Rep. Greg Gianforte assaulted Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs during the 2017 special election campaign. Annoyed at a question from Jacobs, the Republican candidate picked up the reporter and threw him on the ground. In the aftermath, Jacobs decided to play nice. Jacobs and the Guardian decided to settle out of court. Gianforte did not spend a single day in jail for a violent assault. This was a mistake.
That mistake is why we have the spectacle of Trump and Gianforte yakking it up about body-slamming reporters. He does this as we learn details about the brutal torture and murder of a journalist by Trump/Kushner’s pals in Saudi Arabia.
After the contested election of 2000, Democrats decided to play nice. The Republican Secretaries of State in Florida and Missouri who had engaged in extreme voter suppression were never brought to task for their assault on the citizenship rights of ordinary Americans.
When Democrats won control of Congress in 2006, they chose to play nice again. They did not prosecute Bush officials for their torture policy. They did not vigorously and relentlessly investigate the lies told to push us into the Iraq war. That was a mistake.
The post 2008 Congress and Obama administration chose not to pursue these officials. Nor did they pursue the senior bankers who created a financial crisis the administration spent years dealing with. Those were mistakes.
These mistakes allowed Bush era officials to return to power emboldened.
These mistakes allowed senior bankers to re-emerge, largely unscathed from the financial crisis while millions of Americans struggled to recover basic security.
This dynamic has fueled the rise of Trump and carries unending risks for us.
Continued impunity will lead to the elevation of more criminal and fascists into power. As long as they believe that friends in high places will protect them, they won’t change their behavior. A weary electorate will either give up, or give in to charlatans.
We must smash this cycle.
If Democrats win power in November, we need to reverse the harmful impunity that has emboldened a criminal culture in the corridors of power.
We need to ensure harsh justice scares straight those who would seek to abuse power.
This means Justice Kavanaugh should face a full and complete investigation of his statements to Congress. Trump, his entire cabinet and WH team should be investigated to identify financial ties to foreign governments and favored businesses. Every Governor and Secretary of State who has engaged in voter suppression during a federal election must be made testify before Congress. They should be grilled on their voter suppression efforts. Make this a spectacle so that people who aren’t paying attention are forced to do so. Criminal behavior identified by these investigations should be referred to local authorities and the Justice department where appropriate.
If there’s one lesson Democrats need to learn from the Trump election and from the years of bogus investigations by the Republican Congress, it’s this. You’ve got to fight, and fight hard for what you believe in. You have to create a spectacle so Americans pay attention. We cannot silently accept repeated assaults on on our voting rights, on our system of justice or our institutions. If you stay silent, you lose the messaging battle.
The answer to voter suppression is to vocally call it out as such, to protest the assault on our rights, and investigate those who seek to violate our rights. Use every ounce of power you have to investigate and beat back your opponents. If you’re not willing to do that, resign and let someone else take your place who will.
— @subirgrewal