Yesterday, on Bluesky, Bradley P. Moss shot his mouth off in defense of Merrick Garland. I’ve linked to his thread, but I’m not going to break down his arguments in too much depth as this is not really a direct response to him. However, his defense of cowardice and treason did anger me enough to write this. I thank him for that.
Briefly, his argument is that it would have taken a very long time to prosecute Donald Trump for his (now successful) coup attempt on January 6th, 2021. The case against Trump “was always going to be difficult.” It’s unfair to expect people to do difficult things, after all, it’s not like being an attorney at the Department of Justice was an incredibly prestigious and hard to get position, which came with a tons of responsibility to your fellow Americans and to the Constitution. But seriously, the idea that prosecuting treason is too "difficult" should be treated as nothing but the protests of the lazy, as well as disrespect to the countless Americans who have sacrificed in many ways (one thinks of course about those who died in battle, but so many others have made so many sacrifices as well, the country's greatness came from the great efforts of the people. There are so many examples it feels trite to list any.) Merrick Garland (and Joe Biden) had the privilege of deciding what cases to pursue, what actions to take. They had the luxury of giving orders, not taking them.
Finally, Moss argues, even if Trump had been convicted, he would have been allowed to run for office from prison. Of course, Trump WAS convicted on 34 felony counts by a jury of his peers in New York State. But then the judge decided it wasn’t fair for Trump to be held accountable for his crimes, because he had won an election. The American people deserved a President unencumbered by legal charges, apparently. In this, the NY State courts and the United States Supreme Court agreed: Donald Trump is a special boy and he gets special rules just for him. Moss argues the same, about both Trump and Garland, though he couches it in lawyer bullshit about the difficulties of prosecuting someone. To be fair, I’m sure all of his points about the legal system are valid. But something can be valid and bullshit at the same time.
So, I briefly summarized the bullshit for you, let’s dip back into reality now: Trump and Garland both benefitted from the same plague destroying America and many other countries: elite impunity. Trump can’t be held accountable for his treason, or his raping, and it’s not the Attorney General’s fault, or Joe Biden’s fault. This is similar to the idea that it’s the voters’ fault when a given candidate loses the election (a fantasy I indulge in, but a candidate’s job is to get the most votes, and for once, Trump actually did!) I note Moss has previously gone “viral” on Bluesky for blaming Michigan voters (read: Arab-Americans) for the 2024 election. That makes sense: the Attorney General of the United States (like Donald Trump) is a smol bean, but some guy from Dearborn controls the fate of presidential elections. This expresses a cogent worldview, and not a tantrum at the peasants for being uppity. Just kidding, it’s actually just said tantrum.
Now, I’m not a lawyer. Maybe I should have gone to law school, because I am a pedantic asshole. I am not a lawyer, though. I am a student of history. I’m a critical thinker (Bradley is not, see above) – and I’m suffering through the unencumbered Presidency of Donald Trump, so, I’m going to share some fun facts that seem related to “the Trump Question” as we may term it.
At the end of 2021, almost five and a half million people were incarcerated in the United States. I guarantee not a single one of those five and half million people got as much deference from the justice system as Donald Trump did. I’m sure some of those cases were very difficult to prosecute! In January, the New York Times estimated that around 540,000 Americans had been deported by the Trump regime since January 2025, the same month that DOJ employees led a “clap out” for Merrick Garland on his last day. Presumably most of these people have been fired by the unencumbered administration of Donald J. Trump, which sucks!
Barack Obama, who nominated Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court, reportedly ordered 542 drone strikes, which “killed an estimated 3,797 people, including 324 civilians.” I’m not sure how much due process was allotted these people. I’m not sure the lack of due process in these instances is necessarily controversial for the average American, although the civilian casualties certainly were. I also know that none of these people carried out attacks on the United States as successful as the January 6th Insurrection. Similarly, I am not aware of many people who have much sympathy for Osama Bin Laden being killed without a trial. Everyone understood that he hated America, and Americans, for our way of life and our freedoms, and because of his fundamentalist religious beliefs. This was uncontroversial, and certainly not a rude thing to say. How things have changed!
Coincidentally, Garland, of course, had his nomination “stolen” by Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans effectively using the levers at their disposal. It sucks, it also worked. Perhaps Obama could have spent less time drone striking and more time convincing Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire, but that old bigot was never going to listen to him anyway. This experience seemed to be his main qualification for being Joe Biden’s attorney general pick. That his nomination would be a triumph of consensus and reaching across the aisle to a moderate Republican, to spite the nasty MAGA folks. This is basically a first grade level view of how things work, but, we didn’t get into the mess the country is in because of strong leadership from Democratic party elected officials. I also note that Garland was selected before the January 6th insurrection, and his nomination was even announced that morning (go check the newspapers for January 6, 2021.) Apparently, Joe Biden and company did not think that the events of January 6 prompted any revision to their choice for Attorney General.
I am getting a bit redundant but also off track here, so I want to state in plain language what I am getting at: the United States government routinely commits acts of great violence. We recently did a “triple-tap” attack on an elementary school in Iran, you probably heard about it. 156 people were killed, including 120 school children. Our taxes paid for that. That is the power we have apparently trusted our government with. And some will tell you that this power precludes prosecuting people who tried to overthrow the government. People whose actions harmed and killed Americans, including police officers. Speaking of police officers, they used their monopoly on violence to kill 1,319 people in the US last year, something that the courts have decided is within their rights to do, if they decide the situation calls for it. Last week, a Cuban immigrant killed himself at an ICE concentration camp in Georgia, the 18th death in ICE custody this year. The courts aren’t really doing anything to stop that, even though a lot of judges want to do something!
The United States government is capable of great violence, being President basically requires you to commit war crimes. This has been the case for almost 100 years now, if not longer. It probably wasn’t a requirement of the position until after World War II, with the US becoming global hegemon. But, certainly, for all of my 30+ years in life, the US government has been happy to use my tax money to inflict violence on whomever, be it Iraqis getting bombed or people being whipped at the US/Mexico border. The idea that the United States government “can’t” do something to a specific individual is patently absurd. They can, and do. It’s just a matter of will.