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Zhi Zhu 🕸️
Zhi Zhu 🕸️
@ZhiZhu@newsie.social  ·  activity timestamp 5 days ago
Text from article: Between Davis and Nixon are any number of more minor figures whose crimes against the body politic were wiped away, if they were ever acknowledged in the first place. So it goes, in the 21st century, with President Trump. Five years ago, as the departing president, he inspired an attack on the United States Capitol in a last-ditch effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. “We fight like hell,” Trump said to an angry crowd of supporters hours before they marched to the Capitol. “And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Before this, Trump had pressured Republicans in states such as Georgia and Michigan to fabricate votes and invalidate results. He pushed his allies, as he put it, to “stop the steal,” and he summoned the mob that would attack Congress and try to stop certification of the Electoral College. (“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Trump tweeted on Dec. 19, 2020. “Be there, will be wild!”) As Jack Smith, the special prosecutor appointed under President Joe Biden to investigate the case against Trump, said in a recent deposition before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, “The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him.”
Text from article: Between Davis and Nixon are any number of more minor figures whose crimes against the body politic were wiped away, if they were ever acknowledged in the first place. So it goes, in the 21st century, with President Trump. Five years ago, as the departing president, he inspired an attack on the United States Capitol in a last-ditch effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. “We fight like hell,” Trump said to an angry crowd of supporters hours before they marched to the Capitol. “And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Before this, Trump had pressured Republicans in states such as Georgia and Michigan to fabricate votes and invalidate results. He pushed his allies, as he put it, to “stop the steal,” and he summoned the mob that would attack Congress and try to stop certification of the Electoral College. (“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Trump tweeted on Dec. 19, 2020. “Be there, will be wild!”) As Jack Smith, the special prosecutor appointed under President Joe Biden to investigate the case against Trump, said in a recent deposition before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, “The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him.”
Text from article: Between Davis and Nixon are any number of more minor figures whose crimes against the body politic were wiped away, if they were ever acknowledged in the first place. So it goes, in the 21st century, with President Trump. Five years ago, as the departing president, he inspired an attack on the United States Capitol in a last-ditch effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. “We fight like hell,” Trump said to an angry crowd of supporters hours before they marched to the Capitol. “And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Before this, Trump had pressured Republicans in states such as Georgia and Michigan to fabricate votes and invalidate results. He pushed his allies, as he put it, to “stop the steal,” and he summoned the mob that would attack Congress and try to stop certification of the Electoral College. (“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Trump tweeted on Dec. 19, 2020. “Be there, will be wild!”) As Jack Smith, the special prosecutor appointed under President Joe Biden to investigate the case against Trump, said in a recent deposition before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, “The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him.”
Zhi Zhu 🕸️
Zhi Zhu 🕸️
@ZhiZhu@newsie.social  ·  activity timestamp 5 days ago
Text from article: Trump tried as much as he could to overthrow the Constitution. That his was an almost farcical and shambolic attempt at an autogolpe does not change the gravity of what happened. And yet Trump isn’t just a free man; he is, once again, the president of the United States. The myth of America says that this can’t happen. But as we see, our history tells us a different story. Our history says that we struggle to hold the powerful accountable. Our history says that we would often rather look the other way than contend with what it means for presidents and other high officials to break their oaths and turn their power against the Republic. Our history says that with enough power, and if you’re the right kind of American, you can escape consequences altogether and die a citizen in good standing.
Text from article: Trump tried as much as he could to overthrow the Constitution. That his was an almost farcical and shambolic attempt at an autogolpe does not change the gravity of what happened. And yet Trump isn’t just a free man; he is, once again, the president of the United States. The myth of America says that this can’t happen. But as we see, our history tells us a different story. Our history says that we struggle to hold the powerful accountable. Our history says that we would often rather look the other way than contend with what it means for presidents and other high officials to break their oaths and turn their power against the Republic. Our history says that with enough power, and if you’re the right kind of American, you can escape consequences altogether and die a citizen in good standing.
Text from article: Trump tried as much as he could to overthrow the Constitution. That his was an almost farcical and shambolic attempt at an autogolpe does not change the gravity of what happened. And yet Trump isn’t just a free man; he is, once again, the president of the United States. The myth of America says that this can’t happen. But as we see, our history tells us a different story. Our history says that we struggle to hold the powerful accountable. Our history says that we would often rather look the other way than contend with what it means for presidents and other high officials to break their oaths and turn their power against the Republic. Our history says that with enough power, and if you’re the right kind of American, you can escape consequences altogether and die a citizen in good standing.
Zhi Zhu 🕸️
Zhi Zhu 🕸️
@ZhiZhu@newsie.social  ·  activity timestamp 5 days ago
Text from article: Jan. 6 was shocking. That Trump left the scene of the crime to return to power is a little less so. And while my points of reference in this column are from the history of the 19th and 20th centuries, you need look only at the last 25 years of American political life to see that this country is unwilling, and thus unable, to hold its political elites responsible for anything, from illegal wars to fraud and other forms of venal wrongdoing. There are many ways to diagnose the state of the nation, but if there is a sickness eating away at American democracy, it is our culture of elite impunity. Trump is at once a symptom of this disease and its apotheosis, a living representation of all the ways the United States has encouraged, tolerated and rewarded the most selfish and antisocial behaviors imaginable, at least among a certain class of person. And with the full might of the federal government in his hands, Trump hopes to institutionalize impunity — to make it the only rule, both here and abroad.
Text from article: Jan. 6 was shocking. That Trump left the scene of the crime to return to power is a little less so. And while my points of reference in this column are from the history of the 19th and 20th centuries, you need look only at the last 25 years of American political life to see that this country is unwilling, and thus unable, to hold its political elites responsible for anything, from illegal wars to fraud and other forms of venal wrongdoing. There are many ways to diagnose the state of the nation, but if there is a sickness eating away at American democracy, it is our culture of elite impunity. Trump is at once a symptom of this disease and its apotheosis, a living representation of all the ways the United States has encouraged, tolerated and rewarded the most selfish and antisocial behaviors imaginable, at least among a certain class of person. And with the full might of the federal government in his hands, Trump hopes to institutionalize impunity — to make it the only rule, both here and abroad.
Text from article: Jan. 6 was shocking. That Trump left the scene of the crime to return to power is a little less so. And while my points of reference in this column are from the history of the 19th and 20th centuries, you need look only at the last 25 years of American political life to see that this country is unwilling, and thus unable, to hold its political elites responsible for anything, from illegal wars to fraud and other forms of venal wrongdoing. There are many ways to diagnose the state of the nation, but if there is a sickness eating away at American democracy, it is our culture of elite impunity. Trump is at once a symptom of this disease and its apotheosis, a living representation of all the ways the United States has encouraged, tolerated and rewarded the most selfish and antisocial behaviors imaginable, at least among a certain class of person. And with the full might of the federal government in his hands, Trump hopes to institutionalize impunity — to make it the only rule, both here and abroad.