Accountability is Elusive
We hardly know where to begin, but the Supreme Court has (most surprisingly) shown us the way. If corporations are people, too: let's hold them accountable.
The United States Capitol remains a crime scene. The debris of January 6 has long since been cleared away and the physical damage repaired, but there are much deeper wounds festering. The disease threatening our republic has metastasized like an unseen cancer. So much lasting damage has already been done, and 250 years of progress — halting, at times — is in shambles. The reputation of the United States as a reliable ally, as a stable democracy, as a force for good in the world has been wrecked. With hard work that reputation will, 250 years hence, be somewhat restored, but the leadership role will not be. That’s a mixed blessing, for this nation as well as for the rest of the planet.
For the last 100 years the United States has tried to hold itself to a higher standard, to model for the world what a “nation of laws, not of men” could look like. And since the end of World War II the world has, by and large, looked to the United States for leadership, for aid, for a moral compass (albeit flawed). No more. Our allies are moving on without us.
Exceptional No More
European nations are indeed — as Trump demanded — spending more on their own defenses. They are building new facilities, both in-nation and off-shore (as it were): the French, for example, are building a new facility in the British Isles: the Americans can no longer be trusted to guarantee their security, and so our allies are proceeding without us.
But let’s not even think about the rest of the world. Let’s bring our attention home, fully, and sit with the fact that our chief law enforcement officer is the president’s own criminal defense attorney. Look at those three words again, and remind yourself that the Attorney General of the United States — whose client was convicted of thirty-four felonies — is by his own admission far more dedicated to Trump than to the rule of law. And remind yourself that the convicted felon now sits in the Oval Office, lives in public housing that we pay for, and on his own initiative decided to demolish government property so that he could build a 90,000 square foot ballroom. I’m not against dancing, but I do wonder (a) if Donald Trump is now, or ever was, capable of cutting a rug; and (b) whether that’s the best use of taxpayer funds right now (or ever).
We are, to begin with, engaged in a war. A war of choice, an illegitimate and illegal war that we started, a war with no end in sight, a war that has pushed the price of oil is about 15% higher today than when the war began — with several periods, in the last five months, over 50%. Ships cannot traverse the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil normally travels. This means higher prices not only for oil but for essential things like fertilizer — and so, thanks to the war, the price of food is higher too. (I’m a simple man: remind me who it was who promised to lower prices “on Day One” of his administration?)
In the United States Senate, once dubbed “the world’s greatest deliberative body,” the senators (like their counterparts across the Capitol in the House of Representatives) have forgotten how to do their jobs, or even what their jobs are.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who will be entering forced retirement come January thanks to Trump, volunteered last week that he would vote to approve Blanche as Attorney General after all, despite knowing that he’s unfit and unqualified: “We can’t rein him in. We can’t rein the president in.” Question for Senator Cornyn: Have you even tried?
The answer is self-evident, on both sides of the Capitol. Which remains a crime scene, with crimes in progress whenever Congress or the Senate is in session.