Increasingly, the Department of Justice avoids enforcing the law. It’s not exclusively to blame for this. The world has grown much more dangerous for justice. Almost every important legal fight is open to political attack. Republicans in the states are openly hostile to democracy, and politicians in Washington—some of them well-meaning, many of them fighting hard to keep democracy alive—as a group seem too purchased and too self-centered to rise to today’s challenge.
On an individual level, I have to give Adam and Jamie and James E. lots of credit. Even Liz and the other Adam stepped up to the plate, more than I expected from Republicans. Republicans talk a good game about patriotism, but in the clutch only two of a few hundred actually put their reputations on the line for this country.
It’s hard to believe we got even two, though, since Republicans, as a gang, have racialized elections. They’ve fought hard to make racial bias in election law a political problem, so even enforcing the right to vote is political. And what’s political is controlled by money, so for the DOJ to enforce fair election laws means pitting the lawyers of the people against the lawyers of the rich. Worse, those cases will bubble up to the SCOTUS, purchased whole with loot piled high by politics.
It’s not like the people got a say in who sits on the Court. The majority of the people voted against the guys who picked some of the Justices, and the representatives of the majority were shouted down in the Senate when they tried to object.
So, I can understand why DOJ would cower away from enforcing voting rights. They would be roundly criticized in the corrupt media. And even if they fought their way to the Court, the Court would do everything in its power to find an excuse to beat them back. At best, they could expect to educate a few voters about how they are being robbed of their birthright.
You’d think in a democracy the people would support an effort to preserve democracy, wouldn’t you? You’d think that a people educated on the hard fight to get that democracy and the hard fights to preserve that democracy would at least understand the stakes and block any attempt to overturn said democracy.
You’d be crazy, because those people have had adult education. After years of adult ed (funded by fascists), mile after square mile of the country has lost the basic knowledge of democracy and gained the delusion elections are a circus performance. Even as millions of them participate in campaigns and work to run elections, where they can see with their own eyes exactly how it operates, they don’t believe it works.
So, it’s not hard to understand why the DOJ would hide in a dark room, away from criticism, and duck any issue that might have some political aspect.
It’s wrong, but understandable.
It’s unforgivable, but I can see where they’re coming from.
It’s what we’ve all come to expect, but it has to change.
And it better change soon. As CorpFunky points out in 5 year statute of limitations is expiring on Trump's crimes—Too little, too late, AG Garland, this would include alleged crimes listed in the Mueller Report.
What does it take for the DOJ to follow the facts and the law? Or, are they on Trump’s side, trying to run out the clock?
Intro to this series: Resuscitating Democracy