A post-Trump era must have consequences,
not vengeance, for him and his enablers
After four-plus years of Trump’s selfish, destructive, dangerous
and vindictive “leadership,” there’s a strong desire to make not only him but
his supporters pay.
Much has been written about the art, ethics and prudence of
revenge.
In addition to being a dish best served cold, allegedly, the
Bible is prolific on the matter, though not always consistent. God himself
seems rather vengeful at times — hello, the 10 plagues? — while Matthew says to
turn the other cheek.
Around 1754 B.C., Hammurabi codified the “eye for an eye”
approach, and in 1844 A.D., Edmond Dantes learned in “The Count of Monte
Cristo” that a life devoted to revenge was ultimately unsatisfying.
But, like most things, it’s possible Jerry Seinfeld put it best.
In a season two episode aptly titled “The Revenge,” Seinfeld tells George
Costanza, “The best revenge is living well.” To which George dismissively
scoffs, “There’s no chance of that.”
The topic of revenge now swirls in the political ether in the
wake of Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump. After four-plus years of Trump’s
selfish, destructive, dangerous and vindictive “leadership,” there’s a strong
desire to make not only him but his supporters pay.
One healthy way to see it is that America already did just that:
The election was the revenge mechanism and Trump and his voters will now suffer
the consequences that come with it.
Others say that simply isn’t good enough. Trump and his people,
they insist, have to suffer.
There is talk of enemies lists, historically a bad idea and one
that liberals rightly maligned Trump for embracing. Something
called the Trump Accountability Project has emerged, promising to economically
punish people who worked on Trump’s campaign, those who worked in his federal
government and those who helped fund him.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez clumsily imagined an “archive,” a slightly more scholarly word
for “list,” of “Trump sycophants,” for whom the punishment is presumably some
sort of social cancellation. If we’ve learned anything from the past decade,
it’s that cancel culture is corrosive and cannibalizing and something even
prominent liberals, like Barack Obama, are increasingly warning
against.
Others on Twitter are just happy to turn the MAGA schadenfreude
of the Trump administration back on them — meeting four years of “owning the
libs” with drinking “MAGA tears.”
Enemies lists and dumb Twitter memes aren’t justice.
But that’s not to say we should dismiss the idea of punishment
altogether. There’s a difference between revenge and consequences, and for
Trump and his enablers, there should be myriad of the latter.
President-elect Biden will be pressured to make Trump pay for
all kinds of bad policies the way President Obama was pressured to make George
W. Bush and his supporters pay for the Iraq War, and other administrations were
pressured to punish Watergate, Iran-Contra and Vietnam.
From Trump’s inhumane child separation policy to less formal
policies of cronyism and nepotism, to his own potential criminal behavior,
these all bear scrutiny and, where laws may have been broken, punishment.
For his part, Biden wants to leave that to state officials and
his attorney general, a move that in itself seeks to remedy one of the most
damaging features of the Trump administration — its corruption of the Justice
Department.
According to a new report this week, Biden privately told
advisers he doesn’t want his presidency consumed by Trump investigations,
fearing that would alienate Trump voters and inhibit his ability to focus on
COVID-19, the economy and other hardships.
Whether Democrats in Congress agree with Biden or not remains to
be seen — but between what’s likely to be dozens of congressional
investigations and just as many by state district attorneys, Trump is unlikely
to leave office completely unscathed. And he shouldn’t.
But what of Trump supporters? Biden wants to bring them into
some imaginary fold that may not exist. And many of Biden’s supporters seem to
be saying, “evacuate the area, there’s no place for you in polite society.”
The right answer is probably somewhere in the middle.
People who supported Trump have just as much a right to their
livelihoods, their freedom and their safety as anyone else. Shouting them down
at restaurants, getting them fired or shaming them on social media is not only
wrong, it will likely lead to the creation of more Trumps somewhere in the near
future.
We can, however, punish people for their actions. When it comes
to the maskless hordes of Trump supporters
endangering our lives just to own the libs, those actions are the greatest
immediate threat to all of our safety and freedom,
including theirs. Just as we fine speeders and reckless drivers, a refusal to
follow public health guidelines should be punished.
But if you want revenge on Trump supporters for cheering on
Trump’s ugly, nativist, racist, sexist, bigoted, xenophobic ideas, you’re
probably not going to get it. While we’re not going to impose Hammurabi’s Code,
we needn’t keep turning the other cheek to Trumpism either. And we needn’t seek
revenge to achieve real, meaningful consequences.
S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.
