad feelings into even worse feelings. It divides us every single day. It was the catalyst for overturning 2 elections. They stole Texas and Florida from us. They stole the Supreme Court. They were instrumental in overturning Roe V Wade. They stole 2000, 2016 and 2024. Nearly all of the problems we've been facing the last 26 years have been either caused by or the direct result of Fox meddling. They aren't a mere news network. They're a catalyst for the destruction of the United States.

[Trueblue Texan]

7. I keep thinking about the ruthlessness of the French Resistance after WWII was over and...

...how the Holocaust is a mark of shame on Germany and throughout Europe now. I give credit to the resistance for holding Nazis and their aiders and abetters accountable for keeping that shame alive. We have to do the same here. We have to be MORE punitive to the wealthy and powerful than common folk for the same crimes. If there is anyone who should be made an example of, it's the rich and powerful who are only driven to their crimes by greed and depravity and not survival.