They must know what they’re doing
Newsweek says Biden should have arrested Trump on January 21, 2021.
[B]y failing to arrest Trump immediately, Biden allowed the seriousness of Trump’s treasonous acts to diminish in the public’s collective memory, granting Trump’s supporters and others who might be swayed to his side the chance to believe that it was an open question as to whether or not he’d engaged in insurrection (when it definitely was not). It allowed the media, too, to make it seem like less than a fact, engaging in the usual horserace political coverage once it was election season, even though one of the candidates was a would-be usurper.
It’s true. Trump paid no real price for that mind-bogglingly serious crime, and now four years later he’s actually fucking back. He tried to overthrow the government then, and now he’s back as the head of the government. It’s pathetic. It’s a horror show.
We arrested and charged many of those who’d been at the Capitol that day, yet failed to apprehend and prosecute the ringleader. Trump’s very freedom made people doubt his guilt, since humans have this terrible tendency to believe that we get what we deserve. If Trump had really engaged in a coup, they reckoned, why wasn’t he sitting in a federal brig?
We also have this terrible tendency to believe that the people in charge know what they’re doing. They haven’t arrested Trump, so there must be compelling reasons not to, so we’ll just move on and forget all about him.
And, a steady trickle of Jan. 6 felons are just now being arrested. Almost four full years after the event.
The whole idea that “presidential immunity” means the DOJ should drop the case against him now that he’s been elected boggles the mind. Even if we accept the premise that sitting presidents have immunity from prosecution (which I don’t, but just say we do for the sake of argument…), does the DOJ’s policy mean that if Trump committed a cold-blooded murder tomorrow, he wouldn’t face any consequences for at least 4 years… just because he’s been elected to become president in the future? He *IS NOT THE PRESIDENT* right now, so prosecutions (both old and potentially, new) should absolutely continue until he is even under this stupid “presidential immunity” policy.
It apparently does mean that. It’s outrageous.
It makes one question the extent to which Dem politicians actually believe the things they say about Trump. If they actually believed him to be an extinction-level event, there are so many things they could and should have done differently—in both omission and commission. That they didn’t entails a lack of conviction, a lack of courage, or a lack of competence.