There seems to be a question of whether or not Democrats should spend time or political capital prosecuting Trump’s coup attempt and his various henchmen for their roles in the January 6th insurrection. The thinking usually goes something like “If Trump (or his goons) go to prison, won’t that just lead to Republicans retaliating by sending future Democratic politicians to jail whether they deserve it or not?” [This implies that Democratic politicians like Don Siegelman didn’t go to jail, even though they didn’t deserve it.]
This question sounds like the kind-of calculation Democrats have made over and over again, AND it has never worked…
—Nixon had henchmen break into the Democratic headquarters to help win an election. He was infamously pardoned by Ford, never saw real ramifications for his crimes after he resigned, and his reputation has been largely rehabbed into that of a “moderate” even though he wasn’t really if you actually listen to all the “private” recordings where he’s ranting and raving about how much hatred he has for various groups.
—Ronald Reagan made a deal with Iran not to release the hostages in an effort to make Jimmy Carter look bad during his reelection campaign. I have no doubt this would’ve been properly considered treason if a Democratic President had done something similar to Reagan.
—Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about a blowjob. This is so absurd it is nearly impossible to type that sentence. Today, the Republican gaslighting of the Clintons has been so successful that many Democrats say the Democratic-held Senate should’ve voted to remove Bill from office, and/or that he should’ve resigned in disgrace…for a blowjob… Bill Clinton has been one of only two US Presidents to leave office with high approval ratings in the last half century (Barack Obama is the other), and yet Republicans have been so successful at morphing his triumphant Presidency into a failure, that many Democrats mistakenly think he was a bad President.
—Florida 2000…Al Gore was never granted a real, proper recount in Florida, and the Bushes fought like hell to prevent one from happening. When they were finally given one, the Republican-majority on the Supreme Court took the jaw-dropping, unprecedented move of stopping a legal recount of votes that determined the Presidency and only 537 votes determined the winner. [This is in extreme contrast to Trump just having had Arizona recount the votes…nine f***ing months after Biden’s been inaugurated, and after he’s already received several recounts.]
—When Obama took office, he declined to investigate the extraordinary abuses of the Bush administrations: rendition, Gitmo, waterboarding, lying about WMDs to get the Iraq War going, Bush spiriting several prominent Saudis (including Bin Laden’s family) out of the country right after 911, Halliburton’s pyramid of abuses and schemes, Valerie Plame, Dick Cheney shooting someone in the face, Hurricane Katrina graft, the regulatory lapses that led to the 2008 economic crisis, Bush letting Bin Laden escape through the mountains of Tora Bora into Pakistan and then refusing to look for him there for 7 years, Alberto Gonzalez firing 100s of assistant attorneys for not prosecuting more Democrats, and probably other stuff I’ve forgotten. …As you might remember, Republicans did not decline to investigate Obama repeatedly for Benghazi and “Fast and Furious” nor Hillary for using a private email server.
—Obama did not make the full connections between Trump and Russia known to the public in 2016, and—many believe—was overly cautious not to appear too partisan in the Presidential race that year. Even though Trump was the “Birther in Chief” who spread baseless, racist, xenophobic, moronic propaganda about Barack Obama for eight years (including that the 2012 race was “rigged” against Mitt Romney, who actually “won” according to Trump), Obama still accepted the Presidential result graciously, and invited Trump to the White House the next day. They had a seamless transition of power…
As you might’ve noticed, Trump infamously did not invite Joe Biden to the White House after he won; Melania never had Jill Biden over for the customary FLOTUS tea; Trump refused to share any information with Biden’s incoming people and transition team for months after the result; Biden’s team had no firm data on CoVid when they took office and had to hit the ground running; Trump and Melania were classless enough to dismiss WH staff the day of the Inauguration so that Joe and Jill had to wait several minutes to be let into the WH and have someone help them with their bags; and—notoriously—Trump refused to accept the election result, tried every trick in the book to steal the race, bullied state election officials to change results, made them count votes over and over (Hillary could’ve done this in 2016 and would’ve been justified to do it, but didn’t), and fomented an angry mob to ransack the Capitol for the first time American citizens have done it in U.S. history.
Where I’m going with all this is that you must punch a bully in the nose. You cannot give them all your candy today, and hope they will go away forever. You can’t pray them away. You can’t say “but if I let them escape punishment today, they’ll remember that tomorrow.” NO.
Republicans have gotten away with absolute murder for decades (breaking into an opponent’s campaign office, making deals with hostile foreign governments to win elections, blowjob impeachments, outright stealing the Presidency, trying to stage a coup to hold onto it). If Trump is allowed to get away with this it sends a terrible message to the next Trump—and there will be a next Trump.
This question is assuming that Republicans won’t try every trick in the book to impeach and convict a lawfully-elected Democratic President, when they absolutely will. This question is also basically saying that letting criminals escape any repercussions for their actions will be rewarded at some future date. That also sounds a lot like the appeasement doctrine that has failed spectacularly from Hitler to Vladimir Putin.
“You cannot negotiate with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.”—Winston Churchill… If Republicans think Democrats are so weak they will not prosecute a coup attempt, then they will absolutely try it again.
Hell yes he must be. Good reminder of what they got away with over the years and I agree they never stop unless Dems won’t stand for it anymore