After a terrible assault on the Capitol incited by Donald Trump and his enablers in the Republican Party, calls for his immediate removal from office via resignation, the 25th Amendment, or impeachment and conviction are proliferating. A contrary view, advanced by some Republicans, is that such action would be too divisive and distressing for a country riven by partisan rancor, and that we should avoid such confrontation so that we can “heal.” Let Trump’s term expire, they say, and let him go back to private life so that we can all “move on” to the post-Trump era.
This is exactly the wrong approach. If you don’t get thrown back when you cross a line, it’s not a line. Trump and the Republicans responsible for this sedition must be held accountable or sedition will become the new normal. Calls to suspend accountability by the very people who should be held accountable are self-serving, disingenuous and dangerous.
Where is the “Party of Law and Order” when their own partisans are the ones egregiously violating the law? Where is the justice for those who died and crouched in terror as the mob rampaged through the People’s House? Healing requires a return to normalcy — the normalcy that criminals suffer the consequences of their crimes, and those who contemplate crimes know they cannot get off, because their actions will not be swept under the rug of a false “healing” designed to protect the guilty. Healing comes after the accountability, not before.
— Harold Johnston
Anchorage
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