The US had major challenges in reconstructing the national political system after the Civil War. Americans in the North experienced that as such a was a cataclysmic event that they were willing to have Congress go a long way in making former slaves citizens and, at least for a while and to some extent, integrating African-Americans into American society in the South, where most of them lived at the time.
We’ve collectively stumbled pretty badly on taking responsibility and correcting wrongs committed by the government, often with majority support among white men. (Universal suffrage including for women was not established nationally until the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, though a number of states had previously adopted full or partially women’s suffrage.)
The treatment of Native American peoples is a spectacular example of events and actions now generally recognized as wrong. (Though not among Trump cultists.) Suffrage for Black Americans was not nationally established until the Civil Rights Act of 1965, The rightwing Supreme Court has drastically restricted those laws, and the Republican Party gives a high priority to Jim-Crow-style shenanigans to block African-American citizens from voting. And formal acknowledgment of US government wrongdoing in the detention of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War was also a long time coming.
And the need for the rule of law, including government officials being required to follow the law, is a major deficiency. Though violations of law by the military and often by intelligence officials has been prosecuted at times. William Calley, for instance, did stand trial and was convicted over the My Lei Massacre of 1968. But wars and foreign subversion (such as the overthrow of Salvador Allende’s democratic government Chile in 1973) have had a major effect on diminishing the rule of law in the United States. Presidents and other government officials have to be held accountable for breaking the law in their official positions.
Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon after he resigned the Presidency, illegal domestic espionage against civil-rights and antiwar activists, and the serious erosion of personal rights that often took place in the name of the endless War on Terror for which al-Qaida’s 2001 attacks provided the nominal justification have all involved a loosening in practice of legal constraints on government officials.
Trump’s abuse of the pardon power during his first term and his staging of the Jan. 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the US Capitol were very serious crimes. And now the Trump 2.0 Administration is implementing authoritarian rule – yes, “fascist” is the right word to describe it,
The Obama Administration was more scrupulous about the rule of law in domestic affairs, though his and Biden’s continuation of foreign assassinations were a dangerous erosion of the rule of law, as well.
And Obama’s refusal to prosecute crimes committed by the Cheney-Bush Administration, followed later by Biden’s limited success in prosecuting the January 6 crimes in n particular, i.e., not prosecuting senior officials in charge of it, were also major blows to the rule of law. So now we have a Republicans Party ready to commit all sorts of illegal actions without trying to hide them. And a big part of the reason is that Obama and Biden showed limited willingness to hold Bush and Trump officials responsible even for very serious violations of the law.
The Supreme Court’s irresponsible decision in Trump v. United States ranks with the Dred Scott decision as one of the worst and most damaging actions the Supreme Court has ever taken. As Samuel Breidbart wrote in 2024:
The ruling in Trump v. United States is an affront to democracy and the rule of law, forfeiting critical checks on executive power. It undermines criminal accountability for presidents if their law-breaking occurs in the course of “official” conduct, and it endangers democratic accountability by potentially shielding presidents from prosecution for trying to overthrow elections. By inserting this opinion into a world where impeachment is no longer a viable option, the Supreme Court is licensing future presidents to subvert our democracy at will — and protecting a past president, Donald Trump, who attempted just that. (1)BBC News reported the decision this way: (2)
Any new Democratic Congress and Administration have a giant responsibility to take appropriate action to rein in these breaches of the rule of law. And it will be a Democratic effort, because we see clearly now that Republicans in Congress are completely supportive of Trump’s criminal actions. There may be a few Republicans in a post-Trump Congress who will vote for such measures. But it will not be a bipartisan effort, even if a few Republican stragglers decide to “reach across the aisle” to support basic rule of law.
The Democrats will make a huge mistake if they try to frame such an effort as a kumbaya moment to let Republicans off the hook for their collective support for lawlessness. I’ll be happy, hopefully someday, if the Republicans actually do switch to supporting the rule of law and are willing to block even Republican Presidents from illegal action. And are willing to take appropriate remedies against renegade Supreme Court decisions to exempt Presidents from the obligation to follow US laws.
Getting there will take a while, even if there is a Democratic President elected in 2028 along with clear Democratic majorities in Congress. If 2028 brings us another Democratic President who wants to “look forward, not backward” when it comes to prosecuting Republican officials who use their positions to break the law – it will likely take at least two decades to fully repair the damage already done.
Democracy Now! reported last month on the kind of criminal behavior that does need to be prosecuted. And it gives another example of how military operations can normalized criminal behavior by senior officials: (2)
Notes:
(1) Breidbart, Samuel (2025): Notes: The Supreme Court’s Presidential Immunity Ruling Undermines Democracy. Brennan Center 10/01/2024. <https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/supreme-courts-presidential-immunity-ruling-undermines-democracy> (Accessed: 2025-24-08).
(2) US Supreme Court: Trump has “absolute immunity” for official acts. BBC News YouTube channel 04/02/2025. <https://youtu.be/cwWP0-QFYBo?si=OJOjLDoCX6_ZNaBy> (Accessed: 2025-24-08).
(3) The Fort Bragg Cartel": Book Exposes U.S. Special Forces' Involvement in Drug Trafficking & Murder. Democracy Now! YouTube channel 08/14/2025. <https://youtu.be/zxbW0CCuT7E?si=jNWDAer08BlGbNwR> (Accessed: 2025-24-08).
