How Do We Punish The Powerful?

 People are looking for answers to everything that's occurred since the beginning of last week, from the Capital Building protests-turned-riots, to Big Tech banning Trump from social media to his impending second impeachment. Even issues that were relatively mundane in comparison, like, "Is forcing AOC and the Squad to force Nancy Pelosi to vote on Medicare For All a good thing?" and, "Should our electoral process be reviewed?" have gone unanswered. 

We go say that the proverbial core issue is First Amendment rights or Net Neutrality or even Election Integrity, and all of these are extremely important and should be addressed in the incoming president's first 100 days (if they aren't they probably won't be for Biden's entire term). And we should not forget about COVID-19 or the issue with stimulus checks. But these are all arguments that clouds a question that Americans continue to skate around.

"How do we powerful people accountable?" 

I say this because whatever we determine on these other issues, the prevailing mindset is that they apply to the average American. The next political celebrity who incites violence with be heavily scrutinized, maybe even banned, but what about if it's a Senator who uses similar rhetoric? A political organization may be punished for tampering with ballots in a state election, but what if the culprit is the Attorney General? Hospitals are being blamed for the vaccination rollout, but are the state and federal leaders just as culpable? 

We seem hellbent on reminding people on what the rules are (or should be), but we are failing to realize that the biggest rule-breakers have been the people at the top. And if we were being honest, we'd acknowledge they anyone who's not at the top and are breaking rules (and norms) are doing so because they see their "heroes" getting away with it.

Everything that has happened recently can be traced to incidents when our society and our government decided that looking the other way or "moving on" was preferable to facing the music. Not addressing the 2000 general elections or the 2016 Democratic primary has resulted in an electorate that's suspicious of the results of every election now. Not addressing our foreign policy of destabilizing governments and our domestic policy of police brutality led to an ill-equipped police force being overwhelmed on January 6th, 2021. Not addressing that far too many of our political leaders are out of touch when it comes to addressing issues of race, gender, orientation, and the economic gap contributed to those same leaders sticking around thereby tripping over themselves trying to understand technology, the Internet and social media.   

The question must be asked, addressed and answered before we get to the nuances of the other questions. No matter how many laws we pass or norms we institute, if those in power disobey or ignore them, it will continue to foster a since of unfairness, which leads to frustration, which leads to pushback. 

Now, in terms of baseline legality the question can be revised to, "If those who are empowered to create, execute and interpret our laws break them, how should they be punished?" because that is a spinoff question that also needs to be answered.