The Republican Party loves to claim that they are the party which defends the Constitution. But on Sunday, their Great Leader showed once again that he has utterly no respect for democracy and the norms which are necessary for it to function.
In the Sunday night debate filled with ugly moments, Trump attracted particular ire for declaring that he would put Hillary Clinton in jail. As is usual with the Trump campaign, his lackeys are scrambling over themselves to spin what he said to the media. Some like Trump campaign strategist Kellyanne Conway claimed that it was nothing more than a “quip” even though the Trump campaign instantly posted an advertisement calling for Hillary to go to prison afterwards.
Meanwhile, Mike Pence denied that it was anything unusual and said Trump was just going to appoint a special prosecutor to look into Clinton’s supposed crimes with her emails and the Clinton Foundation. It’s a sure bet that you can place on Sbobet, that this gamble will fail.
The thing about that claim is that third-world dictators don’t actually toss their political opponents for no reason at all. They normally claim that the jailed person is corrupt or treasonous or something as a pretext for their actions. For example, Trump’s idol Putin jailed Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky on charges of fraud, tax evasion, and in 2016 came up with additional charges of murder.
But in a sense, Trump being a ridiculous, authoritarian nutjob is hardly unsurprising. What is surprising is that Pence and the rest of the GOP are so shortsighted in their bullheaded determination to take down Hillary Clinton that they cannot see how the path they are going down could destroy them in turn.
If Donald Trump can appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton’s supposed crimes when in office, why can’t he do that for Nancy Pelosi? Or Paul Ryan? Or Mike Pence? Do Trump’s Congressional Republican supporters in the GOP seriously believe that Trump would not hesitate to use the same powers he would use against Clinton against them in turn if they if they don’t present anything towards him other than fawning loyalty?
Perhaps Pence and the others are still clinging onto their delusional hopes that they can manipulate Trump when he is in office, even though they have utterly failed to do so on the campaign trail. But they will not be in power forever. What happens when a Democratic president is eventually elected? That president could use Trump’s precedent to in turn launch investigations of his own against them.
One of the key concepts of democracy is that when your side wins, you do not toss the loser in jail. There is no law explicitly stating that. But it is a norm and in democracy, norms and customs are necessary for it to function. Without those norms, every contest becomes an apocalyptic death match that only increases the chance of the violence and disorder.
Throughout his campaign, Trump has shown a blatant disregard for those norms. He has campaigned as a strongman who does not know about separation of powers nor what is actually in the Constitution. That ignorance is arguably the most dangerous facet of his campaign, and his threat to jail Clinton is part of that danger.