Quote:
Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger
The reason Presidents don’t go after Presidents is simple. It opens Pandora’s box. If Obama went after Bush, then it sets precedent for Trump to go after Obama.
I believe this is why prosecution of trump won’t be directly tied to the WH. It’ll be a specific jurisdiction that goes after him for any crimes he’s committed outside of his “presidential” duties.
Otherwise it opens the door for the GOP to go after the preceding Dem president the next time they get in power.
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While this is generally true, there are clear reasons why Democrats might want to make Trump an exception.
First of those is petty, but I don't think you can discount pettiness when it comes to stuff like this: Trump has himself repeatedly called for investigations into Obama's doings.
Second is major:
If Trump gets another season, Trump will make a serious push to turn the country into a dictatorship or at least a one-party authoritarian state. This should be obvious to everyone at this point. (Although tons of people are still in denial about it.)
In other words if Trump wins, the Democratic party goes from opponent to target. Everyone knows what starts to happen to opposition politicians in an authoritarian state: they're the first to go. Best known opposition leaders will be put in jail on more-or-less made up charges (something Trump has already threatened numerous times), while lesser known ones will start disappearing in the night. Trump already has loyal militias obviously eager to get their hands dirty in that latter part.
Probably some will start dying in sudden poisonings, because that's likely what Putin will advice Trump to do.
In other words, the Dems are one Biden heart-attack away from an extinction level crisis. Unless they're complete idiots, they have to know they can't react simply by returning to politics as normal. They can't risk this situation repeating.
Now, there are other options to a counter-attack. If they sweep the election, they could start making changes to update and strengthen their countries democracy to something more likely able to hold up against another power grab. They can hope that it's enough to re-solidify their position.
However, a counter-attack of some sort is probably a smart and necessary move at this point. I think it would be prudent to create some examples that if you try to do to the US government what Trump and his cronies did, that can come with serious personal consequences.
There should be personal risk involved in encouraging violence towards the Democratic party and attempting to end democracy in the United States. All these election shenanigans can't be a the risk-free "oh well, we'll get them next time" thing that it's been so far, because it clearly erodes the legitimacy of the system.
If Trump remains in the country he will also likely go on a completely unhinged relentless attack, and that in itself is also legitimately dangerous on a very personal level to Democratic politicians. If Trump doesn't shut up, and he won't if he remains in the country, he will likely force the Democrats to do something about him just for their own safety.