i think the law is the best way to respond because it's not political and not personal. If a person commits crimes, and there is evidence of these crimes, and they are indicted and convicted, this is due process.
Politicians make the laws, so therefore the law is political. Laws are interpreted by judges, who are also politicians, but just because they wear black robes, people buy into the illusion that they're not political.
In any case, most of the time, the law and the legal processes you're referring to happen inside courtrooms. They don't have a congressional hearing for every crime that's prosecuted. The legal processes can still be carried out transparently without so much drama or fanfare, which are designed to evoke an emotional response, not a rational one.
The kind of rhetoric I'm seeing associated with this process also makes me think that there is an emotional motivation at work, which makes it personal. It's not simply objective, dispassionate blind justice. I get the feeling that some people are really, really mad at Trump and want to get him really badly. They want the whole country to hate Trump just as much as they do. Their message is coming through loud and clear. I assure you I haven't missed it.
I think Trump's lawyers will advise him to tell his supporters to behave themselves. If they create more violence and mayhem it only makes Trump look more like a villain that poses a threat to order. The militias are getting arrested. The followers have social media to organize but they are learning the FBI is watching.
It may not be that easy, though. After all, we can also expect anti-Trump protesters as well, and there may likely be clashes between the rival groups. Then there's the local cops. In recent years, the left has expressed a great deal of scorn and contempt for cops, while the right-wing (including Trump) has kept flowering them with praise, love, and adulation. Are they fully onboard? Can they be trusted? What about the military itself?
In situations like this, you can't always count on everyone following the same rule book. The whole core of this current issue is that Trump didn't follow the rule book, and if he can throw away the rule book, so can others (including those whose responsibility it is to enforce the rules). And then you have yourself a real problem on your hands.
FOX and OAN will spin it all any way they want, but justice needs to be shown to have law and order behind it. Trump is owed nothing. Trump owed the USA a duty, and he failed it. He should not be allowed to intimidate you, me or the whole of the United States of America. He is just one highly flawed and corrupt man. He's gone too far, and he needs to be held accountable.
I'm not intimidated by anyone. I'm just saying that if both sides remain as stubborn and entrenched as they appear to be, then things could get really bad.
I'm reminded of the closing line from
Three Days of the Condor, which were kind of prophetic in a way:
- Higgins : It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In ten or fifteen years, food. Plutonium. Maybe even sooner. Now, what do you think the people are gonna want us to do then?
Joe Turner : Ask them?
Higgins : Not now - then! Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You wanna know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em!
At the end of the day, this is what you're dealing with. We're at the point now where larger segments of the population are demanding that their leaders "get it for 'em."
If our leadership can't or won't do that, then well, that's how revolutions happen. That's how tyrannies happen.
Caesar would never have gained dictatorial power if the other Patricians had not been such greedy tightwads living in the lap of luxury while the common people lived in poverty and squalor. Hitler would not have gained power if people weren't put into a position of having to carry wheelbarrows of money just to buy a loaf of bread. Stalin would never have gained power if not for tsarist greed and incompetence, as well as Western Allied imperialism (along with their own greed and incompetence), not to mention the Kaiser's greed and incompetence (which also ties into to Hitler's rise to power).
Do you not see a recurring pattern here? It seems that the lesson should be quite simple to understand: Take care of the needs of the people, first and foremost. Do not countenance the kind of greed and incompetence which has been running roughshod throughout our political system, our legal system, our economic system, and across the entire culture. All of what we're seeing now could have been avoided if we had more foresight and paid closer attention to the basics.
All they're doing now is providing the circus, but no bread. And that's where they're losing the hearts and minds. Those who have bread can sit back and enjoy the circus, but if they're living in a nice home in a nice neighborhood and know where their next meal is coming from, then they have that luxury. They have the luxury to be outraged by this "egregious attack on our democracy." Those who aren't as blessed as that don't have that luxury, and therein lies the difference.
If the only thing the Democrats can say about our current economic dilemmas is to give endorsement to capitalism while saying "there's nothing we can do," then their days are numbered. They people will grow to be impatient with empty words and platitudes. They will need something substantial and concrete to placate them, so the Democrats better be willing to come across with the bread when the time comes - or else the people will look to others to get their daily bread. And they won't care much about lawyers' prattle or "rules" either, so you won't be able to fall back on that either. You'll have to be ready to fight and ready to kill.
I'm not afraid of death myself, but I don't have it in my heart to fight or kill. So I'd probably go down without a struggle. I'm not prepared for a long-term crisis. I have no emergency food supply. I have no weapons caches or ammunition. I don't even have a pick-up truck anymore. I have a box of band-aids, which is the extent of my first aid and medical supplies. I expect to be an early casualty if/when the SHTF. But I've lived most of my life, so I'm not too worried about dying. It'll happen sooner or later anyway.
But I do worry about what will happen to others and what they'll have to go through. I don't care about abstract concepts like "democracy," but I do care about people and the suffering they go through - and the even greater suffering they'll endure if these stubborn, entrenched political factions can't take the chip off their shoulder long enough to reach some sort of reconciliation or show some desire for peaceful coexistence.
I don't relish any of this, which is why I would much rather that people simply step back and take a deep breath. No day is a good day to die. We can choose not to fight today.
