Lock Them Up: Send the Trump Administration to Prison

It's not enough to beat MAGA at the ballot box. There have to be consequences that keep this from ever happening again.

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We all knew how the Trump Administration would handle the release of any remaining Epstein materials. They would lie, obfuscate, and doctor whatever they could. This weekend, they unloaded another tranche of photos from the files, painstakingly working around the clock to highlight participation by Democrats like Bill Clinton - good riddance - while hiding Donald Trump wherever and however they could. Despite their efforts, Trump is so central to the Epstein case that several pictures were glossed over, including a photo of a literal drawer full of photos, that the Department of Justice would eventually disappear without any explanation.

The Epstein Scandal is, again, a necessary glimpse into how thoroughly corrupt America’s elites are. The business of serving capitalist interests is so grotesque that only those capable of actively abusing and exploiting the world’s most vulnerable people, including children, can ascend the ladder of power. It’s what this system requires. And, as we have talked about, this late stage of Neoliberal capitalism, which requires open authoritarianism and open corruption, has produced the most transparently corrupt, incompetent, and abusive “leaders” you could have ever feared.

Every day brings new crimes. And we should be clear: state power in the capitalist age requires crimes. There are plenty of them in every administration and it could be argued that existence under capitalism is, and has always been, itself a crime, but what we are experiencing now are some of the most obvious and indisputable crimes ever crimed by an administration.

Think about it.

The President of the United States of America is obviously part of an international and long-running conspiracy to traffic and exploit children. His time in power has been an adventure in discovering new ways for a person to financially benefit from holding office, each action a barely cloaked maneuver to pad his pockets and add to his ill-gotten fortune. He continually ignores courts and shreds the Constitution. From the moment he dipped his toes into politics he has been engaged in treasonous activities.

And his subordinates, my god. War crime upon war crime. Theft of public funds and misuse of public owned property. The creation of a secret police beyond any accountability. Human trafficking in shipping people around the world to prison camps. We still have no idea how many of them have died in U.S. or U.S.-sanctioned custody. Use of the military to kill innocent bystanders.

It’s not enough anymore to simply talk about midterms or presidential elections. For mealy-mouthed cowards like Tim Kaine to wring their hands at even the thought of impeachment. Yes, every one of these criminals needs impeached, that shouldn’t even be up for debate anymore. But that’s simply not enough.

What we should be discussing is the need for these people to go to jail.

Trump’s chorus of “lock her up” from the 2016 Election and beyond was noxious, but MAGA’s desire for political retribution and authoritarian punishment should not stop the law from being served. The Trump Administration, and certainly many of their conspirators in the wealth and oligarchical classes, Elon Musk, for example, have committed crimes that deserve legal repercussions. The laws are there for a reason and it simply isn’t sustainable to continue pretending like civility is enough anymore. Is it a bad look to prosecute members of the opposition party? Sure. You know what else is a bad look? Letting criminals continue to break the law and hurt and kill people.

We have already seen what happens when you fail to do the right thing here. Donald Trump is president for the second time because his status protected him and those responsible for prosecuting him drug their feet or were corrupt themselves. What we know is that continuing to fail to do this only enables and emboldens the criminals. They will not stop if they lose an election. We’ve seen that movie before. They will only get worse. And considering the Right is looking to become even more extreme, even more fascistic, and even more criminal, in a post-Trump world, there is literally no room for hesitation anymore.

Every person running for office in either 2026 or 2028, if there are even elections, needs to do a few things. They need to call for the abolishment of ICE, they need to make reform a central plank in their platform, they must call for taxation of the wealth class that has tried to destroy democracy and an end to historic inequality, reestablishment of voting protections and civil liberties, and they must wholeheartedly and full-throatedly promise to hold these criminals accountable.

There is no room for equivocation. The time of quisling Democrats must end. There’s no making deals with these people. No promising “the fever will break” or that “America needs a strong Republican Party.” Simply saying you’ll restore the East Wing of the White House isn’t even near enough. We deserve more than scraps and if a politician doesn’t have the courage to call for obvious criminals, murderers, and abusers to be held accountable, then they don’t have the courage to hold power at this crucial moment. After all, if they can’t draw the line at children, if they can’t say that murder and kidnapping and assaults are out of bounds, if they can’t stand against a myriad of conspiracies and cover-ups, if they can’t fight obvious corruption, what are they even good for?

Nothing.

What good is a politician or leader who can’t spotlight something as odious as the Epstein Scandal because they’re afraid Bill Clinton or a Democratic Party donor will get caught up in the investigation?

Nothing.

What good is a party that is so obsessed with protecting itself and its donors and its manipulations and its own crimes that it lets the most criminal president in history skate by?

Nothing.

What good is a class of wealthy elites who tells us they’re on our side and ask for our money and our votes if they aren’t willing or able to show as we’re being kidnapped, terrorized, exploited, and robbed?

Nothing.

Before Trump began fully embracing his dictatorial power, claiming and then having the Supreme Court confirm that the president is above the law, he often said something regarding immigration in the lead up to the 2016 Election. “We are a country of laws.” Trump and his coterie of assholes, including Mike Pence, who he would eventually attempt to have killed in an attempted coup, which he has also never been held accountable for, all insisted that if the laws were no longer enforced we would cease to be a nation.

In a way, they were right. For the wrong reasons, of course, but the division between the powerful and the rest of us has made it clear that the laws are there for the working and middle classes to keep us under control. Everyone in the wealth and oligarchical classes? The political class? There it’s a gentleman’s agreement. You’ll see a George Santos get pinched or a Bob Menendez, but, well, that’s what pardons are for.

So. Let’s stop playing games. If you are serious, do what is necessary and call for Trump and Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem and Tom Homan and every other criminal and abuser in power to be held accountable. Failure to do is a moral and ethical failure and you should never be trusted with power.