2020 Election - The curtain starts coming down

[robkelk]

Former FBI director James Comey suggests Biden should consider pardoning Trump

"Our Supreme Court, in 1915, said if you're pardoned and you accept that pardon, it's an admission of guilt," Comey said in an interview with The Current's Matt Galloway. "That's an important vehicle for accountability as well that people often don't talk about."

Although it's been talked about recently on this forum, at least.

Comey said the department should consider the "collateral consequences" of pursuing any criminal investigation.

"I'm not saying he shouldn't be held accountable. I think it was really important that he be impeached," he said.

But, he said, "it's not in the nation's interests to give this thug president, this nihilist, centre stage in America," by continuing to pursue him.

"Because that's what it would be. The United States versus Donald Trump would go on every day in the nation's capital for the next three or four years."

The new president's time would be better spent trying to heal political divides in the U.S. and reach people in what Comey described as Trump's "fog of lies."

"Having Donald Trump centre stage lying every day in the face of a bank of television cameras would make that so much more difficult."

He has a point. Why give a narcissist time in the spotlight, especially when there are more important things to deal with?

Yes, lets listen to the FBI guy who pulled  a political hit job to ensure Trump would be elected, or failing that keep feeding the myth that Hillary Clinton was the spawn of Satan.

Nice ad hominen there, SilverFang01.

It doesn't matter where the idea comes from - it's still an idea worth examining.

We should not require democracy to fail utterly before we take aggressive corrective action.

The work of defending democracy is often not sexy or dramatic. It requires more than the ritual of voting every 4 years. It requires sufficient dedication to follow current events and remain engaged. It requires a willingness to volunteer time for what may be the very boring purpose of following a local city council meeting or state legislative session. Perhaps more than anything, it requires putting our trust in the institutions and systems of government -- which in turn requires the work of making them trustworthy. Forgiving Trump is not conducive to that.

(I will not say "trustworthy again." Because whatever you think of their history, it is imperative to make them trustworthy going forward. "The work is not for you to finish, nor are you free to abandon it.")

One of the most heartening things is how many more millions of people are willing to do this now than were four years ago, or 20 years ago. Our current situation has its roots in citizen apathy and cynicism going back decades*. For too long, our national motto could have been "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity." If you believe that all politics are inherently corrupting, if you believe that you are too good, to pure, or too busy to participate, then you abandon politics to the corrupt.”

Our system of democratic government has withstood its worst test since the Civil War. That was not an accident. Our system is stronger and more resilient than it seemed to many. No system can endure under stress forever, but we have not reached a point of no return.

*Which I believe started when we tried the forgive and forget approach with Nixon, and the only thing it did was provide assurances that no one who abused his power while office would ever be held accountable and led directly to Iran-Contra, Irak part 2, and the insurrection of January 6.

But now it appears that somebody is being held accountable. We'll know for sure once the articles of impeachment are officially received by the Senate.