There won't be a "next Democratic Administration" in the sense implied here.
The damage you describe is common across the entire system (universities, the military, ICE), and already includes election rigging. Trump is already purging Repubs who are thinking too loudly about running in 2028, and he wants the slot for himself, not Vance.
The regime may well collapse, but it will take the US (in its current form) with it. At a minimum, the two-party system has to end, and the Republican party has to be driven out of political life, or at least out to the margins.
Retraumatized .... I've followed the degradation of the DOJ quite closely for a not-a-lawyer/not-a-constitutional-scholar. Nonetheless, when I watched the video this weekend, I was horrified by the clarity with which the panel described the perversion of justice the current DOJ under a president hell-bent on lawlessness has delivered to our nation and to us - each individual citizen. Reading Ben's highlights from the panel has again ignited my outrage - and my disbelief: disbelief in that, having lived over 7 decades in "the land of the free and the home of the brave", I resist believing that this is what our nation has become.
This passage from A Man for All Seasons plagues me:
==========================
“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”
― Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts
===========================
Who can "stand upright in the winds" blowing now? If Trump has his way, the answer is "None of us."
If only what we do and what we say made one whit of difference .... Clearly, those who are incapable of shame and who lack a moral compass (at minimum, in the sense of what social convention regards as right and wrong) are massively capable of "cut[ting] a great road through the law." I feel naive to have thought otherwise.
There won't be a "next Democratic Administration" in the sense implied here.
The damage you describe is common across the entire system (universities, the military, ICE), and already includes election rigging. Trump is already purging Repubs who are thinking too loudly about running in 2028, and he wants the slot for himself, not Vance.
The regime may well collapse, but it will take the US (in its current form) with it. At a minimum, the two-party system has to end, and the Republican party has to be driven out of political life, or at least out to the margins.
Retraumatized .... I've followed the degradation of the DOJ quite closely for a not-a-lawyer/not-a-constitutional-scholar. Nonetheless, when I watched the video this weekend, I was horrified by the clarity with which the panel described the perversion of justice the current DOJ under a president hell-bent on lawlessness has delivered to our nation and to us - each individual citizen. Reading Ben's highlights from the panel has again ignited my outrage - and my disbelief: disbelief in that, having lived over 7 decades in "the land of the free and the home of the brave", I resist believing that this is what our nation has become.
This passage from A Man for All Seasons plagues me:
==========================
“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”
― Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts
===========================
Who can "stand upright in the winds" blowing now? If Trump has his way, the answer is "None of us."
How wonderfully well put. Thanks.
If only what we do and what we say made one whit of difference .... Clearly, those who are incapable of shame and who lack a moral compass (at minimum, in the sense of what social convention regards as right and wrong) are massively capable of "cut[ting] a great road through the law." I feel naive to have thought otherwise.