Every day we discover the Trump Admin was responsible for even more abuses, even more crimes. Many are unprecedented, mind-boggling in their outrageousness. And yet on the federal level, we never seem to move any closer to holding Trump or those close to him responsible.
For those who consider themselves institutionalists, be clear, the lack of accountability is a cancer on the institutions of our government--the presidency, the Department of Justice, the Congress.
The crimes will not simply go away if we ignore them. They will metastasize. They will become president. What was unthinkable will become acceptable practice. Checks and balances will disappear. Old norms will be forgotten. We will become more lawless and less democratic.
It would be a tragic irony if institutionalism killed our institutions. But make no mistake about it, that is precisely where we are headed.

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More from @djrothkopf

9 Jun
Immigration on our southern border is a complex problem that's been with us for decades. No one has managed it well. The Congress has made matters more difficult resisting immigration reform. That's why it was an act of leadership and courage for @VP to take it on.
The VP's trip to Mexico and Guatemala involved delicate and emotionally fraught issues. Her focus was on having the US play a more active role in helping our neighbors address the root causes of immigration--especially important after the Trump admin rejected such a role.
She made substantial commitments to help in this area--through aid and loans. Her comment that immigrants from Guatemala should not come to the US was the only comment she could have given and any alternative she might have offered would also have generated substantial criticism.
Read 13 tweets
25 May
This is a stunning display of intellectual dishonesty. It serially suggests equivalency between those who oppose Israel's policy and those who espouse hate, implies a tie between those with rational critiques and those with irrational hostility.
nytimes.com/2021/05/24/opi…
It suggests that criticism of Israel is due to anti-semitism if critics somehow fail in those criticisms to denounce every other act of wrong-doing on the planet at the same time. And of course, it suggests that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism simply because...
...some anti-Semites also frame their repulsive hatred in criticisms of Israel. It is a classic example of dishonest argument, contortionist in the way it twists and weaves half-truths, distortions and sophistry into what appears to be an argument but is really a tantrum.
Read 5 tweets
17 May
In an effort to combat the "four legs good, two legs bad" oversimplifications that dominate the commentary on the Israel-Palestine conflict, here are some thoughts that I find perfectly easy to keep in my mind simultaneously...
1. Israel is a powerful state that has systematically deprived Palestinians of their most basic human rights, seized their land, and imposed new laws and policies that are the immediate cause for the current conflict.
2. Hamas is a terrorist group sponsored by Iran.
3. Israeli political leaders knew that if they continued with their land confiscations in an effort to pander to far right groups they would trigger a backlash from Palestinians & they invited it in an effort to strength the political position of Primer Minister Bibi Netanyahu.
Read 22 tweets
13 May
GOP has a mantra that one reason they still back Trump is that he is such a great vote getter. Setting aside the fact that he lost the popular vote twice, he also got a lower percentage of the popular vote in 2016 than Mitt Romney got four years earlier.
Trump's 2016 vote total was roughly the same as George W. Bush's 2004 vote total. Trump's 2016 popular vote percentage was the lowest by a winning candidate in nearly 25 years (Bill Clinton's was lower but that was the race in which Perot won a big chunk of votes as 3d party.)
Well, what about 2020 you say? Well, Trump's popular vote percentage in 2020 was nearly the same as in 2016. GOP talk about the fact Trump won over big vote total in 2020 but percentage of turnout is what matters especially since polarizing Trump also drove anti-Trump turnout.
Read 6 tweets
12 May
Today, the House GOP will demonstrate that they're the Trumpiest, Trumpmost, Trumptastic, Trumpelstilskinish, Trumpcentric, Trumpdillyicious, Trumptheistic, Trumpers ever. They'll declare to all that they place their allegiance to one man ahead of the truth & the Constitution.
They'll make a statement that says, "We're 100% behind the sedition, the violence, the attacks on police, the 30,000 lies, the corruption, the racism, the sex abuse, the betraying the country, the attacks on democracy, and the obstruction and perversion of justice of our man."
They will go on the record saying, "We place our man, our cult, our fealty to a serial criminal ahead of our oaths of office, our constituents and our country." Four and a half months after January 6th, they will make it clear that they stand with those who attacked the Capitol.
Read 5 tweets
11 May
Trump, a guy who's never won the popular vote, twice impeached, rated the worst president ever, serially corrupt, a traitor, rapist, racist, gave the GOP a perfect out on Jan 6. They could've easily just turned the page. But instead they said, "Nope, we'll stick with him."
Some might see this as a sign of Trumpian power, fear of his wrath, as implied recently by Sen. Lindsey Graham. But it's not that. It's the collective recognition of the weakness of a party that's lost the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 presidential elections.
It's the weakness of a party that sees the demographic handwriting on the wall. It's the weakness of a party that knows the one thing that can do them in is a free and open democracy functioning as it should, being guided by the will of the people.
Read 12 tweets

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