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Biden's inaction, and his appointing Merrick Garland who also did far too little far too late, are only two of many events in a long chain that built up to this.
Before Biden there was the failure to do anything about Obama's war crimes, the failure to do anything about GWB's numerous war crimes and lies that started two wars, the failure to do anything about Reagan and the Iran-Contra scheme or the rigging of HUD, the failure to actually prosecute Nixon... all the way back to failing to prosecute the confederates that murdered 1.5 million people. Jefferson Davis was never even prosecuted, and was released from jail after two years without a trial.
The US is broken because it has never held powerful people responsible for their crimes. The revolution to escape a king only established an oligarchy of the wealthy.
Trump stalled the trials until he became president. That is why Merrick Garland had the same success as everyone else that has tried to hold Trump accountable.
Biden took office Jan 20th, 2021. Garland didn't appoint Jack Smith until November 18th, 2022 - one year and almost ten full months later. Almost halfway through Biden's term. What Trump did on January 6th was obvious and well known before Biden took office, the fact that Jack Smith wasn't appointed IN EARLY 2021 is a colossal failure on Biden's part.
The January 6th insurrection involved tens of thousands of people that had to be interviewed, interrogated and investigated. It involved people from across the country and mountains of evidence to be processed. Everything from social media posts to surveillance footage. To top it all off there was no room for error because Trump has always used corruption to escape consequence.
Trump loyalist that were involved did everything they could to help Trump by slowing the process.
When you attack someone for trying to hold Trump accountable you discourage others from trying to hold Trump accountable.
Yes, there was a lot of work to do. Which is why waiting almost two years to start working is so fucking appalling. They should have started in early 2021!
It took that long because Merrick did things by the book. Because any other way would increase Trump’s chances of winning.
In the end the timing didn’t matter because U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon permanently blocked the Department of Justice from publicly releasing Special Counsel Jack Smith’s final investigative report regarding Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents.
Starting earlier would not change that outcome.
The classified documents in his bathroom should have been a slam dunk and a short trial but Cannon did everything she could to drag that one out.
In the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attack, the government captured and held hundreds of men without due process, which it justified as exigent circumstances. In the aftermath of the nation's democratic institutions being attacked, which was an exigent circumstance if I've ever seen one, it did nothing. There were thousands of people involved, and lots of evidence to collect, but we knew who the ringleaders were. They should have been in Gitmo by the end of the day on January 21st, 2021.
But, as the OC said, this country never holds the powerful accountable.
In the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attack the court of public opinion was in agreement that it was justified as exigent circumstances. No Americans were defending the terrorist.
In the aftermath of the nation’s democratic institutions being attacked, it was a large portion of the voting populous that was actively contributing, primarily due to psyop campaigns from Russia and the Trump administration that convinced a large amount of the populous that the election was stolen. The people that were victims of this campaign were judges, politicians, military leaders and many other roles that allowed them to do things like Judge Cannon when she dismissed the 40-count federal indictment against Donald Trump and two aides, ruling that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.
The difference between these two scenarios are so obvious they shouldn’t need explaining.
Not ar all. The GOP were angry, or left in stunned silence for weeks; it was fascinating at the time to watch them re-frame the narrative in public, in real time. In the first days, though, I doubt they would've objected. And so what if they did? Biden was the President, how would they stop him? If there had been a MAGA uprising, it could have been crushed, just like Occupy Wall Street was.
Also, plenty of people objected to the flouting of due process in 2002. The difference is not that some people objected.
MAGA is made up of people with systemic power like judges, cops, military leaders, the billionaire class.
The occupy Wall Street movement never had members with that much power. Or anywhere near the same numbers.
The majority of Americans were ok with the reactions to 2001 terrorist attacks.
That was the point, wasn't it? That the U.S. has never held the powerful to account.
The point was that in the example of the terrorist attacks that there wasn’t anyone to hold accountable because as far as the majority was concerned there was nothing to be held accountable for.
With the example of Jan 6th U.S. tried to hold Trump accountable but was prevented by Trump himself with the help of a majority of the voting populous.
In a democracy it’s the voters that decide if there is something to be held accountable for. In both examples the voters decided there was nothing to be held accountable for.
In addition to that there are plenty examples of the U.S. holding the powerful to account. Here’s what I found in just a few seconds:
George Santos: The former New York Republican Congressman was arrested and indicted on a 13-count federal indictment in May 2023 for charges including wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and making false statements.
Chris Collins: The New York Representative was indicted and arrested in 2018 for tipping off his son to confidential corporate information regarding an Australian biotechnology company. He resigned and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and lying to law enforcement.
Duncan Hunter: The California Representative was indicted in 2018 and eventually pleaded guilty to misusing over \(\$150,000\) in campaign funds for personal expenses, including family vacations, movie tickets, and extramarital affairs.
Larry Householder: The former Ohio Speaker of the House was arrested and convicted in March 2023 in a \(\$60\) million federal racketeering and bribery scheme—one of the largest public corruption cases in state history.
Steve Watkins: The former Kansas Republican congressional candidate and Representative was charged with three felony counts and one misdemeanor regarding voter fraud and illegally registering his residence at a UPS store ahead of the 2019 election.
David Rivera: The former Florida Representative was arrested in Atlanta in December 2022 and indicted for federal charges including acting as an unregistered foreign agent for a Venezuelan national and conspiracy to launder money.
It's almost like the political system incentivizes and relies on its presidents committing mass atrocities in order to exist!
This is why the Democrats will never save us. The Democrats need these wars, and war crimes, and corruption, and over policing, and the most authoritarian criminal justice system on the planet, and the military spying on citizens, and international drug running, and black market arms selling, and genocide, and millions of deaths by depravation. They need just as much as the Republicans need them.
And that's because the US government, like all liberal governments (which is most of the world's governments), are actually systems for managing the interests and conflicts of the powerful. The masses are powerful, the billionaires/merchants are powerful, the military is powerful. There are factions within all of these power centers and the government's function is to prevent civil war at any scale to prevent the destruction of capital assets and to create the conditions for the success of these factions.
The masses aren't in power. So the government's function relative to the masses is to prevent them from revolting and keep them laboring for profit and filling the ranks of the military
The military's primary function after ensuring no domestic revolt is to destroy the capital of competitors in other countries and to prevent coalition building against the enemies of the American billionaires and, because kf historical relationships, the Western European billionaires.
The billionaires are the ones that fight amongst themselves the most. The tech faction, the industrial faction, the finance faction - these faction has different theories about how to remain in power and wealth. And the problem is that the entire world system that made them powerful and rich is waning. The ecosystem is under immense pressure. Many nations have established effective resistance against both US military power and US financial power, and more are developing them and forming coalitions. The Chinese outmaneuvered the American billionaires and created a situation where destroying Chinese capital results in the destruction of America and European wealth and the ability of the government to keep the masses docile with cheap commodities.
The whole American system, and by historical process, the whole European system, is facing down a fundamental shift in global economics that threatens to completely undo their entire power structure. They don't give a flying fuck about abortions or trans people or voting rights or whatever wedge issue they pick next. They are doing that to manage the masses, keep them scared, keep them fighting amongst themselves, and keep them collaborating with the "good cop" faction (the Democrats). They have never cared to hold their leaders accountable for crimes because they all fundamentally agree with the motivation and outcomes of those crimes. They are scrambling to figure out how to keep their gravy train running and they do not have an answer. They need to take drastic actions and they don't know if they'll work, so they need lightning rod presidents to absorb all the negativity and so they can perform "resistance" to maintain the allegiance of those they oppress.
The Rs are the bad cop and the Ds are the good cop. You do not work with the good cop just because they perform higher moral positioning or because they soothe your anxieties about or claim to be protecting you from the bad cop. They are collaborators. They are working for the same department, they have the same goals, they just need you to participate.
More people didn't vote than voted for Kamala or trump...
The problem is voter turnout, because people thought even if Kamala won, Dem.votersbwouldmt.
It ain't that complicated.