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People just forget that there was one Watergate pardon. 45 of Nixon’s minions (including his AG) went to prison.

Yup. Like Trump raping people or Elon Musk pumping huge sums of money into politics in defiance of the law

A big advantage Trump had after the Mar a Lago raid was, there was a very long track record of “important people get away with intelligence violations that would send an LTJG to prison”. No, nobody else was as flagrant as Trump, but they all ignored laws and they all got away with it.

This od why any potential Trump pardons need to be treated as invalid

Furthermore, they should be the most notable people in the group of people eligible for execution by the state.

the 'we' of 'we the people' is a group of elites claiming an absolute right to impunity it's the ideology of divine rights without the known weakness of a singular and removable head

And I can't deny Yoon getting a lifetime sentence will deter future shenanigans.

And he got replaced by Tina Smith who was arguably even better. Literally nothing for anyone to reasonably whine about regarding him getting nailed for being a creep.

Of course you would, dear. Bless your heart.

yeah this makes me think of MUSK. people should watch the movie MUSK.

I feel like this has always been the case we're just seeing it play out more. And even the people who are supposed to be on the people's side don't seem to want do anything to the dickbags when they gain power. They see them as co-workers they're having a disagreement with instead of enemies.

And the definition of ‘elite’ keeps expanding to include even the most petty of tyrants! Like why does the secretary of the local police precinct get a little piece of paper that says she doesn’t have to follow the law with her car?

I’m hardly a radical, having worked in the federal government for almost 40 years, but I agree this is a very big problem (and has been for a while).

Yeah I do not see how we can stop fascism without ending elite impunity. We missed the chance to turn the tide on it in 2008, but now we have another opening that we just cannot waste again! www.powermapmag.com/p/if-we-had-...

you can trace this back to the failure of reconstruction after the Civil War.

That’s telling them! 🫶

Oh, piss off.

The pardon is a visible instance but I'd suggest the conditions that made it possible are the security state & the permanent war that started with Truman, McCarthy, Korea. A President that can unilaterally end the world is bound to get ideas. Our secret knowledge justifies us, always.

Sometimes being powerful and important means you get twice the perks and benefits, and sometimes being powerful and important means you have to follow the rules twice as closely because more people scrutinize you. I think we should be the second kind of culture.

Arguably goes back to Andrew Johnson letting off the worst of the Confederates. I'm an advocate for some of the things the US gets right vis-a-vis other advanced democracies but holding powerful people to account is something we distinctly suck at.

I would argue it goes back to the civil war and reconstruction.

I'd say it goes back to the confederate civil war generals getting slaps on the wrist