The failure to hold politicians accountable has consequences.

[kentuck]

Donald Trump says, "No, I will not show you my tax returns...they are under audit."

Then he says, he will divest all his businesses before he goes into the White House.

Then he says he doesn't even know Putin.

He doesn't need intelligence briefings.

He continues to make money off his name and position just days before he is to be inaugurated.

Nobody held him accountable. Not the press. Not the Republicans. Not the Democrats. And certainly not the voters.

Now we have a President-elect that has spit in the face of all Americans. He doesn't care.

It's about accountability and our institutions failed to hold Donald Trump to any of the standards we have demanded in the past.

And we are about to pay a dear price for that.

[bullimiami]

1. There are years of not prosecuting powerful or political criminals.

Each new Democratic President has come in and let bygones be bygones.
But they are not bygone. The criminals have gotten away with the crime, and emboldened.
It has come home to roost.

Reagan / Bush 1. Iran Contra. Only some small fish were fried.
Bush 2. 9/11, Iraq, lies, torture. Nothing.
Financial disaster. Rinse repeat. Nothing.

Prepare for corruption and self-dealing at unprecedented levels.

[smirkymonkey]

2. K&R

[wiggs]

3. Polarization as a deliberate, decades-long, intentional political strategy by

the RW and its corporate supporters has diminished our ability to conduct public discourse and participate in a real democracy. Team before country, before truth, before knowledge and logic, before justice and morality is a goal of RW marketing.

And this is the natural result...for 8 years they've used their inner Lee Atwaters and the trained entertainment media to unfairly malign and piss on a thoughtful, fair, moral, calm, caring man who has not only been a good president but a good person. So we get the complete opposite.

[wiggs]

4. Lincoln: the basis of democracy is a well informed public. Polarization and corporate

control of media ensures that the public is not well informed. As an ill informed, polarized public we are capable of making huge election mistakes. A dear price indeed...as an occasional huge election mistake and its disastrous consequences can erase and outweigh the positive achievements of reasonable administrations.