If history has taught us anything, it’s that Donald Trump and his most loyal cronies will get away with almost all of it.
We have a better chance of finding the Loch Ness Monster than Trump and his acolytes actually being punished with more than a slap on the wrist for illegal acts.
Trump knows that America’s legal and political system works quite different in reality when money and power are involved.
Further, legally questionable “rules” are endlessly used by Congress, legislators, governors, corporate executives and presidents to push their personally desired outcomes. This while injecting thoughts of unjustifiable and unverifiable dire consequences if they don’t get their way. Just everyday business.
When it ends, Trump is simply going to pardon fawning sycophants like Paul Manafort and his ilk, and then set something up to pardon himself and his family on the way out.
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No one is going to effectively stand in his way. Vice President Mike Pence and the Republican Senate will welcome it and do nothing; the House has no power to stop it, and no lawsuit will stand in his way with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Corporate America, Wall Street, banksters, Congress, the GOP and Democrats, have all profited from Trump’s actions by playing “helpless” to allow his actions. One of the first rules of politics is to never allow a crisis, or crisis creator, to go unused. No conspiracy, just an age-old strategy.
The political pundits, opponents, prosecutors and journalists who are self-assured that Trump is “in trouble” actually do get it. No, they are not wrong to indicate that his conduct does merit “locking him up” behind his own steel wall. But they’d have to lock up most of Congress with him to be fair treatment.
Trump knows the bottom line better than any of them. He’s willing to challenge any boundary, forever. He’s supported by a GOP that has simply always wanted what he is pushing anyway. People are so sick and tired of hearing it all they will simply turn away and move on because of his “crazy as a fox” approach.
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Laws, decency, norms and shame only work when there are those who will actually enforce them; and those who actually believe they are going to be punished for an act. We simply have no adults in the leadership. Those who come after Trump will be punished far more for much minor acts. One has to show that the prior period is over. Then remaining government and corporate leaders will simply carry on unnecessary dysfunction and fleecing the public in another form, while former Congress members and legislators rush to get their follow-on six-seven figure lobbying gigs.
Billionaires and the 1 percent who have sold out American workers for decades will get the “sheep” that most Americans have become to settle down soon enough. President Richard Nixon was quickly pardoned by President Gerald Ford. The country just didn’t want to deal with Watergate anymore.
Only a minuscule number of Nazis ever paid for their crimes. Vast numbers had good careers and lived out their lives until well into their 80s and 90s. Practically every German mega business corporation that worked for the Nazis exists today, much more wealthy and robust than ever.
Now rising anti-Semitism in America and Europe has shown that the Holocaust could most certainly happen again, and to any designated group. For the Nazis, it was mostly the Jews and anyone they didn’t like. For the Trumpies, it’s immigrants and anyone they don’t like. Life doesn’t change much.
And when Trump goes, all will breathe a giant sigh of relief, and move on. All the while he’ll feel sorely abused by such ingrates!
Anyone else who had hundreds of contacts with top Russians, whose family has been financed by them since 1980, whose campaign met repeatedly with them, and now has legal sanctions nullified against Russian oligarchs, would have been prosecuted by now for treason.
• Anselm Staack, is registered non-affiliated CPA and attorney who has been an Alaska resident for over 44 years. He was the Treasury Comptroller for Alaska under Gov. Jay Hammond and worked directly on the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. He resides in Juneau.
• Anselm Staack, is registered non-affiliated CPA and attorney who has been an Alaska resident for over 44 years. He was the Treasury Comptroller for Alaska under Gov. Jay Hammond and worked directly on the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. He resides in Juneau. My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire.
