Someone, I can't recall who, asked recently in this space for single words that defined this past decade. I've thought about it for a bit and now offer my candidate: IMPUNITY.
The decade started with the failure to hold to account the finance connivers who brought about the Great Recession, a failure that fueled both the Republican sweep of the 2010 midterms and Trump's election. See @noamscheiber's “Escape Artists” & @eisingerj's “Chickenshit Club.”
@noamscheiber @eisingerj Then came the opioid epidemic, which began with Big Pharma’s cynical and avaricious targeting of vulnerable communities. The most notorious company of all got off with giving back just some of its ill-gotten billions. See @praddenkeefe on the Sacklers:
newyorker.com/magazine/2017/…
newyorker.com/magazine/2017/…
@noamscheiber @eisingerj @praddenkeefe In 2016, Mitch McConnell smashed norms by refusing to even hold a hearing for Merrick Garland. Not only did McConnell get away with this, the gambit played a huge role in electing Trump, by giving wary religious conservatives a reason to vote for him. For more, see “The Cynic.”
@noamscheiber @eisingerj @praddenkeefe In 2018, Jamal Khashoggi was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The CIA concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing. Yet he's faced barely any reckoning—just a year later, many top Wall Street bankers attended his big Saudi investment conference.
@noamscheiber @eisingerj @praddenkeefe Impunity has reigned locally, too, in my city of Baltimore. Eye-popping corruption ran rampant in police dept and City Hall for years. Homicide closure rates fell well below 50 pct as violence surged. I tried to make sense of the unraveling in this piece: nytimes.com/2019/03/12/mag…
@noamscheiber @eisingerj @praddenkeefe And the decade concluded with Jeffrey Epstein avoiding justice for his many crimes, which so many had helped him cover up. @DouthatNYT's right to call this a decade of disillusionment, but a big reason for that disillusionment was the sense of impunity, everywhere you looked.-30-
@noamscheiber @eisingerj @praddenkeefe @DouthatNYT Necessary addendum: Bashar al-Assad. 400,000 dead, countless others tortured, still in power. (h/t @ericuman)
