I do not want to lower the temperature. I think the people responsible ought to feel increasing public pressure until they stop hurting people and answer for what they have done.
Yesterday, a federal immigration officer shot Oscar Belgal in New York while a five-year-old boy was in his car. According to New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, a plainclothes officer approached with their sidearm drawn, followed by another officer. Belgal began pulling the car forward, and at least one officer fired seven rounds, hitting him below the left ear. He survived, and the child was physically unharmed.
The Department of Homeland Security’s hastily-released statement described his criminal record, including a grand larceny conviction, while saying only that “during the incident, an ICE officer discharged his weapon.” NBC New York also reports DHS’s allegation that Belgal “rammed” ICE vehicles as officers tried to box him in.
That allegation needs to be tested against the evidence, and an imminent threat would matter to the judgment of the shooting. Belgal’s criminal record cannot establish what happened in those seconds. The government owes us an account of why its officer fired, not an invitation to care less about the person he shot.
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I hate what ICE is doing to this country, and I do not respect the job its agents are doing. Telling me it is a hard, thankless job does not answer my objection to what they are being paid to do to other people.
When a demand to lower the temperature turns the discussion toward the critic’s anger, it protects the officials who should be answering for their conduct. They can continue doing what they were doing while we debate whether the person objecting has become too hostile. I will not help them by treating my anger as the problem that needs to be resolved.
When you help the administration carry out a policy, you have done more than express an opinion about it. The people subjected to that policy have to live with what you helped make happen, and their objections do not become less legitimate because they make your work more difficult.
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The Bulwark’s Tim Miller recently took on Democrats hesitating to investigate Trump’s corporate allies. The reporting he was responding to described a disagreement over how far corporate investigations should go, while noting that Democrats supported aggressive oversight of the administration.
I endorse Miller’s response: Congress has to investigate to distinguish companies subjected to pressure from those that willingly profited from corruption. Offering leniency for the circumstances of someone’s participation while declining to establish those circumstances is a decision to protect someone you have not investigated.
An investigation should follow evidence of wrongdoing wherever it leads. The prospect that its findings might spoil a working relationship is no reason to stop it. A Democrat who trades accountability for bipartisan comity is offering forgiveness for harm done to other people.
Any Democrat who wants to let bygones be bygones might as well declare themselves MAGA, as far as I am concerned. A Democrat who acquires investigative power and chooses to shield wrongdoing is responsible for that decision, and should expect to be judged for it.
And if you are an American citizen who would rather let bygones be bygones so we can move on and focus on economic issues, you are a selfish citizen. You are asking other people to give up their demand for accountability so politics can return to the subjects you care about.
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I will not separate my authentic and valid emotions from this discussion because a certain detached intellectual aesthetic asks it of me. The ability to discuss someone else’s suffering without getting upset does not establish that you have understood it better. Sometimes it means you have found a way to keep it from troubling you.
An error in my account needs to be identified and corrected. Describing my temperament does neither, and a composed defense of the government still has to survive an examination of what the government did.
I intend to make their conduct harder to defend in public and more costly to continue politically. If the officials responsible and the people helping them refuse to stop, the public confrontation should grow.
In The Crisis, No. 1, I wrote: “We do not need to overthrow the government. We need to insist that the government follow its own laws.” There is no obligation to make that insistence pleasant for the officials resisting it.
Where those responsible have committed crimes, I want them prosecuted, with the same due process the administration owes everyone else. Losing office is not an answer to evidence of a crime.
The people exercising powers in positions of public trust should submit to the law. They should also be held to a basic standard of decency that does not depend on whether a lawyer can find a way to keep them out of prison. I will not accept continued abuse in exchange for a more agreeable relationship with the people carrying it out.
No, there is no moving on until the harm stops, there is accountability and history is made to remember these crimes.
I stand by these words and I seek confrontation with those who stand against their meaning.
Go Deeper into the Circus
Lost Friendships and The Cost of Understanding
You were terrified that Donald Trump would win in November 2024. And before the result, you understood enough about him that you wanted him kept far from power. You did not need someone to explain why.
The Press Was Too Charitable
Listening to The Dispatch Podcast this morning, I heard Kevin Williamson explain how failing to appear at a court hearing can get you thrown in jail in America. The discussion concerned a former patient of Roger Marshall, now a Republican senator, who says she was
Nuremberg them all.
Those who still support this regime and/or excuse their depravity are revealing their true character and moral compass. Their rationales are simply a convenient cover.