In America, the Rich Get Immunity. The Rest of Us Get "Law and Order"
By David Sirota, Jacobin
05 June 20
America is a country that eagerly hands out get-out-of-jail-free cards to the
rich and powerful, and rubber bullets, tear gas, and jail sentences to the
rest. The protesters on the street this weekend were trying to change that.
One of the crown jewels of the Constitution is the Fourteenth Amendment — which
promises that there will be “equal protection” for all people under our laws.
And yet we all know this is a farce. In America, we routinely offer legal
immunity to the rich and powerful, while giving the iron fist to everyone else.
It is an ugly dichotomy we don’t talk much about — but it has been on display
during this past week of protests roiling cities across the country.
Take the events that transpired in New York. There, the government deployed law
enforcement to conduct mass arrests of protesters, and also to run them over
and violently attack them in the name of “law and order.” At the same time, the
government granted health care executives legal immunity for their
profit-maximizing decisions that may have contributed to the deaths of
thousands of people in nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic.
In Washington, it’s the same thing. We have a president who tweets about “law
and order” literally at the same time his party is pushing a proposal that
would shield corporate executives and prevent them from being held liable for
endangering their workers during the COVID-19 emergency.
Those new liability protections would be in addition to the de facto immunity
he’s already giving his corporate friends: indeed, at a time when the Trump
administration has dramatically increased immigration prosecutions, it has
driven prosecutions of white-collar and environmental crimes to historic lows.
That was an extension of trends that started under Obama, who increased
immigration deportations and cracked down on whistleblowers while reducing
white-collar prosecutions.
The result of all this was summarized by former labor secretary Robert Reich:
“More peaceful protesters and journalists have been jailed in the past week
than all the bankers who were jailed for fraud during the financial collapse.”
Police Get “Qualified Immunity,” Trump Shuts Down Anti-Brutality Initiative,
States Pass Anti-Protest Laws
Not surprisingly, this dichotomy extends to the realm of criminal justice and
civil liberties. Our legal system now grants “qualified immunity” to police
officers and public officials when they violate Americans’ constitutional
rights.
As law enforcement brutality has been getting worse in recent years, Trump shut
down the Justice Department’s initiative to scrutinize local police conduct —
and then he made it even easier for local police departments to obtain excess
military weaponry. He did this at the very same time research has shown a link
between police violence and the increased use of the Pentagon program that
provides arms to local law enforcement agencies.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in at least six states have offered legislation
in recent years to protect people who run over protesters — a move that was all
too common this weekend. Some of the measures had support from local police
unions and associations.
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For everyone else, it has been the opposite of immunity — Republican
politicians who so often pretend to be defenders of liberty are now offering
dissenters new “tough on crime” bills to try to criminalize protest.
From 2015 to 2019, there were 116 bills introduced in state legislatures to
restrict the right to protest, and fifteen states passed those restrictions
into law, according to a new report from PEN America, a journalism advocacy
group. This is a new phenomenon — before Trump took office, there were almost
no such state initiatives.
The report notes that the laws reflect the selective use of “law and order” —
they deliver harsher punishment to protesters while limiting “the liability of
public or private actors for harm caused to protesters” and creating
“carve-outs for law enforcement action against protesters.”
Immunity Is Now Baked Into Our Political Culture
Immunity for the powerful, crackdowns against the people — this discrepancy is
now baked into our laws and embedded in our political culture itself. And
that’s not only the fault of politicians — it is our fault, too, because our
elections and culture tend to reward it.
George W. Bush lied us into a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people,
and yet he is routinely treated as a lovable, statesman-like figure. Donald
Trump scammed investors and bilked vendors — and he was rewarded by being
elected president.
Trump’s likely general election opponent, Joe Biden, authored the crime bill
(and still defends it), helped Republicans pass the bankruptcy bill, and helped
Bush lead America into the Iraq War — and he was rewarded first by being named
vice president, and then by being given the Democratic presidential nomination.
His campaign is being advised by Rahm Emanuel, who remains at the highest
reaches of Democratic politics even after having left public office in disgrace
after his administration covered up video of police murdering a teenager.
Meanwhile, the same Democratic Party tried to throw Bernie Sanders off the New
York ballot, works to crush progressive primary campaigns, and threatens to
blacklist consultants who work for grassroots candidates who dare to run
against corrupt incumbents — while party operatives are apparently permitted to
work for corporate interests that attack the party’s candidates.
None of this is an anomaly. This is what America is: a place that eagerly gives
out get-out-of-jail-free cards to the powerful, while meting out harsh
punishment to everyone else.
The question now is whether we can imagine a society that is different?
Can we imagine a legal system that punishes police violence and bigotry,
repeals doctrines like “qualified immunity,” and protects the right to
peaceably protest?
Can we imagine an economy that protects fleeced homeowners and impoverished
renters from draconian bankruptcy laws, and instead deploys the iron first of
law enforcement against the actual looters who are pillaging our communities —
the politicians, lobbyists, and corporate CEOs who just stole $4 trillion from
the public treasury?
Can we imagine a political system that holds elected officials accountable for
their crimes, and empowers the leaders who are trying to fix the system?
In other words: Can we imagine a better America?
Many of our politicians clearly can’t — this is the world they have
deliberately constructed, and they are perfectly happy to sit in their
fortified bunkers as the world burns.
But the peaceful protesters braving threats of retribution and violence suggest
at least some can still imagine that better world. Now it’s up to all of us to
create it.
