Seeming Impunity is Not Legality

 

     In her latest newsletter, Amanda Marcotte touched on something but, unfortunately, didn't follow up on. She wrote:

     "(T)here is one factor that needs to be discussed more: The ongoing impunity of Donald Trump. Here is a sample from just this week of stories about his relentless criminality: He made false claims on court documents about voter fraud. He lied about his purposes in stealing classified documents. He once again defamed a woman who has credibly accused him of rape. He used frivolous legal filings to avoid a lawsuit over his decades of tax fraud. He defrauded taxpayers by dramatically overcharging Secret Service to stay in his hotel. Some members of the Secret Service appear complicit with the attempted coup."

     Right wingers look at Donald Trump's ongoing, decades-long impunity and obviously think, "Well, if he can get away with it, why not me?"

     They respond with similar criminal acts or idiotic statements that their losing campaigns were stolen and that the whole electoral process is rigged. Forget the fact that it would be impossible for Democrats to rig an electoral process that's a patchwork of state laws and forget the fact that after scores of lawsuits in state and federal courts, Donald Trump's bloviating about a rigged 2020 election didn't come close to getting him reinstalled in the Oval Office.

     Forget, also, the Republicans who'd won their races on those so-called rigged 2020 ballots.

     But when they see year after year Trump running around the country free to play golf and give his hate rallies instead of languishing in prison where he belongs, they see a system that's more than broke- They see one that's been fixed for criminals and would-be criminals like them. Every day Trump doesn't have to be deposed, stand trial or remains out of prison is another normalization of the culture of criminality that Trump has successfully branded.

     When the rule of law and its enforcement doesn't mean anything any more, it's farcical to expect rank and file citizens to continue to indefinitely respect those laws. When they see lawmakers and candidates thumb their nose at the rule of law, and with impunity, the electorate will take notice and adjust their thinking accordingly.

     This is why several thousand "patriots" saw no problem storming the Capitol on January 6th 2021 and felt genuinely aggrieved when one Capitol police officer had no choice but to fatally shoot Ashli Babbitt as she attempted to breach a window beyond which were lawmakers literally fleeing for their lives. Time after time, defendants have said, "The president told me to go there and fight for him."

     And, again, it never occurred to these idiots that Trump never pardoned a single one of them on his way out the door. He simply turned off the TV and walked away the moment he realized his Plan B, the hard coup, was a failure. Now he's dangling pardons again and setting up another insurrection in the wake of yet another run at the White House.

     And they're watching. And listening. They see that it took the January 6 select committee 15 months to even hold a vote to subpoena Trump and compel his testimony. And each day that goes by when he doesn't lessens the likelihood that'll happen. They're watching this sluggish Justice Department literally going broke trying all the petty criminals, the foot soldiers of January 6th and taking note of that, too.

     Criminality has long since been normalized on Capitol Hill but lately, we're seeing a normalization of criminality that sees people getting sent to Rikers Island or Columbia Supermax for similar offenses. Forget about campaign finance violations or insider trading. We're seeing the mainstreaming of violence and calls for violence on the part of Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Lauren Boebert and others, all going without serious challenge. And Trump's not far behind with his barely-veiled anti-Semitism in telling American Jews to "get their act together" or else.

     When the rule of law means nothing in the minds of the average American, when cynicism replaces respect for the Republic for which we all should stand, then all we have left is an imperfect, unrealized state of anarchy.