Walls Finally Closing in on Trump?
Published at 08:41 on 4 August 2022
I don’t have time at the moment to list all the reasons (this is a big part of it), but it really seems as if they might finally be. I still do not have much respect for the generally rotten state of American political culture, but I would estimate that right now signals indicate that odds are slightly in favour of Trump and his top cronies in fascism getting prosecuted.
For liberty and an open society to survive in the USA, the above must happen. It is a “this town isn’t big enough for the both of us” situation: either fascism will crush democracy, or democracy will crush fascism.
And yes, this is advocating for using the power of the State to crush a political movement. And yes, that is an incredibly dangerous thing to advocate for. The USA is in an incredibly dangerous position. Safety is simply not an immediate option. Refraining from crushing the fascists will not preserve liberty; it will merely make it inevitable that the fascists will crush democracy.
The means exist: the fascists broke a large number of existing laws in their effort to remain in power despite losing an election. Enforce those laws and you crush the fascist movement. All that needs to be done is to abandon the disgusting precedent that those high up enough in power ought to be exempt from the laws that apply to everybody else.
Trump and his cronies should get their day in court. They should be allowed to go after prosecutorial misconduct. They should be allowed to argue for their innocence. If convicted and sentenced, they should be entitled to standards of humane treatment, and should be allowed to file lawsuits against the state if those standards are violated.
Under the current rules of the game, they will be. If the fascists are not crushed and are allowed to gain power, they will extend none of these niceties to those whom they crush.
It is them or us. Crush them. It may be indelicate to say it, but it really is that simple.