Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States on 20 January 2025. I congratulate myself that, after about a week, I drafted a blog “After Insurrection, Mercy Is Folly and Forgiveness a Mistake” (31 Jan 2025), which anticipated the current state of affairs and raised an issue which Democrats have not yet addressed. The gist of the blog is that America faces an administrative/quasi-legal insurrection against its government; that, when the electorate rejects the Trump regime, Republican officeholders will try to obscure their cowardly and collusive support; and Democrats must prepare to hold them accountable for their conduct.
The Republican commitment to serve Trump and his administration was clearly shown by events in the week ending March and beginning April. Republicans lost the Wisconsin race for a Supreme Court seat and won two seats in Florida congressional districts by halved margins. Undaunted, Senate Republicans confirmed, 52-45 (Lisa Murkowski the only Republican opposing) Harmeet Dhillon, an experienced lawyer with a record of attacking voting rights to lead the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. The implication is that, committed to Trump and his positions, Republicans cannot be persuaded by the political facts on the ground to cast votes reflecting a commitment to democratic ideals, principles or traditions. The historical precedent is the persistence and spread of the racist belief in the “Lost Cause” of white supremacy and the associated hatred of the federal government—the living legacy of today’s Republican Party.
The associated socio-economic stance is Republican neo-plantationism—to coin a term—, or amassing wealth by exploiting the masses (formerly, slaves; now, non-professional workers) and opposing the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the rest. The Republican wish to “own the libs” is a perfect phrase to reflect the desire to dominate and possess liberals (and all others) as if they be chattel property.
Accordingly, Republicans oppose taxes, which they view as takings, that is, seizures of private property for public purposes. These purposes include “safety net” programs (e.g., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP) or other societally beneficial activities under the rubric of discretionary spending. Trump, with the aid of Elon Musk and the support of Congressional Republicans, is wrecking departments and agencies of the federal government, reducing their budgets, limiting their services, and restricting or terminating their distribution of revenues. They are doing what Republicans have long wanted to do: shrink government and reduce the need for taxes. They have no intention of replacing what they are destroying, with a redesigned and reconstructed federal government consisting of much more than a treasury and a Pentagon. The precedent, though never effected, is the Republican approach to the Affordable Care Act (aka, “Obamacare”); Republicans wanted to eliminate it and claimed to want to replace it with something which—they lied—would be better and less costly. In a decade, they never designed it because they never meant to replace it.
In this context, Trump’s tariff policy is a con job purporting to make up the difference between a government claimed to be bloated and one shrunken to be efficient. One pretense is that tariff revenues can replace taxes. If tariffs generate revenues, they will do so as a regressive tax on consumers. Even so, they will be insufficient to pay for what the public wants. Moreover, the Trump-shrunken government will lack the departments and agencies to provide services or to distribute funds, and, at best, will support little more than a caretaker government and the Pentagon. (Tariffs will also enable Trump to manipulate state and foreign governments, and domestic and foreign companies to his financial and political benefit. They give him enormous power unconstrained by the law or the Constitution.)
Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans acquiesce in the numerous threats to America, many increased over current deficiencies: poverty, hunger, homelessness, diminished health care, increased vulnerability to disease, unsafe food, and polluted air and water. The biggest threat to the country is the long-term damage caused by defunding or redefining educational and other research (e.g., NIH) institutions. Since the end of the Second World War, America’s system of higher education has been the dynamo of its economy, national defense, medicine, and culture. As such, it has attracted some of the best and the brightest from other countries, many of whom remain, become permanent residents or citizens, and continue to contribute to a robust America. A good thing, too, because America’s public schools do not provide enough of those needed in relevant fields. If these institutions lose their academic freedom, institutional stability, and adequate and reliable funding for research, they will become less attractive to foreigners and less innovative. The economy, national defense, medicine, and culture will suffer, not a temporary set-back under the Trump administration, but a prolonged decline even under succeeding administrations trying to reverse his administration’s policies.
In short, Republicans are ending the American century. They are weakening the country in many and long-term ways. They are doing so deliberately. They cannot plead ignorance, only cowardice and self-interest, all of them more interested in remaining in office than in serving their constituents or country. For example, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, a former military office and sexual abuse victim, when threatened with a primary challenger for expressing doubts about Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, voted to confirm Pete Hegseth because she regarded her survival in office as more important than national defense. Other Republican senators, fearful of Trump’s power to threaten their political tenure, voted for unqualified, dishonorable, and deceitful nominees; have tolerated his many illegal and impeachable acts in office; and otherwise aided and abetted his unethical or destructive policies.
Trump will leave office (my hope is that a cheeseburger helps him along). Then what? I believe that today’s Congressional Republicans will hope to restore their reputations in an effort to cling to office by opportunistically bad-mouthing him or pleading for a second chance. For forswearing their oath of office and trifling with their responsibilities, they deserve incarceration at Guantanamo—I speak figuratively. But those who survive a more general repudiation of Republicans in the next two elections and take office in a Congress controlled in both chambers by Democrats should be held accountable and disciplined.
But, first, if they have the numbers in both chambers, Democrats should immediately impeach Trump. They should make it clear that they are prepared to impeach down the line—Vance, Johnson, Thune—until they can agree that someone in the line of succession can conduct the office of the presidency within the law. If Trump preemptively pardons Musk and members of his administration, Democrats should, in the tradition of the Nuremberg trials, establish a category of crimes against the country in order to prosecute those who, even if pardoned, have acted deliberately to the detriment of the country. Second, they should impeach the deserving members of his cabinet, foremost among them—Bondi, Gabbard, Hegseth, Noem—for lying to the Senate in their confirmation hearings and breaches of the law. Third, they should impeach two Supreme Court Justices: Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. Fourth, they should expel those representatives and senators who were involved in planning or supporting the 6 January insurrection or defied subpoenas from the House 6 January Select Committee (e.g., Jim Jordan). They should discipline those who have repeatedly violated House or Senate decorum (e.g., Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace). Impeachment, expulsion, and censure are insufficient punishment for the damage done to the country by Republican officials, but it may be enough to discourage others of their ilk from attempting another political insurrection.
At the same time, Democrats should propose constitutional amendments to define the president’s status under the law, to qualify the president’s pardon power, to eliminate Executive Orders without the advance unanimous consent of Congressional leadership, to establish the independence of the Department of Justice (and the FBI), to define the right to vote as an inalienable adjunct of citizenship with uniform standards for registration (identification) and access to voting, and to reverse various court rulings inimical to democracy (e.g., Citizens United). They should also propose legislation to make public threats to officers of the court—judges, prosecutors, staff, and their families—felonies. They should reconstitute departments and agencies undermined or destroyed by the Trump administration.
Without such a reckoning, Republicans cannot be made truly accountable and appropriately punished for their conduct betraying their oaths of office. Those who want to restore integrity in government should make the rule of law prevail by applying it to Republican malefactors in proportion to the gravity of their crimes. Democrats should embrace “eternal vigilance” as “the price of freedom” to ensure that Republicans or a party with a different name but similar tendencies does not emerge to repeat this sorry history because Democrats did not learn from it.
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