Plenty of criminals are stupid and contemptible. Among the lowest of the low are the ones who hate police officers and prosecutors personally. They are too dim to comprehend an honest officer who is just doing his job. And so they sometimes seek revenge in ways that make no sense even from the standpoint of heartless self-interest.
President Donald Trump’s administration evidently has a similar mindset. It has fired personnel in the FBI, the Justice Department and the military who, in previous administrations, followed lawful orders that Trump doesn’t like.
America needs trustworthy and nonpolitical police, prosecutors and military members. An attack on the nonpartisanship of these institutions is an attack on America.
Republicans in Congress have quietly watched this happen without so much as complaining, much less trying to interfere. It has been a gross dereliction of duty. In normal times, members do not blindly obey a president of the same political party. Democrats objected to Lyndon B. Johnson’s policies in Vietnam. Republicans helped force Richard Nixon out of office. Trump has faced little of that. If your senator or congressman is a Republican seeking reelection, you should ask them to explain their passivity.
The Republican Party once stood for law and order. It could again. But that won’t happen until it is given a painful lesson at the ballot box.
I elaborate in a new piece in the Chicago Tribune.