The Guardian
Americans’ acceptance of Trump’s behavior will be their most vile legacy
Trump brought impunity to the country’s highest office, wielding a wrecking ball for American democracy. Most of the 74,222,957 Americans who voted to re-elect Donald Trump – 46.8% of the votes cast in the 2020 presidential election – do not hold Trump accountable for what he did to America. The acceptance of Trump’s behavior will be his most vile legacy. Almost forty years ago, political scientist James Q Wilson and criminologist George Kelling observed that a broken window left unattended in a community indicates that no one cares if the windows are broken there. The broken window is therefore an invitation to throw more stones and break more windows. The message: do what you want here, because others did and got away with it. The broken window theory has led to poor and arbitrary law enforcement in poor communities. But America’s most privileged and powerful have broken big windows with impunity. In 2008, Wall Street almost destroyed the economy. The Street was rescued while millions of Americans lost their jobs, savings and homes. Still, no major Wall Street executive went to prison. In recent years, top executives at Purdue Pharmaceuticals, along with the Sackler family, knew about the dangers of OxyContin, but did nothing. Wells Fargo Bank executives put pressure on bank employees to defraud customers. Boeing executives hid test results that showed their 737 Max Jetliner was unsafe. Police chiefs across America looked the other way as the police under his command repeatedly killed innocent black Americans. Here, too, they escaped with impunity. Those windows are still broken.> Trump has brought impunity to the country’s highest office, wielding a wrecking ball for the most precious glass of all – American democracy. Trump brought impunity to the country’s highest office, wielding a wrecking ball for the most precious glass of all – American democracy. The message? A president can obstruct investigations of special councils on his offenses, pressure foreign officials to dig up political rivals, fire inspectors who find corruption, order the entire executive branch to refuse Congressional subpoenas, flood the Internet with false information about his opponents, refusing to release their tax returns, accusing the press of being “false media” and “enemy of the people” and making money from their presidency. And he can get away with it. Almost half of the electorate will even vote for his re-election. A president can also lie about the results of an election without an ounce of evidence – and still, according to the polls, be believed by the vast majority of those who voted for him. recent pardons have broken double glazed windows. Not only did he break the standard for presidential pardons – usually granted because of a petitioner’s good conduct after sentencing and serving the sentence – but he also forgave people who broke windows. By forgiving them, he made them irresponsible for their actions. Among them are advisers convicted of lying to the FBI and threatening potential witnesses to protect him; the father of his son-in-law, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion, tampering with witnesses, illegal campaign contributions and lying to the Federal Electoral Commission; Blackwater security guards convicted of murdering Iraqi civilians, including women and children; Border Patrol agents convicted of assaulting or shooting unarmed suspects; and Republican lawmakers and their advisers found guilty of fraud, obstruction of justice and campaign funding violations. It’s not just the size of the broken window that undermines the standards, according to Wilson and Kelling. It is the will of society to look the other way. If no one is held responsible, the rules collapse. Trump may face a flood of lawsuits on leaving office, possibly including criminal charges. But he is unlikely to go to jail. Presidential immunity or self-forgiveness will protect you. The prosecutor’s discretion would almost certainly argue against the prosecution in any case. No former president has been convicted of a crime. The mere possibility of a criminal trial for Trump would set off a party fight across the country. The conflict may try to limit the power of future presidents – strengthening Congressional oversight, strengthening the independence of inspectors general, requiring more financial disclosure, increasing penalties for law-breaking presidential advisors, restricting the pardon process, and so on. . But Congress – a co-equal branch of government under the Constitution – cannot control dishonest presidents. And the courts do not want to weigh in on political issues. The dire reality is that Trump can get away with it. And in doing so, he will have changed and degraded the rules that govern American presidents. The giant windows he broke are invitations for a future president to break even more. Nothing will fix that unless or until the overwhelming majority of Americans recognize and condemn what happened.