I came across this comment by a commenter named peacerme over at Emptywheel (reading this piece.) I thought it was a good way to think about the problem of prosecuting Trump.
I truly fear the codependent belief that Dems have acted out for years, that taking the moral high ground is the moral equivalent of letting bygones be bygones. This would be what happens in domestic violence when he/she or they forget about the beating last night and move on hoping it will never happen again.
Ignoring the broken laws of the Republican Party. From Iran contra, to Plame, to Iraq war, to Russian interference in our elections, to literally torturing children on the border in a way that will alter their brains for life. Dems behave with this moral superiority that is really just codependency. Instead of living in the truth and allowing the natural consequences, as provided by our laws, the Dems intervene like the father who calls in legal favors for their drug addicted child to save the family name. Never realizing that by interfering with the natural consequences, the perception of truth is altered for the addict and that this interference may well only bolster the disease and hasten the fatal illness of addiction. (If left untreated). This doesn’t require chastisement or anger, but love and the discipline to refuse to protect that addicted child from the consequences of the disease, or the violent partner from the consequence of violent behavior.
If you love your country, you let the truth and it’s consequences reign. And if you are behaving outside of dysfunction you allow the consequences to speak truth to the nation. No matter how unpopular or risky that is. To refuse to do so under some self righteous belief of superiority, some hope that if we ignore it it will go away will continue to chip at our democracy. Dysfunction is contagious. Taking the moral high ground means applying the legal process for truth’s sake despite the consequences. We need Biden’s demeanor of love respect and compassion but we need it side by side with the highest commitment to truth and the legal processes of our country!!
Agreed. Emptywheel’s piece discusses the current thinking about prosecuting Trump and his cronies (assuming no pardon) and it’s obvious that there is a strong desire to not look in the rearview mirror at all this mess. This is part of the problem. Republicans leave a huge mess for Democrats to clean up every time. It always presents this bandwidth argument in which Democrats insist that they have too much on their plate to litigate the past wrongdoings of the Republicans.
It’s possible this time will be at least a little bit different since Trump isn'[t going to quietly retire to Mar-a-lago and play golf and will instead be leading his cult, reminding the country of his degeneracy and corruption every single day. They have to do something. But the impulse to let all this go is strong and it’s hard to argue that if they do it, after all this, that the Democrats aren’t just co-dependent enablers.