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**JUNE 20, 2022**
Kuttner on TAP
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**** Winning Back Democracy
Criminal prosecution of Trump will be a good start, but just the
beginning.
After the first round of hearings of the January 6th Committee, the most
important takeaway is that the committee has built an ironclad case for
Trump's indictment. We've now seen irrefutable proof that Trump knew
that his demands on Mike Pence were illegal.
All of this should increase the likelihood that Attorney General Merrick
Garland will prosecute Trump. In that context, the report late last week
that the committee was resisting requests from the Justice Department
for transcripts of witness interviews was bizarre.
It's understandable that the committee needs to complete its own work.
But since the whole point of the committee's work is to demonstrate
that Trump broke the law and savaged the Constitution, a standoff over
separation of powers would be self-defeating to say the least. After
negotiations, the committee now plans to begin sharing transcripts in
July.
The other takeaway is the contrast between Republicans in the executive
branch advising Trump and most Republicans in Congress. The hacks and
opportunists whom Trump hired were far from constitutional choirboys.
But eventually, nearly all were so appalled by Trump's narcissistic
lunacy that all but a very few like John Eastman resisted it.
The Republican Congress, meanwhile, with very few heroic exceptions like
Liz Cheney, defended Trump, and still does. In the minds of the framers
of the Constitution, Congress was to be the branch closest to the
people. And that's the problem. GOP representatives with little regard
for Trump fear offending MAGA voters.
What to do when the poison infects not just corrupt leaders but the body
politic? Not merely outright neofascist thugs like the Proud Boys, but
their respectable apologists?
There's a bitterly ironic poem by Bertolt Brecht called "The Solution
." In 1953, though living in
Communist East Berlin, Brecht had little patience for party bureaucrats.
Some functionary had expressed disappointment that the people were
displaying insufficient enthusiasm for the party program. Brecht acidly
suggested in his poem that perhaps the government should dissolve the
people and elect a new one.
But the irony is on Brecht-and on us. We don't get to fire the
people. We need to earn back broad popular support for constitutional
democracy.
That in turn will require not just exposing the crimes of Donald Trump,
but demonstrating that government is on the side of the people and not
mega-corporations. If we are lucky enough to avert outright fascism, it
will be a long road back.
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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The Gun Deal Misdirection
Every day waiting for a bipartisan agreement is a day further away from
reconciliation. BY DAVID DAYEN
What 'Dobbs' Means for Women's Equality
The seeds of unraveling a host of gender-based protections are present
in the draft opinion. BY MARC SPINDELMAN
An Armed Society Is a Mass Shooting Society
In Philadelphia, police apathy and incompetence have flooded the streets
with guns, and the results are bloody. BY RYAN COOPER
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