From Matlock to More.
I have been watching the excellent new American legal drama Matlock, I highly recommend it. America has a love for legal dramas and also police procedurals almost all based on their faith in the rule of law, justice and decency. Good and the law will triumph, well not any more.
President elect Trump has announced he is going to pardon the rioters he whipped up into an attempted coup d’etat when he lost the last election. Not only that but he is threatening to prosecute those who followed the law, and the constitution, and prosecuted his supporters. Biden’s pardon of his son has at a stroke undermined any protests by the Democrats, as he must have been warned it would.
With that the rule of law is dead in America, it can do little else now but descend to a situation where presidents pardon their supporters, their friends, their paymasters and run the law enforcement agencies of the state for their own personal advantage.
Courts will only be for the little people, law enforcement for the poor or the democrats. Even the Supreme Court is in his hands, with the highest lawyers in the land now willing to support bending the constitution to the Republican’s will,
For far too long in far too many countries lawyers have been willing to represent the very rich to the hilt, help them bully the poor, and humiliate the victims, knowing full well that they are guilty and hiding behind their wealth. You can get away with most things even in the UK if you have enough money.
“Legal ethics” not a problem Sir.
But the system is not yet institutionally corrupt, like it is now in the USA.
That is why all the Tory and Reform talk about the judges being the enemy of the people, and “foreign courts” preventing them from doing what they want is so dangerous. Look at America and see what happens when politicians can take over the courts and shudder.
Remember A Man for all Seasons
“This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”
Trump is cutting down the forest and the far right here would do the same, given just one chance.
From Jonty Bloom Media Ltd
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
Unfortunately, the breakdown in the rule of law was happening. Trump was already talking about revenge during his campaign - he is just restating what he had already announced was going to happen.
Biden pardoning his son has no bearing on this. If anything, it was a warning shot that two can play at this game.
While the thugs are now at the ascendancy - there will be a time when the MAGA movement will likely implode and the very things they used, can, and will be used against them (that would be my take on Biden's actions).
I hate to bring Nazis into this - but it is, unfortunately, a perfect example. There were very few non-Nazi supporters in 1937 or 1938 - and those that were vocal were likely in concentration camps- yet in April and May 1945 you would have thought they were a mythical creature (you would not find a Nazi anywhere - well, not publicly, anyway - and those that might have admitted it would have claimed they were just following orders).