Surely Liz Cheney has the grit not to run when the going gets tough. Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images
Compartmentalised people are difficult enough to deal with. A compartmentalised culture sleepwalks toward oblivion.
Consider New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, who wrote in December 2017, not even a year into Trump’s presidency: “As this hideous, discombobulating year comes to an end, the Resistance offers one reason for optimism… Trump became president despite the will of a majority of the American people… Inasmuch as Trump is able to force his agenda on an unwilling nation, it’s because of a breakdown in democracy…”
That’s strong stuff. It’s the language of an extreme political crisis, in which a criminal figure exploits weak political structures, seizing power in order to establish an authoritarian regime. The only hope is what Goldberg calls “the Resistance”, a brave collection of private citizens and public officials who strive together to “hold the line against authoritarianism”. You think of Mandela and Navalny, men whose willingness to sacrifice their lives for truth and for their societies offers a light at the end of history’s dark tunnel.
And here is Goldberg just last week writing about the various public officials Trump and his nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, have said they intend to investigate and prosecute once Trump is in the White House. Goldberg writes that “Biden should pardon them all, along with pretty much everyone else Patel has singled out by name and those who worked on the Jan. 6 committee”. Goldberg isn’t alone in making this argument. Even as people are being liberated from Assad’s prisons after years of torture and isolation, imposed upon them for standing up to the regime. Biden’s aides, and Biden himself, are considering granting immunity from Trump to some of the most powerful and richest individuals in America, a consideration that would be inconceivable if many of these people had not made it clear that immunity was what they desired.
Whatever happened to the Resistance? To the rows upon rows of lawn signs that sprang up in besieged and beleaguered liberal enclaves, signs exhorting their well-heeled, super-insulated residents to stand up to Trump? Where is the deafening clamour that rang out of every nook and cranny of the Left-liberal establishment, right up until the moment when Trump won back the White House, resoundingly and conclusively, last November? Did the “existential threat”— a phrase used ad nauseam by liberals since 2016 — Trump posed to democracy suddenly become downgraded from “existential” to a mere threat, just at the moment Trump’s Republicans took both the White House and the Senate?
In 2016, Trump won by a hair. By December 2017, he was “authoritarian” only in the hollow rhetoric of an ugly temperament. A plaything of laws, customs, rites, and politics that he did not understand, Trump had struggled to gain any kind of stable footing as president. He had not signed into law a single piece of legislation seriously undercutting the liberal agenda.
On the other hand, by December 2017, the woke revolution, existing only by virtue of its fiction of standing up to Trump’s “existential threat”, was on the verge of taking over the country’s major cultural institutions, as well as its educational establishment, from kindergarten on up. So gratifying and rewarding was the “opposition” to Trump that Goldberg could actually make the false claim, in the New York Times no less, that Trump had become president “despite the will of a majority of the American people”. In fact, Trump had won a legitimate US presidential election. And far from forcing themselves on “an unwilling nation”, as Goldberg wrote, the Republicans retained control of both Houses of Congress, giving them both Congress and the presidency for the first time in 12 years.
Leave aside Goldberg, whose husband, a longtime paid political consultant to Democratic political campaigns, only stands to gain professionally from the apocalyptic political fantasies his wife gins up in her columns. Why, when Trump posed no actual threat to democracy in 2017, but when, in the alarmist liberal perspective that has reigned for eight years, he does in fact pose a threat to democracy now, do Goldberg and other liberals cry “Run for cover!” instead of “Resist!”
Why, from 2016-2020, did liberals compare Trump to Julius Caesar, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Franco, Salazar, Pinochet and Juan Peron, when he had done nothing to remotely justify the comparison, but now that Trump has truly consolidated his power and, by way of certain Cabinet choices, made clear his autocratic intentions, why does his mere blustering about revenge provoke calls for immunity rather than calls for heroic “resistance”? Was it easier to “resist” Trump when he posed no threat than it is now, when, having the support of the country’s majority, tech titans, the banking and finance sectors and even widening swathes of the media, he — again, along the lines of the erstwhile “resistance” — poses a true threat? Doesn’t more power mean the greater threat, which would require the greater “resistance”? Or is it the very fact that Trump has so much power now that has cowed the liberals, who worship power, into submission?
Forget the relinquishing of moral superiority, what about the inherent admission of guilt coming with these blanket pardons ?
If you did nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear, and shouldn’t require a pardon to sleep soundly.
I suspect that for those reasons no blanket pardons will be given. And no one will be prosecuted even without a protective pardon. Donald Trump himself put it well: “success is the best retribution”.
Blimey. ‘If you did nothing wrong you have nothing to fear..’ – unless (no, really) you might wonder if somebody, somewhere in power might, oh, I don’t know, sort of *redefine* what they and their helots call, er, *wrong*? Then you might have to worry a bit. But that never happens, eh?
…Like the deep state and democrats did to Trump and his,supporters in order to harm, and for themselves and millions of criminals in order to help.
*Derisive snort*
Lee Siegel makes me seriously want to cancel my membership.
Let me make this clear for you Lee, they were all LYING then because they serve their paymasters, and they will continue to lie for their paymasters while acting like the complete cretinous hypocrites they are.
And just to give you a 10 second reality check that you hardly deserve: the only threat Trump poses is to the ruling elites we call the swamp. Obama deported 3 million illegals in his second term so it is in fact feasible, Trump can easily secure a ceasefire within hours considering Zelensky relies on US weapons and support and Putin is a rational actor, and RFK not being a doctor is a completely irrelevant and reductive point with regards to his intent to reform the FDA.
Your wilful obtuseness is astounding. I’m sure you will continue to walk around believing yourself very clever however.
Your obtuseness is equally astounding.
The existential threat to Democrats is themselves. They are becoming irrelevant due to self-inflicted wounds. Crying wolf won’t help them this time around. Being preemptively pardoned by Biden would tell the world that they are guilty after all.
This author’s writing makes me tired. ‘Tis a bevy of words and a river of sad song, filled with divers biases and much malice towards all – I’m not quite sure what to make of this unexceptional piece. It is filled with “facts” and “data” that have a home mostly in the mind of their writer; backing is lacking.It didn’t have to be written, and it didn’t have to be read ….
I agree with you, sir. 😉
Well, points for consistency I suppose. You can tell who’s really committed to a cause and who really believes an opinion when said commitment to said cause no longer represents a sure path to wealth and power and when said opinion gets one spit upon rather than acclaimed. The Christians who were thrown to the lions by Nero and Caligula were probably better and more committed than even the most devout evangelists of today. I therefore salute Mr. Siegel on his integrity. He seems to hate woke liberalism as much as he hates Trump and is thus doubly a loser, having been defeated by both and banished to the political wilderness.
I have respect for the man, but little sympathy. The populist reaction to unchecked globalism was utterly predictable. An amateur’s knowledge of history and a sober assessment of human nature are the only things required to see what was coming. It’s far too late for any never Trumper, corporate shill, or noble defender of classic liberal western civilization to plead innocence. Anyone within the political or economic power structure could have recognized the problems and come up with some solutions that were acceptable to the people. Nobody did. Both sides of the uniparty failed, and Trump is the result.
The corporate overlords sent factories to foreign nations. The politicians surrendered power to faceless and impenetrable bureaucracy. They insisted we all bow at the altar of the global marketplace and follow the dictates of international finance. The people watched their livelihoods and then their sense of sovereignty over their nations given over to impersonal economic forces and supranational authorities. They were given no reasonable alternative so when Trump came along promising little more than to be a sledgehammer to smash the powers that the people blame for their problems, they picked up the hammer and chose to smash rather than surrender. Call Trump voters whatever you like. I call them ordinary people who deserved more consideration, more sympathy, and more respect than they received from the likes of Mr. Siegel and many other members of the establishment. The establishment refused to listen when they asked nicely, so they picked up the hammer. As far as I am concerned, the establishment, the uniparty, the globalists are the authors of their own demise and as such they are just as responsible for any destruction caused by Trump as the man or his voters are.
Nicely put.
“It’s far too late for any never Trumper, corporate shill, or noble defender of classic liberal western civilization to plead innocence.” ……..Well said: keep your eyes open for the people who, like the neighbours of Auschwitz, in the coming months will proclaim their disclaimers.
Seigel is emblematic of a strain of the population that fixes on the ‘what’ of Trump while ignoring the ‘why,’ the factors that made a candidate like Trump possible. He and the others cannot or will not, maybe both, grasp that people are fed up with the dysfunction of DC and they saw Trump as the antidote. It’s not about the man; it has never been about the man. It is about the conditions that allowed him – and others around the world like him – to become viable. In a healthy, well-functioning republic, there would be no Trump. He would have no reason to run.
Well said.
Superb comment, Steve.
I suppose the sensible thing to do about the liberal mental health crisis is to echo our Southern American women and say: “Bless their hearts.”
This article really made me think about the tension between moral principles and political pragmatism. If Biden’s pardons are meant to “heal” the nation, I can’t help but wonder if it’s just sweeping accountability under the rug. Can we really move forward as a country without fully reckoning with the past? It feels like we risk normalizing dangerous precedents that could weaken our democracy long term.
Siegel is a partisan hack, but he makes a point here. Where’s the courage? I don’t care if they all accept pardons. It won’t stop the investigations.
Of course there’s no courage. Progressives are bullies and cowards.
Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter is amusing in its hypocrisy. Joe Biden claims that Hunter Biden was unfairly targeted in a political prosecution. But it was Joe Biden’s own Justice Department that prosecuted his son. Not his political enemies, but his own people.
On top of that, Hunter Biden was given a plea deal that would have wiped away the charges. He turned it down, with arrogance. That he needed a pardon was due to his own stubbornness and recklessness. Shame on him.
“any more than he can “make America healthy again” by putting a man who has no medical or scientific background, and who is opposed to vaccines, in charge of Americans’ health.”
Mr Siegel seems to have no idea what normally makes a great leader (at least of nations and other large groups), namely someone who has a vision and the ability to pick the right people to achieve that vision. RFK Jr doesn’t need to be The Scientist doing the research he just needs to know that proper unbiased research is needed, ensure it gets done and then let people make the informed decision about what is best for them.
Exactly!
RFK Jr ignores unbiased research in favor of his unsupported fantasies. Read research, not politics for an assessment, please.
Yes, listen to the current Surgeon General!
What benefit did Fauci confer on America and the world after his subsidizing of the Chinese lab that unleashed COVID and the draconian measures that followed?
Let me make this clear for you Lee, they were all LYING then because they serve their paymasters, and they will continue to lie for their paymasters while acting like the complete cretinous hypocrites they are.
And just to give you a 10 second reality check that you hardly deserve: the only threat Trump poses is to the ruling elites we call the swamp. Obama deported 3 million illegals in his second term so it is in fact feasible, Trump can easily secure a ceasefire within hours considering Zelensky relies on US weapons and support and Putin is a rational actor, and RFK not being a doctor is a completely irrelevant and reductive point with regards to his intent to reform the FDA.
There are none so blind as those who do not wish to see, and I can think of no one with more entrenched TDS than Mr. Siegel here.
Lawfare and institutional capture was used to pursue Trump and Trump supporters. Democrats know this, because they did it – using government and legal institutions to pursue authoritarian vendettas to shut down their critics. And now, with Trump’s victory, they are terrified that their mis-deeds will be used against them.
My hope is that the incoming administration can rise above Democrat-style dirty dealings and lawfare against its enemies. I’m sure there will be firings simply to root out the cancer of politicization, but I hope the misuse of the law for political ends does not continue. I would like to see a general stand against lawfare in US legal institutions – the law should not be a weapon.
For me, the best option for Trump is simply transparency. Release the documents, open government to public scrutiny, and let public opinion see the inner workings and machinations of the ‘get Trump’ cabal. It’s already made Liz Cheney, and others, toxic to the public. Bureaucrats cannot operate in darkness and shadows, shielding themselves from the eyes of the people who pay them.
I share your hope. But why you would expect that from a new president who is loudly announcing that he is going to go after those who worked or talked against him is kind if hard to understand. Would you expect Trump to release the documents and be transparent about his own attempts to reverse the 2020 election results, BTW?
I the 2016 campaign he talked about “locking up” Hillary Clinton, but he didn’t even try. Trump’s bark has always been a lot worse than his bite.
Trump talks authoritarian, but largely acted within the traditions and norms of the US. Obama. Hillary, Biden, Harris et al talk a big Democratic game, but then governed like tin-pot dictators through executive orders, ignoring the law (i.e. immigration) and using the Justice Dept to persecute political enemies.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Trump had people chanting ‘lock her up’ in 2015 and when he assumed office he did nothing and let the matter drop. Trump has a habit of hyperbolic rhetoric that he either has no intention of ever following through on or else reconsiders in his more sober moments. Eight years later, I’m more or less convinced that the rhetoric is mostly an act. It’s admittedly an embarrassing and inappropriate act, but as others have observed, Trump should be taken seriously but not literally.
I think it’s instructive to consider Trump in terms of his communication style. For those not aware, there are five common styles: passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive, assertive, and manipulative. Passive people tend towards being doormats who get pushed around in conversation and do nothing about it. Aggressive people are bullies and boors who do the pushing. Passive-aggressive people feign passivity but react subtly or strongly when others take an initiative they don’t like. Assertiveness is a balanced approach that is held up as the ‘ideal’ by most psychologists and experts as socially healthy. I tend to think that’s correct but an incomplete view as people may or may not care about being socially healthy vs. successful in whatever endeavor they are pursuing. The fifth type is manipulative, which is a style used by persons who conceal their true intent in order to steer conversations and frame the debate so that they get a certain desired end result whether or not they outwardly agree.
It’s both the hardest to recognize and the hardest to successfully execute. I should know, because it’s my communication style. You wouldn’t know it from my writing, but then I’m not actually trying to accomplish any particular purpose here. Manipulative communicators tend to be secretive, intelligent, and are often anti-social in one way or another (guilty as charged). Nearly all sociopaths and serial killers exhibit this type of communication naturally. For that reason and because people don’t like being manipulated, it often gets a bad rap, but it’s not a priori evil; it’s just a technique, a style. It can be also be learned and practiced as a technique. It can be used by police negotiators to get a criminal to release hostages or by diplomats to get two conflicted sides to the table. It can involve outright lies and straightforward dishonesty, but the choice of words and choosing what to say and what not to say is often more important. I believe Trump uses such techniques. I couldn’t say whether his is the natural or the practiced variety, but given his total history I lean towards the latter.
He comes across as aggressive, but I doubt he truly is. I think the aggressiveness is a feint, a calculated provocation whose true purpose is to be as hyperbolic and inflammatory as possible to provoke an equally hyperbolic and inflammatory response, thus establishing himself as a jerk and a bully, but his opponent as something worse, the hidden villain who removes their mask of civility out of anger. Thus, the manipulated appears to be the manipulator. Why they keep walking into the same obvious (to me anyway) trap I can’t tell you. It has led me to doubt the basic competence of our establishment politicians and media commentators. If they’re that easy to manipulate, I can’t imagine we’re any better off with them than we are with Trump. I’m not sure how much more competent Trump actually is, but he didn’t start WWIII or run the country into the ground any more than his predecessor or successor did and he instituted a lot of policies that the Biden administration actually continued and/or increased. Character matters, but results matter more. A clever and capable snake is sometimes preferable to a naive and incompetent gentleman.
I’m sure there are other layers and more complicated manipulation that he uses with his advisors and employees that we don’t see. I’ve seen several accounts of people who have interacted with the man personally after seeing his public face that describe him as ‘not what they expected’ which fits the manipulative type. I have neither the opportunity to observe these layers nor the skill to parse them out even if I did because he’s almost certainly far more skilled as a manipulator than I am. With Musk having Asperger’s, I’ve always suspected that much of what he does is also similarly an act. He’s not as good at it either but that’s not surprising. Any form of socialization is hard for us. It makes me wonder if they don’t recognize each other for what they both are and that’s partly responsible for their seemingly unlikely alliance.
I can understand why you dislike Trump so much, but don’t fall into the trap of being as hyperbolic and reactive as he is. That’s almost certainly exactly what he wants. He’s been benefiting from the reaction you display since 2015. I personally doubt he would have gone through with most of these vendetta prosecutions because he knows he’d never prove anything in court and would end up looking the fool. Now he doesn’t have to bother because the establishment decided to preemptively pardon anyone and everyone who might be a likely target and they look guilty and corrupt for making unprecedented broad pardons. I suppose they took Trump at his word that he was going to abuse the power of his office, so they decided they may as well abuse the power themselves. This doesn’t exactly speak to their superior moral character, and now Trump can say they started it so it speaks to their failure to appreciate political strategy. I’d love to have a better option than Trump, but I’m not going to vote for incompetence over manipulation, because the latter might be bad but the former is definitely bad. All we can hope is that Trump isn’t as bad or as foolish as his twitter comments and media rants suggest.
Thanks for engaging, as always.
Unfortunately Trump’s behaviour is not a trap – traps you can avoid. Like all the most effective tactics you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If we get all excited about the threat to democracy people think we are hysterical and the debate is about Trump all the time. If we respond in kind we let Trump claim we started it – and are hypocrites to boot. And if we simply let him get away with it and accept his behaviour as normal and reasonable we are conceding that this is how democracy should work – and that there is no particular reason not to vote Trump. Even as we do nothing to stop him or counter his tactics. We would become like the Brits from ‘Asterix in Britain’ who – faced with the rule-breaking Roman invaders who kept fighting the war without stopping for weekend breaks – could do no more than huff ‘Shocking, these are not gentlemen‘ and drink their tea while the Romans conquered them. What are we supposed to do? It takes two to keep the peace but only one to make a brawl.
I would not doubt that Trump knows the effect of his own style and works with it, but still all available evidence suggests that he really is unpredictable, vindictive and unmoored from reality. No one has a clue what he plans to do – if he does plan and does not simply play it by ear. Nor do we know what he is trying to achieve – except that it will make him look really big and important. Does he even care beyond that? Who knows? And for some reason everybody chooses to think that he will really do what they want him to. Some vote for him because they want to see him sticking it to the Democrats, and people like you vote for him because you convince yourself that he will not really do it after all.
It is really not reassuring to rely on Trump ‘reconsidering in his more sober moments‘. That would rely on Trump bowing down to reality, and there is not much evidence to suggest he wants to do that. It would also rely on someone letting him know what the problems are and telling him things he does not want to hear. In his first presidency there were a lot of people doing that (until they got fired), but this time around Trump is systematically getting rid of anyone who might contradict him or do anything to counter his whims. And for good measure putting mavericks in to head agencies from health to intelligence who are at daggers drawn with the people who work for them – thus ensuring that there can never be any consistent informed opposition to anything he might come up with.
It is interesting to hear you say ‘All we can hope is that Trump isn’t as bad or as foolish as his twitter comments and media rants suggest.’ Clearly you think that it is actually quite possible that he really is that bad, but you favour him anyway. And you did have an alternative: you could have voted against him. Is it because you hate the Democrats so much that you think even a possibly unhinged autocrat is a better choice? Or do you just think that the best manipulator should get the job by right, whatever his policies or plans or character?
Attempts to reverse the 2020 election results’??? Evidence has emerged now to show the opposite – that a lot of democrats supporters or paid accessories sneaked mail-in ballots into election offices in the dark. But those were captured on videos!
Great comment. Thank you!
It is the height of unacceptable hypocrisy that those who conspired to break the law and disrupt not only President Trump but many hundreds , even thousands, of others should be able to pretend Trump only wants retribution. Biden is pardoning convicted foreign spies. Biden is seeking to cover up felonies. Team Biden broke their oath, their word, and the law.
Yet many people are only worried about if Trump might be mean? How utterly contemptible.
How much of a real story is Biden’s idea of a pre-emptive pardon?
My understand is a number of high profile ‘possibles’ have rejected the idea and don’t want it as would create impression they were guilty of something. I listened to Adam Schiff particularly saying ‘bring it on’ in reaction to a Kash Patel attempt to prosecute. He added the attempt would quickly look so malign that American public would abreact and the Trump-ists know this. Hence the threats are more an attempt to intimidate and much less likely to follow through.
The activities of the January 6th Committee do need to be investigated, though, because a large number of people were unjustly imprisoned or given sentences much longer than their misdemeanours merited.
The Jan 6th Committee weren’t responsible for court cases and sentencing. Good grief do you buy into all the twaddle without thought?
I think you need to go back and read about this again. The committee mandated many, if not most, of these prosecutions. You must try to be fair-minded and not always assume that those on your side are the virtuous ones. That’s far from the truth. These “I’m good, they’re bad narratives” may make you feel good, but they prevent you from achieving any real understanding.
The corrupt DC courts relied explicitl on fabricated charges and unconstitutional application of law to round up their political prisoners. J6 and the Biden DoJ collyded in making this process appear legitimate.
There have been no threats to prosecute. In fact, just the opposite. Donald Trump has said he will not prosecute. Retribution will come, but in other ways, mainly through success.
You inhabit a fairytale CD. He’s on the record making such threats, repeatedly. And Patel too, which is why he’s being proposed by Trump.
However I think it’s much more to intimidate and actual prosecution won’t happen as it’d backfire and they know that. The Mafia rely on intimidation and fear as much as any real action.
You’re doing it again. I don’t recall any comment ever from you that’s been critical of the malicious prosecutions carried out by Trump’s opponents, and yet here you are attacking the new administration on the grounds that they are going to do the same. Without any evidence at all. Your moral compass is wonky.
Donald Trump is on the record making a threat that he would prosecute someone if elected? Please provide an example of such a threat. I’ve never seen one from him. Same with Kash Patel. They talk about what their enemies deserve. They don’t threaten to prosecute.
Compare that with Tish James. When she was running for the New York attorney general office she said explicitly in a campaign video that she would prosecute Donald Trump. And she did.
The Democrats amaze me with their hypocrisy. They actually bring case after case against Donald Trump where they weaponize the justice system for political purposes and then act horrified when Donald Trump says they deserve the same. Give me a break.
As for the Mafia, I think they tend to follow the tenets of the fictional Don Vito Corleone, who said: “Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.” They are very transactional, not histrionic, and rely on actions more than words.
Then there’s Tony Fauci’s favorite line from The Godfather: “It’s nothing personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.” That’s Donald Trump. He says a lot of things, but they don’t matter. He focuses strictly on the business — getting things done. Retribution and revenge don’t help with that.
Applying the law fairly and constitutionally is all Trump has promised. Some see that as a threat.
Please stop using this writer Unherd. He is the herd
I came here to say this. Why UnHerd is so taken with Mr. Siegel’s writing is beyond me.
I’ll give credit where due – this is not Lee’s worst article by far, even if it does still include the apparently obligatory “Trump (and his voters) is dumb, bad, and misinformed” paragraph.
The sheer cynicism and hypocrisy of Democrat leaders and supporters becomes more hideous with each year, month, week, day …
This is actually quite a decent article from Lee Siegel.
Not really sure the author knew what he wanted to say. Thank God I only got 4 paragraphs into this pap.
Re: Liz and Richard Cheney (Because UnHerd thinks his usual moniker is vulgar) — Did it strike anyone else as strange that the Democrats welcomed the endorsement of a man they charged with War Crimes? Even though they never quite got around to bringing him to justice when they had the chance.
Generally this is an article I agree with, for the nothing that is worth. But….
“Surely Liz Cheney, a war-profiteer’s daughter, who enabled the horrendously destructive lies her father told that dragged America into an invasion of Iraq, has the grit not to run when the going gets unpleasant.”
The author knows how to buy into a lie. Decisions and actions based upon partial information aren’t lies. If such were true, all of the partisans who, like John Kerry, were “for it before they were against it,” are liars also. And where does the “war profiteer bit come from? I’m confident that someone can create a twisted skein of words to support this, and any other nonsense suitable to their biases.
Most, if not all, of the West’s leftist governments are running for cover. They have stuffed a destructive, woke, multicultural, open-borders, regressive agenda down the throats of a cowed public, who were too frightened to object.
Now, it has become manifestly obvious to all that the emperor has no clothes. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle.
Read up until you regurgitated the lies that RFK Jr is opposed to vaccines. Can’t trust any media these days. You’re all morally bankrupt with an agenda because you obviously have access to the same information the rest of us do and surely have seen the podcasts where he states that he and his children are FULLY vaccinated except for Covid. How does that make him “opposed to vaccines”? Shameful writing.
Bobby Kennedy has also said repeatedly, in print and in spoken words, that vaccines cause autism.
Sadly, it is now apparent that the government knew that there is a link, and acted corruptly to cover up that link.
That is false. There is no link. There was no coverup.
Please steer me to any evidence that shows otherwise. I would be fascinated to see it.
Read up until you regurgitated the lies that RFK Jr is opposed to vaccines. Can’t trust any media these days. You’re all morally bankrupt with an agenda because you obviously have access to the same information the rest of us do and surely have seen the podcasts where he states that he and his children are FULLY vaccinated except for Covid. How does that make him “opposed to vaccines”? Shameful writing.
Lee tells UnHerd that all of the crimes democrats and bureaucrats vommitted against Trump don’t count because Trump. There was however never “resistance”. It was always a mutiny, coup, insurrection and treason. The amount of money Team Biden is raking in with this blatant latest “f**k you” to America is nauseating and infuriating.
This unseemly, cowardly hypocritical panic by the democrats and bureaucratic elites is their tacit admission that not only does their Emperor have no clothes. Their Emperor also has no scruples, no honor, and no integrity.
>Perhaps it is the overwhelming nature of Trump’s victory in November.
IIRC the popular vote was 48% to 51%. Is that ‘overwhelming’?
Watching an elite that has dominated the US since 1945 come under severe pressure is fascinating and educational.
““Immunity” is what the liberals who made it their profession to pursue Trump from pillar to post always wanted in the first place. They desired the moral immunity that comes with presenting yourself as morally outraged; the professional immunity that accompanies the display of superior virtue; the intellectual immunity that you get when cries of “existential threat” mask your intellectual mediocrity. Woke is, essentially, the endless pursuit of immunity by robustly crying affliction, portraying yourself as good by calling other people evil, and aloofly professing “kindness” and “caring” at every abstract turn. No longer certain that they can obtain that sort of immunity in Trump’s America, some of the country’s most prominent liberals now seem to hope it is conferred directly.”
Loved this paragraph. Great article, thanks Lee.
There have been several articles written by high profile lawyers opining that if these people are pardoned they lose their 5th amendment rights. So if questioned in Congress or in court they would have to testify truthfully not doing so or not showing up would subject them to criminal prosecution.