I agree that widespread buy-in is a necessary precondition for legitimacy. We must agree to a set of rules/laws, establish and preserve institutions to enforce those rules/laws, hold those institutions accountable to the public trust, etc. I don't want anyone to outsource their own critical thinking. But *critical thinking* is the operative term. People must think critically about the circumstances or else they can be led astray.
Politics doesn't operate on the presupposition that we have a critically thinking electorate. We operate with the electorate we have and do our best to educate people on the margins. People have always and will always be led astray. There is no future where this isn't so.
Case in point, your characterization of the "Mueller investigation" as a fishing expedition. I'm not sure if you've read the Mueller report, or the Horowitz report about the Mueller report ("the OIG found no indication that the investigation of Trump and Russia was motivated by political bias"), or if you're conflating the media's characterization of the investigation with the actual investigation. I'm also not sure if you're aware of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mail server or the US Select Committee on Benghazi or the Whitewater investigation or the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Sometimes investigations of political figures occur.
Yes I'm aware the sky is blue.
And, to the extent that political figures engage in behavior warranting such investigations, they should.
Investigate away, but maybe just maybe put slightly more thought into it than having the FBI raid a former presidents residence when you can just subpoena the docs again. The docs they raided for had already been under subpoena months earlier. The gov't came and took all the boxes of docs from Trumps safe, then instructed him to put a better lock on the safe for security reasons. They then decide to raid the same fucking place again on the assumption that Trump left some out when they came earlier. Just ask Trump to get his lawyers or whoever to search for any outstanding docs.
A raid like this has never occurred before in the history of our Republic and all those investigations managed to survive and come to a conclusion. Unless the FBI produces evidence that necessitates this raid vs some less aggravating manner of getting the docs I have no reason to conclude that choosing to raid Trump vs subpoena him was anything other than malice.
James Comey, a Republican, was head of the FBI when it began investigations into both Hillary Clinton and Russia 2016/Trump. John McCain, a Republican and 2008 nominee, was central to the start of the latter investigation. Rod Rosenstein, a Republican appointed by Trump, appointed Robert Mueller, a Republican, as special counsel to continue the investigation. Mitt Romney, a Republican and 2012 nominee, voted to impeach Trump twice. Current FBI director Wray, a Republican appointed by Trump, is currently head of the FBI.
Wow a bunch of people from the non-Trump wing of the party that after this raid no longer exists. This lends as much credence to your argument as having Jennifer Rubin write for the Washington Post. To date there hasn't been much of a market for former Democrats coming over to our side to lend our arguments a bipartisan sheen. Democrats are much better at punishing apostates than the right is. Hence cancel culture et al. I would have argued that Manchin was maybe a candidate for being one of these, but after he bent over and voted for the recent legislation, I would say that the left is just better at getting what they want and punishing defectors.
This situation is why the most important discussion moving forward is of Trumps schedule F plan. When a prez comes into office they get to appoint the top guys in each dept. Under those top guys are 20 layers of bureaucracy that the prez can't appoint. Of those there are about 50k civil service employees who have a say in the policy direction of those depts. Without enough of that leadership in the depts being willing to go along with the prez, the entire Bureaucratic apparatus resists every desire of the executive, as we saw happen under Trump. He had his top guys, but couldn't get anything done because he hadn't installed enough of his people at the relevant depts to move anything forward. Of the 2 mil govt employees maybe 50k have this policy making power and by classifying them schedule F Trump would have the power to fire and replace all of those 50k. This way he could enter government and have some policy impact.
These 50k workers, not elected, making dept level policy decisions and remaining in gov't no matter which party wins. Impossible to fire due to federal union contracts. These people make rules that the whole country has to follow and none of them ever received a single vote. Schedule F would make these *legislating* bureaucrats answerable to the prez admin and thus the voting electorate.
I doubt you will ever view the system as legitimate so long as you start with the presupposition that Trump must be innocent or at least equivalent with other politicians in the illegality of his actions. People all around Trump have been convicted of crimes. His campaign managers and acolytes, his longtime attorney. These are not people who operate under the rule of law. It is you who has changed. You've contorted yourself into a pretzel all to preserve your own support of a man who is unfit to be president. I remember wishing Trump well and congratulating you when he won. That was after a very public FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton that very possibly cost her the election, and before any investigation into Trump. I didn't throw a tantrum. I didn't complain. I felt that what she did was worthy of an investigation and accepted the consequences.
Investigate away. You said leave Trump alone or you'll nominate him is a stupid argument. Why?
If that's what ends up happening why is my reasoning stupid?
Framing the question this way is a little disingenuous, I'm not trying to debate the awfulness of Trump. One would think the contents of his character has been sufficiently legislated.
What I am disputing is whether the facts on the ground warranted raiding MAL given the obvious political consequences of doing so.
Yes you are uniquely gracious among people who discuss politics.
What changed about me is that I used to think I was better than Trump voters. I was a Rubio guy through and through (even worked on his '10 campaign) and thought they were crazy. I was the crazy one, they had a legitimate beef with a political system that had systematically ignored them for decades.
I've said investigate away, that's a political tool thats been used forever. A former presidents house has never before been raided. The foundation of my point is that, the grounds for this raid need to be iron clad to warrant the political blowback of doing it. That the raid, not the investigation itself, is a dumb move that breaks a serious norm, moves the nation closer to widespread political violence and energizes the GOP electorate for Nov.
I don't expect you to hold back. I expect you to adhere to the rule of law and hold people accountable when they engage in illegal activities. We would be better for it.
If you've ever seen Watchmen you sound a little like Rorschach at the end. Sticking to the rule of law in the face of global annihilation.
Weighing the consequences of raiding vs subpoenaing a former president in no way violates the rule of law. In fact just subpoenaing the info vs raiding for it would probably be better for the investigation itself.
You can drape the raid in your rule of law argument, but I've shown how not raiding violates nothing.
This whole situation demonstrates a lack of strategic thinking by Biden Co. that's fascinating.
