It is time we start demanding the resignations of current Democrats serving in Congress. We don’t need to wait til the midterm. If there is a Democratic lawmaker, from a state with a Democratic governor, that isn’t using all their power to resist? We need to start protesting these people, demanding their immediate resignation from office. Hell, if we wait til the midterm, then we’ll be right back at the place of “well, they’re better than the Republican…” And primaries are difficult due to the immense costs and incumbent advantage.
Democrats are completely in the minority right now. What better time than now to purge the feckless do-nothing corporate Democrats from the party? Forget primarying Pelosi, we should be hounding her to immediately resign. She should have no peace. Force her to resign in disgrace, and Governor Newsome can then replace her with someone who is actually willing to fight.
Doomerism will doom us all. Fatalism is fatal.
That ruling has been grossly exaggerated by doomers. In practice, the ruling means very little difference for the actual running of an administration. Trump was the first president to ever face prosecution, and plenty of presidents have done incredibly shady things. There has been a decades-long taboo against prosecuting former presidents. And even after what Trump did, the prosecution was still very careful to only go after things that weren’t covered in his duties. The SCOTUS did rule the previous Justice department consensus into law, but they didn’t say that the president has complete immunity for all acts. The SCOTUS set themselves up as the final arbiter of what was an official act or not, but they DID NOT provide absolute immunity. Spreading FUD helps no one.
Also, the ruling only applied to the president, not to his administration. He may not be prosecutable for violating many laws, but his underlings still are. In theory, the president could simply continually issue daily pardons for everyone in the executive branch, pardoning them of all federal law violations. But that’s actually incredibly dangerous for a president to do. For example, if a president were daily issuing a pardon for everyone in the White House, what’s to stop the White House chef from introducing a slow poison into his food that will take several days to take effect? Or maybe Musk would use his new control of the Treasury to literally just steal every penny Trump personally owns. If you don’t use broad blanket pardons, then many lackeys will have to risk criminal prosecution to follow your illegal orders. But if you do use broad blanket pardons, you could end up pardoning people you never intended to. If you’re a president issuing frequent pardons to all of your staff, you could easily end up pardoning someone who is attempting to rob or kill you.
Oh, and many illegal actions employees might be asked to carry out are illegal under both state and federal law. Trump may simply refuse to prosecute any federal violations, but that won’t stop state charges. And while federal agents have some legal protections when carrying out their legal duties, that doesn’t apply to illegal actions. A state can’t arrest an IRS agent for just doing their job, but they can certainly arrest an IRS agent if they decide to become a serial killer. Eventually this kind of conflict can lead to civil war. But that would only increase Trump’s chances of being assassinated. And I bring up assassination because that’s the fate many wannabee dictators end up meeting. Trump himself has faced at least two assassination attempts, and it’s something he likely thinks about daily. He has to realize that if he pushes things far enough, a Secret Service agent might even just take one for the team.