"One nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all" cannot exist without accountability
When push came to shove, Trump choked.
After being elected President, Trump abandoned his promise to "drain the swamp," choosing instead to wave off the wrongdoings of the Crooked Clintons. (It wasn't just Hillary. It was a family effort, if you'll recall--and CGI even shut down for a while, but now it's back up and running.)
I've seen former FBI Director James Comey's name in the news a lot lately. While it is right to criticize James Comey for many things, including his failure to hold Hillary Clinton to account, conservatives should at least be honest and hold Trump to the same standard for having done the exact same thing. Oh, and it gets even better than that! After Comey let Hillary off the hook with nothing more than an admonition that she had been an "extremely careless" and naughty girl (but she didn't mean to, he said!), Trump decided that Comey was doing a good enough job to deserve to continue on as the Director of the FBI in the Trump administration. How well did that work out?
Mueller...? Mueller...? Don't forget that it was Comey who hatched a plan to "leak" his memos with the intention of kicking off a special counsel investigation that caused us all to be bombarded with stories of Trump having colluded with Russia to interfere in our elections. I cannot say that if Comey's plan had failed that they would not have formed some other plan to "get Trump." But what I can say with 100% certainty is that if Trump had exercised better judgment and never kept Comey on as FBI Director when he became President, then Comey NEVER could have written and leaked those memos. Trump may whine all he likes about how unfairly he has been targeted, but if he doesn't see his own hand in it, then he's a damn fool.
There are so many BAD things which have happened to our nation which could arguably have been avoided if Trump had displayed better judgment from Day One of his presidency. And despite Trump's constant focus on those attacks having been directed at HIM, don't think that those attacks on Trump aren't attacks on US as well. We have most certainly gotten caught in the crossfire and it isn't just Trump who has suffered. On multiple occasions, our nation has been made to suffer the consequences resulting from Trump's poor decisions. (Don't even get me started on Trump's role in the development of "that beautiful shot" that Trump was once so proud of and of which he has now gone dead silent.)
Many have long since known of the "manufacturing" of news that occurs in the reports which we receive. Though conservatives often view this as a problem arising from those on the liberal left, the truth is that such distortions of narratives come from both the left and the right. The first time I ever heard of news described as being "manufactured" was in Noam Chomsky's documentary, "Manufacturing Consent." Chomsky despises Republicans, but he wasn't wrong to have said that media narratives are "manufactured." Tucker Carlson recently said the exact same thing following his departure from Fox News. So when we have people on both the left and the right claiming that the narratives which are put forth by ALL media are intentionally misleading us in order to shape our view of the world, then why is it that we are not more discerning than we are? And I do think it’s appropriate to say that “we”--as in “we the people”--are doing this, because that is how deeply the sickness has permeated. Look at how many of those who are considered to be “trusted voices” among conservatives have endorsed Trump. There is a message of an expectation of “loyalty” to Trump that is being put out by many in our government and in media that is targeted to conservatives. I'm sure that Trump supporters will perceive such criticism as an attack upon Trump, but the threat that I am trying to point out here has less to do with Trump and more to do with US. If we want our government to change, then WE have to change first.
A day or two ago, I read that Trump made some sort of statement that Fox News should "embrace MAGA." Should they really, though? Have we become so hypocritical and stupid as to complain of bias in the media while we simultaneously call for Trump's brand (MAGA) to be embraced?
This kind of thinking has permeated conservative thought to the point that many leading conservative voices (whom I used to respect and trust) no longer see their hypocrisy and believe themselves to be righteous in their demands of such "loyalty" to Trump. To reference Tucker Carlson once again, not long prior to his departure from Fox News, Trump supporter and advisor Peter Navarro wrote a Substack article titled, "Who Does Tucker Think He Is?" In his article, Navarro expressed some views that conservatives SHOULD find concerning. The entire article can be summed up in Navarro's statement that, "When push comes to shove, Tucker simply cannot be trusted to have Trump’s back in any way."
https://peternavarro.substack.com/p/who-does-tucker-carlson-think-he
Such calls for media bias as those from Trump and Navarro should truly should be alarming to us; and, yet, this kind of thinking seems to have become the norm among many conservatives. I have seen Trump supporter Kash Patel often referring lately to the "two-tiered system" of justice, but how is it that so many do not realize that even as we complain about justice not being blind with regard to the functioning of our government, we have failed to see that we have established our own two-tiered systems with regard to the expectations we hold that exceptions will be made for OUR candidate or for those whom we perceive to be on OUR side of the aisle. We behave as parents who make excuses for the bad behavior of their children. I believe that this points to the root cause for why we have continued in an endless cycle of there being no accountability for ANYONE. True justice demands accountability from all--no exceptions, and where harms have been caused (deliberately or not), then justice should be pursued, even if it means that a light of truth is shined in places which we would prefer remained dark.
"One nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all" cannot exist without accountability.