Leroy Knohl for BuzzFlash: Trump and His Criminal Enablers Must Be Prosecuted if Democracy Is to Be Saved
In order for democracy to prevail, former President needs to be prosecuted (Gage Skidmore)
August 2, 2021
By Leroy Knohl
Democrats in Congress, the Department of Justice and the White House face a big decision. The decision they make will have major consequences for their party and the nation. What they face is much like a driver at a fork in the road where one choice leads to miles of open road, the other to a concrete barricade.
Democrats have faced similar decisions a number of times over the past forty years: whether to hold Republicans accountable for their monumental criminal actions. And in the past, they have been too timid to act, basically choosing the path with the concrete barricade.
And, for the Democrats, the outlook is bleak. Republicans have pulled out all the stops, setting the stage for them to steal future elections by creating laws to effect Democratic voter suppression and changing state election procedures to allow them to overturn results they don’t like. They also plan to heavily use gerrymandering to inflate their presence in the government far beyond what their voting percentage justifies. Democrats plan to counter that by passing the For the People Act, but some Democratic Senators refuse to void the filibuster and such passage is now blocked. Unless the Act is passed, Democrats will face strong headwinds in trying to maintain their Congressional majorities after the 2022 midterms. In addition, filibuster-hugger Sinema now wants to block Biden’s bill that aims to uplift the middle class.
Another serious cloud they face is one created by the GOP following Trump’s lead in insisting the election was stolen from him. Recent polling results are ominous for the country’s health: 80% of Republican voters now believe Trump’s lie, and 40% of them say resorting to violence to restore the government to its proper state would be acceptable. And just such an action was demonstrated in the Jan 6 assault.
And sharing the future with the Republican Party bodes ill for the direction of the country; the GOP has abandoned its role as a political party, acting instead to fight only for power in the government and to block any Democratic attempts to conquer the virus or to boost the middle class.
Facing this situation, the Democrats again wrestle with their decision of whether to hold Republicans accountable for their crimes. And this time the crimes were HUGE; the Jan 6 attack and the Republicans voting to oppose the valid results of Electoral College counts are clear attempts to overturn a valid election’s results, basically killing democracy.
Realize too that, by not prosecuting, the Democrats would be seriously negating the rule of law, a clear violation of the principles of a democracy. And the lesson this would give to Republicans is that whatever criminal actions they take in their effort to wrest control of the country from the rightful authority is okay.
The decision to prosecute Trump can’t be any stronger for the Democrats. And the guilt of Trump in criminally inciting an insurrection is clear; the elaborate case laid out by the Impeachment Committee proves his guilt and this has only been strengthened as recent additional evidence has come out. And putting Trump in jail would frustrate the GOP’s plans to keep him in a leadership role in order to benefit from the strength of his cult. One added benefit of prosecuting: the Congress could deny Trump the possibility of future office by invoking Section 3 of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
And invoking this Amendment would provide Democrats additional leverage over the Republicans: 147 Republican Congressmen voted to oppose the valid results of the Electoral College count for Biden, a clear violation of their oath of office. By applying this Amendment in these cases, all 147 Republican incumbents could be blocked from seeking re-election, a major disruption to GOP efforts going forward.
The Democrats’ decision to prosecute will have major consequences for them and the country going forward; will they have the fortitude to uphold the rule of law this time, or will they slink back to their scaredy-cat position taken so often in the past? One thing is clear: Republican actions in the past point to the fact that they would not hesitate to prosecute Democrats. Maybe it’s time we follow their lead. As Kinzinger said in the Jan 6 Committee hearing: “Democracies are not defined by our bad days. We’re defined by how we come back from bad days.”
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