The entrepreneur whose candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president has shown surprising longevity (he was one of only seven candidates who qualified for the last debate) may have said something that might doom it.
Andrew Yang said he does not think Trump should be facing criminal charges and would consider pardoning Trump if he were in fact prosecuted.
“We do not want to be a country that gets in the pattern of jailing past leaders,” Yang said, adding that “there’s a reason why Ford pardoned Nixon.”
“I’d actually go a step further and say not just, hey, it’s up to my [Attorney General]. I would say that the country needs to start solving the problems on the ground and move forward.”
“Would you consider a pardon then?” NBC News asked.
“I would,” Yang said.
We actually should get in the pattern of jailing past leaders if they have committed crimes because that is the only way to prevent them from committing crimes in the first place. There was outrage at Ford for pardoning Nixon and strong suspicions that it doomed his re-election campaign. This idea that we should ‘move forward’ and not look back, the same excuse president Obama gave for not prosecuting the torture war crimes committed by the Bush administration and the CIA, is what enables presidents to willfully abuse their power, over and over again.
Yang saying that he would pardon Trump, someone who has abused his office and taken vilification of Democrats and indeed anyone who even mildly criticizes him to high levels, may well turn off many Democrats, similar to the adverse reaction to Tulsi Gabbard’s decision to merely vote ‘present’ on the impeachment articles. It will undoubtedly infuriate the many who think Trump is an absolute danger to democratic norms.
Wishy-washy “centrist” Democrats, please go away. It’s getting harder and harder to distinguish between you and Republicans.
Jesus, that’s as idiotic as Tulsi’s reasoning for abstaining from the impeachment vote.
December 2019, Matt G:
December 2020, the entire world:
“Gee, I wonder how come the Democrats keep consistently losing all the time? It’s almost as if the goal in a democracy is to get the most votes, rather than maintaining ideological purity.”
But sure, Matt G., just keep on kicking people out of the tent, and then wonder why there are so few people in there with you.
And yes, I agree with Yang that jailing past leaders is a poor idea.
1)
This is silly. If impeachment and infamy in the history books don’t act as a deterrent, why would jail? People with enormous egos (a group that includes all politicians) commit crimes because they think they’re smart enough to not get caught. Period. Deterrents don’t work against people who think like that.
2) When leaders know that leaving power makes it likely that both they and their friends and family members are all likely to go to jail, it gives them a powerful incentive to never relinquish power voluntarily. There are many countries plagued by dictators-for-life where you can point to a moment and say, “yeah, if they’d been able to leave with their ill-gotten gains at this point, they probably would have stepped down, and the country could have been spared a lot of bloodshed.” I’m already terrified that, in the event of a narrow loss, Trump will claim the election is rigged and refuse to leave; in the event he’s facing a credible threat of jail, that likelihood goes up considerably.
3) Impeachment is explicitly designed to be a political, rather than a judiciary process. Any Trump trial would be furiously political, and I simply don’t trust our judicial system to be able to handle something like that justly and fairly. (How could you find any unbiased jury?) Also, any such trial would surely end up in front of the Supreme Court, and we know how that would turn out.
4) Even if we manage to do it fairly, it gives a terrible precedent for tyrants in other countries who want to get away with locking up their foes.
5) Once one party does it, the other party will follow suit. If Democrats successfully lock up a post-president Trump, then nobody can think that future Republicans won’t be eager to get a chance to do the same thing to every Democratic president.
6) A demagogue like Trump can inexplicably create a cult-like fervor among his followers. If you’re trying him, they will feel they’re under attack as well. I would not put it past him to call them to arms — and they’re better armed than we are. I also do not trust the police to protect us from them.
brucegee1962 @#3,
Are you suggesting that presidents, especially demagogues like Trump, have total immunity for any crimes committed by them while in office? That justice should give way because of fears of what the mobs might say and do? What kind of democracy is that?
Of course it is the case that if Trump is charged by the legal system (not the Democrats) of crimes after leaving office, the Republicans will try to find criminal charges to lay against a future Democratic president. I do not see anything wrong with that. In fact, I would welcome it because it is precisely that fear that will deter presidents from contemplating illegality.
Removal by impeachment is a weak remedy because it is much easier to block the process on partisan grounds, which is why no president has even been removed from office.
Facing imprisonment can be real deterrent, especially for members of the ruling classes, which is why the justice system did not prosecute the top executives of the big banks but simply allowed the banks to pay fines for wrongdoing.
A democracy that believes strongly in not having its minorities get ridden over roughshod — including the minority of voters who voted for this guy.
I mean, the only circumstances in which it is imaginable that Trump would be indicted for his crimes would be a 2021 world in which Trump lost his reelection bid. If evangelicals and the rest of his base firmly turn against him and he goes down in ignominious defeat 71-29, then fine, go ahead and throw him in jail — his remaining supporters will be too cowed to do much.
But that’s a pipe dream. More likely is that 40-49% of the US voters will look at all the evidence (or not) and still pull a level for him, saying not only does he not deserve to be in jail, he deserves to be in the White House.
What kind of democracy would allow a judge and some jurors to overrule the decision of ~ 60 million voters?
And don’t say “if Trump is charged by the legal system (not the Democrats).” The legal system is made up of people, and people are political animals. Judges get appointed by somebody. The political leanings of every single person associated with this trial would be on trial as well. It will definitely be a political trial, and stuff that gets dipped in politics usually comes up dirty. I’d rather that didn’t happen to our judicial system.
I’d rather our legal system not be entirely useless except for political purposes. Not prosecuting Trump would be at least as political as his trial would be. The only difference is it would make for a shorter news cycle. And I just don’t think that should have anything to do with whether we prosecute someone. Especially when we have ample evidence of wrongdoing.
And what kind of message do you think it sends when the president can do whatever he wants with no possibility of consequences? Do you not see how that damages the judicial system? Sending the message that some people get out of consequences is also a highly political statement and it’s one a lot of rich people are very eager to hear.
Personally I want something far simpler. I want President Trump to have just as much possibility of jail time as an 18 year old inner city black male caught in the middle of an armed robbery. I don’t even care what standard gets used. I just want the same one applied in both situations. With hopefully a bit harsher penalties for the president because presidents should act better. And of course the scope of the crimes should be taken into consideration as well.
Failuire to do this means our democracy is far more limited than we generally tell ourselves.
The goal is to have the people run a country, and to do that well. Make mistakes, and you’ll be criticized, be voted out of office, be sent to prison, or whatever may be appropriate given the circumstances. That’s how it fucking works. There’s no get out of jail free card, in this game, because it’s not a fucking game.
So, yeah, I agree with many others that people should do the right thing, and if they don’t, that’s actually a problem that we don’t get to brush aside. Your bullshit about “ideological purity” is just a catchphrase that you’re blurting out for some reason…. If I had to guess, someone criticized one of your muddled-middle political views once; but instead of learning something valuable from the experience, you learned this handy way to shield yourself from criticism. But it only exists in your mind, so it’s not much of a shield, is it?
Talk about silly. You believe all politicians have the same psychology, the same goals, the same motivations, the reactions to being jailed, and that you somehow know this supposed fact.
And you assumed deterrence is the only legitimate reason to incarcerate people, as if preventing additional crimes (although patently obvious) was not a reason to do so. Just to be clear, I mean that the same person is not able to commit more crimes, because they are stuck in jail/prison. I do not mean “preventing” in the sense of deterrence, by trying to make it so that people might be a bit less willing to commit similar crimes.
Lots of silliness.
Isn’t there already a large incentive to not relinquish power? And if they don’t merely have ordinary political power, but also have the power to be above the law as you recommend, then isn’t that a big incentive to not relinquish such power? I mean, you’re paranoid about us creating the situation inadvertently and indirectly (and only if everything goes as you imagine); but meanwhile, what you’re suggesting is just handing that exact thing to them on a platter. And talk as if that’s somehow a more sensible strategy. It’s very Orwellian of you, how you flip it all upside, so that law is anarchy and war is peace and whatnot.
What the fuck are you even talking about? They voted, and despite losing the popular vote, the electoral college gave them what they wanted. Hooray for our “democracy.”
But they definitely did get their right to vote protected, with some help from election-meddling fuckwits to ensure others didn’t. And this has been the case since Nov. 2016 or Jan. 2017, depending on how you’re counting.
Nobody is being “ridden over roughshod,” especially not the people who were conned into voting for him, when that fucker is removed from office and prosecuted, for any or all of his numerous crimes. You have totally lost the plot, if you think this would somehow be unfair to 2016 Trump voters. Anyway, those days are long gone. The guy is just a fucking criminal, and if our law are going to mean anything at all, that is all there is to say.