[coldpie]

If whoever runs in 2028 does not have a concrete plan for investigating & prosecuting every single person who worked under this admin from top to bottom, they are wasting everyone's time. We need to see hundreds of life-in-prison sentences by the end of 2029.

[jghn]

I can tell you what will happen instead.

If a dem wins in 2028, the big push will be one of reconciliation and acceptance. Let bygones be bygones. And it'll happen. And then for the next 4 years conservative media will absolutely pound that person's backside over made up and/or exaggerated corruption claims. Then in 2032 the GOP candidate will claim they're going to look into these claims.

[mikkupikku]

Yep. Remember when people were expecting Obama to prosecute Bush for war crimes? He should have, but chickened out and decided he would instead carry on Bush's transgressions as the new status quo.

[Schmerika]

> He should have, but chickened out and decided he would instead carry on Bush's transgressions as the new status quo.

With hindsight, it's pretty hard to believe that wasn't always the plan.

It was a pretty clever plan too, because everyone calling Obama out for [mass surveillance, illegal wars, promoting the '08 crash bankers, torture, funding ICE, bombing a wedding/s, assassinating US citizens without trial, attacking whistleblowers, using his supermajority to implement a Heritage Foundation healthcare plan, etc] was dismissed as a racist.

To this day I see people talk about the tan suit and the dijon mustard thing as if those fake outrage stories were the worst things he did. 'Wasn't it nice to have a President who could talk in complete sentences'.

[mikkupikku]

To be fair, it was nice to have a president that could speak in complete sentences. But yes, I agree that people go way too easy on Obama and present fake controversies as his worst. It should be possible to simultaneously recognize a president's strengths while also being critical of his flaws, but unfortunately American culture seems to have a growing personality cult problem, and it's generally just assumed that if you're not glazing a politician, you're an extremist from the other side doing false flag rhetoric or something inane like that.

[coldpie]

Your scepticism is well warranted. That's exactly the playbook Biden chose to follow, and I agree the most likely outcome is the next admin will follow it again.

However, I am unfortunately an incurable optimist, and sometimes we Americans really do pull off amazing feats. I live in the Twin Cities and we actually defeated DHS/CBP/ICE here. It was an amazing thing to witness, and maybe there is enough outrage at this admin's looting of the US that we can build the support nationally to do that kind of thing again.

[lotsofpulp]

"Defeated" is an interesting way to look at it. My perception is that the administration was just using the Twin Cities as a distraction, like they do for basically everything. In the mean time, the higher ups get their business deals done while the commoners are busy wasting energy cleaning up the mess. In which case, they succeeded. Now, onto the next distraction, and then the next one, and so on and so forth.

Minnesota has a very high probability of sending 2 Democrat senators and all their electoral votes to the Democrat presidential candidate. Minnesota and the Twin Cities are of zero consequence to this administration, so why not use them as a distraction?

The primary goal of the administration, sweeping tax cuts, was already accomplished in Jul 2025, so even Congress is of limited value now until after the next presidential election.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_zone

[pchristensen]

They certainly liked the distraction, but the invasion of MN allowed them to 1) catch some illegal immigrants, 2) intimidate legal immigrants, encouraging them to "self deport", 3) flex their power and demonstrate the ability to cause pain and harm to political enemies, and 4) give agents practice and training for the next city they invade. So far they have had these "surges" in Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, and Minneapolis. There are plenty more cities in blue states and plenty of money left in their budget, and almost 3 years left in this administration.

[jghn]

It wasn't just Biden. This is how it played out with Obama as well, except that Romney lost in 2012.

Heck, Obama won the peace prize for no other reason than he wasn't George W Bush

[insane_dreamer]

I blame Garland for much of the mess we are in. If the DOJ had done their job regarding the Jan 6 insurrection we wouldn't be here talking about stupid tarrifs that caused a year of turbulence for US businesses and contributed to inflation, for no good reason (and this might be the least of the problems caused by the Trump admin).

[wat10000]

It seemed like the Democrats selected Garland just so they could poke the Republicans in the eye. "You blocked him from SCOTUS so now we're going to make him Attorney General, how you like them apples?" Without really considering whether he'd actually do a good job.

[ceejayoz]

An alternative view is his personality used to be what you want (in theory) as both AG and SCOTUS justice - slow, deliberate, non-partisan.

[wat10000]

There's slow, and then there's taking more than four years to prosecute high-profile crimes committed in plain view.

[insane_dreamer]

I agree; but different times called for different measures. There was also too much of a feeling of "whew, that was close, but now we can get back to normal" instead of "let's make sure that never happens again".

[Schmerika]

If you care to read a bit more about it [0], then the Garland pick looks a lot more sinister.

That's Sarah Kendzior, one of the few journalists who was talking about Epstein long before all that started to became well known.

'Fun' fact: The Attorney General is able to unseal court documents at will. And for four years Garland didn't do that with the Epstein files. It was beyond clear that the SC were slow rolling Ghislaine Maxwell's appeal, and still nothing even leaked.

0 - https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/servants-of-the-mafia-s...

[Spooky23]

We’ll be dependent on New York for that, as potus will pardon everyone save for a few suckers at the end, assuming he leaves office in an orderly manner.

The purge of DOJ (They can’t even find confirmable US Attorneys at this point.) and the military officer corps makes that not a certainty.

[cael450]

He didn't pardon anyone involved with January 6th until he was re-elected. There is a documentary where Roger Stone acts psychotic with anger because Trump refused to issue a pardon for him or anyone else after Jan. 6. Trump is a selfish person, and if he thinks he is going to be vulnerable, he isn't going to protect anyone else for no other than reason than he thinks they should go down with him.

[insane_dreamer]

> We’ll be dependent on New York for that

do you mean because POTUS can't forgive State convictions? But why NY?

Unfortunately, SCOTUS has already absolved Trump of anything he does in office

[Spooky23]

NY is a financial nexus for many of the schemes and grifts, and politically it’s safe.

[anjel]

Nationalize the entire trump family fortune with RICO. Impoverishment is the perfect moral hazard to reign in hubristic and corrupt business practices.

[butterbomb]

> We need to see hundreds of life-in-prison sentences by the end of 2029

Best we can do is a couple dozen golden parachutes.

[mystraline]

Sure, give them the golden parachutes. Put a few holes in them, then make them jump.

[doodlebugging]

Nope. Parachutes are too expensive to waste on these losers. Give them all backpacks. Tell them the backpacks are parachutes.

EDIT: Link to old but good joke [0] provided for context.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16imt2f/long_an_old_...

[grosswait]

I think the precedent has been set - proactive pardons for all, every administration from now on

[ourmandave]

Merrick Garland is tanned, rested, and ready to not do jack until 2040.

[lotsofpulp]

How many cops/prosecutors/judges/prison guards/government employees support this administration?

Doesn’t seem like a trivial task, given the Nov 2024 election results.

[evan_]

How many high-ranking Department of Justice officials got canned for made-up reasons and maybe are looking for revenge

[ceejayoz]

Whoever takes over DOJ has to come in with a ready-to-go team they already know; a state AG who can draft their whole staff or something. They'll be entering a deliberately fucked, hollowed-out, booby-trapped organization they have to rebuild from the ground up. Speed will matter enormously.

[pixl97]

Hence why when Trump said he doesn't want future elections, we should take him seriously.

[fuzzfactor]

The first thing on the agenda is to impeach & convict, if there were enough patriotic Americans in Congress it should be possible this afternoon.

Then they can take their time to reverse all immunity granted by this President so all snakes can be rooted out.

[ohyoutravel]

Presidential pardon immunity is unreversable. There could potentially be a constitutional amendment on this, which is a super high bar, but even then the prohibition on ex post facto laws would only affect pardons going forward. It will be up to the states.

[keernan]

>>the prohibition on ex post facto laws would only affect pardons going forward.

That is plainly wrong. A constitutional amendment can say anything. There are no prohibitions.

[ohyoutravel]

Well, no, it’s in the US Constitution. So I suppose congress could add a constitutional amendment to remove the prohibition on ex post facto laws. But that’s so unthinkable it might as well be a fantasy. Far from “plainly wrong,” which seems unnecessarily aggressive verbiage.

[wat10000]

Why couldn't the amendment just say, "The presidential power pardon is revoked, and all prior pardons are null and void"? You have to amend the Constitution to remove the pardon power regardless, why would it be so difficult to put in a clause saying that it's retroactive?

[ceejayoz]

An amendment can’t violate the constitution. It is the constitution. You can do anything.

[fuzzfactor]

Whatever it takes would be worth it.

An example needs to be set.

[triceratops]

> Presidential pardon immunity is unreversable

But presidents are also immune against prosecution for official acts. Could a president just disregard pardons from a prior administration? Immovable object, irresistible force kinda situation right?

[ohyoutravel]

Yes, but the courts would dismiss the case. If not the appeals court would. If not the Supreme Court would.

[ceejayoz]

And then you use presidential immunity to Maduro a few justices.

[coldpie]

At least 3 members of the Supreme Court are among those working under the current admin who need to be serving life sentences in prison.

[mikkupikku]

If at least two-thirds of the Senate doesn't agree, then that doesn't matter.

[cael450]

We've let criminal administrations get away with too much for too long. Nixon, Reagan, Bush Jr., and Trump 1 were all allowed to disregard the law and it got worse every time. We cannot move forward without purging crime and corruption from our system. Everyone from the top down to Billy-Bod ICE agent.

No more Merrick Garlands. No hand-wringing over appearances of weaponizing the DoJ. The next president needs to appoint an AG who enforces the law, and if they don't do it, they need be fired and replaced by someone who will.

[rurp]

I feel very strongly that's what should happen, and equally strongly that there's zero chance a democratic president will actually do that in a meaningful way. Dems sometimes talk a big game when they're out of power but when they're in power they actually quite enjoy the expanded powers and reduced accountability that's come about. That plus their usual ineffectual bumbling will combine to mean they basically doing nothing.

At this point I think I'm most scared of the next fascist president. Trump has opened up a lot of avenues for blatant corruption and tyranny. His greed and stupidity have so far saved us from the worst outcomes but someone with his psychopathy but more savviness will mean the true end of our freedoms.

[lotsofpulp]

The last time Dems had power was before Jan 2015. And even then it was tenuous, because the Dems have had a few Senators that do not vote lockstep with the Dems (Manchin, Lieberman, Sinema, etc), but the Repubs maybe have had 1 defector (McCain?).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_Stat...

Going forward, the Dems are not likely to have power either, based on the projected safety of Repub Senate seats.

https://www.270towin.com/2026-senate-election/

[Schmerika]

Maybe Dems only don't have power because they don't want too much of it. It fucks with the plausible deniability.

Like, they could easily have taken down Trump, either over Jan 6th or the Epstein files. They didn't.

They could have easily gained _millions_ of votes in the 2024 election just by promising not to keep helping murder tens of thousands of children. They didn't. They could have kicked up a fuss about some rather obvious election fraud; they didn't.

They could have fought harder for SC picks on multiple occasions. They could have leaked choice Epstein files at key times. They could have held proper primaries, instead of ramming a demented roomba warmonger and then his wildly unpopular warmonger sidekick down our throats (for like the third election in a row). They didn't.

At some point you need to realize that Dems have lots of power; and they choose to use it in very curious ways. Arming genocide and protecting billionaire blackmail pedo-rings aren't things that I'm willing to look past. Yes the Republicans are even worse, but at every point where Dems had all the power needed to hold them accountable they've gone to rather extreme lengths not to do that. For decades.

[ryandrake]

Unfortunately, we have a two party system, and neither side is going to do anything about it. One side is complicit and actively participating in the fraud and grift. The other side is all talk and no action. If they win, they'll spend four years making excuses about why they can't actually do anything. They had four years to prosecute and imprison Trump 1.0 and just... talked and sat on their hands doing performance art.

[coldpie]

I 100% agree. I will never forgive Biden for not putting these traitors behind bars in his first 6 months. He failed at one of his most important sworn duties, protecting the US from its enemies.

But, sometimes a groundswell movement really can build momentum and drive the conversation regardless of what the leaders think about it. Write to your state & national representatives demanding that they publicly support prosecution for the incredible crimes we're seeing committed by this admin. Try to make it a policy platform for your state party. Maybe we can build enough support from the bottom up to get popular momentum behind it. Holding criminals accountable for their crimes is not really a controversial position, we have to demand that they actually do it.

[UncleMeat]

Yep. Biden's "well I bet he will just go away naturally" approach to Trump's crimes will be a historic error. It remains to be seen if this is quite at the level of walking back Reconstruction, but if the US descends further into fascism then it will be up there.

Biden is gone, but Schumer and Jeffries aren't exactly looking any different.

I'm currently livid at the dem leadership that doesn't have the guts to do anything hard. Dem leadership needs to go and we need a serious response here. South Korea just jailed their criminal president for life. Just imagine.