# F Merrick Garland. (He won't be going after anyone)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [July 19, 2022, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190 "2022-07-19T06:39:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 42
### Author:  [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/821 "2025-05-26T02:35:31Z")
I understand what you’re saying, and logically, on paper, or in digital print, you make sense.
But what would have we accomplished by convicting Trump? He’s already been convicted at the state level.
I mean, dude got _more_ popular when he was being prosecuted and convicted.
---
### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/822 "2025-05-26T02:37:49Z")
It’s not really about him or his popularity. It’s about our commitment to justice and the rule of law. I think we can see some of the consequences now of being less than firm about our commitment to following the rule of law.
---
### Author:  [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/823 "2025-05-26T02:40:00Z")
It’s the voters and citizens who will ultimately decide whether the republic survives or dies and becomes something else. There’s not a goddamned thing Merrick Garland could have done to change that fact. Whether America survives depends on the values we have, as citizens. Full stop.
---
### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/824 "2025-05-26T02:51:38Z")
Oh, well. It was nice while it lasted.
---
### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/825 "2025-05-26T02:59:04Z")
Those citizens elected Biden in 2020, but “some citizens” felt entitled to storm the capitol. There were no consequences of ~~Merrick~~ merit.
“What you accept, you encourage,” and so storming the capitol is now normalized. The next time, they’ll have to be machine-gunned.
---
### Author:  [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/826 "2025-05-26T03:01:11Z")
Pretty much.
I am cautiously optimistic that, eventually, ordinary people will be angry enough to fight back more meaningfully, but how far gone we are at that point is anyone’s guess.
We’re about to go through some things.
---
### Author:  [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/827 "2025-05-26T03:02:28Z")
I get the Merrick hate but the real solution was impeachment and conviction in the Senate. That is the constitutional remedy, and it failed, and it failed because too many voters in this country vote Republican.
No single person can save the hundreds of millions of dipshit Americans from themselves.
---
### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/828 "2025-05-26T03:03:02Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> “What you accept, you encourage,” and so storming the capitol is now normalized. The next time, they’ll have to be machine-gunned.
I agree completely.
---
### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/829 "2025-05-26T03:03:27Z")
> [@natureboy](#):
>
> But I think Gerry Ford was onto something when he decided to pardon Nixon. He probably realized, as we’ve found out over the last several years, prosecuting a president is deeply polarizing. It makes politics even more tribal.
I disagree. Nixon’s pardon taught the Republicans an important lesson: that _they are above the law._ That they can break any law they choose and the consequences will not be applied to _them_ like they would be to a Democrat. And they’ve spent the ensuing decades testing that hypothesis, pushing a bit farther all the time and again and again being validated.
Culminating in the Trump administration, which totally ignores all laws and sees virtually no resistance. Trump is the logical endpoint of the Nixon pardon. He’s the end result of generations of Republicans being shown that having an “R” next to your name means you will be treated like an untouchable god beyond all restraint or punishment.
---
### Author:  [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/830 "2025-05-26T03:07:14Z")
From the moment Nixon was removed from office - just that alone - Republicans plotted their revenge. They exorcised those demons in the 1990s by impeaching Bill Clinton. If Ford hadn’t pardoned Nixon, the 1990s and 2000s Republicans would have pushed for something beyond impeachment.
AG Garland can’t solve a values problem.
---
### Author:  [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/831 "2025-05-26T12:40:32Z")
> [@natureboy](#):
>
> AG Garland can’t solve a values problem.
He didn’t have too. This is about the law, society is already polarized. Some of society needs to learn about values in a court room. But the wrong side now is being punished. All because we showed that they can do anything they want and skate.
You understand that Trump is sending people to a foreign gulag to rot? Just plucking them off the street with no due process. I wonder what will happen if he does that to Bruce Springsteen, or Taylor Swift because they speak out against him. He’s already making veiled threats.
It shouldn’t take a Bruce or a Taylor to demand Justice for All.
Throw Trump in jail. If MAGATs riot and break the law, throw them in jail too. Do that often enough, and most of them will slither back under their rocks.
As said, this is encouraging them. They keep testing the envelope, drawing the line in the sand over and over again. As Barney Fife would have said ‘Nip it in the Bud’ It’s way, way too late for that now.
We are boned.
---
### Author:  [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/832 "2025-05-26T13:06:27Z")
I get all that, and until recently, I felt the same way, but sheesh, Donald Trump’s prosecutions only made a martyr out of him.
---
### Author:  [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/833 "2025-05-26T13:20:33Z")
No, I really dont think so. Beating the rap made a hero out of him.
---
### Author:  [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/834 "2025-05-26T13:26:44Z")
> [@natureboy](#):
>
> I get all that, and until recently, I felt the same way, but sheesh, Donald Trump’s prosecutions only made a martyr out of him.
Fine. He was/is already a god to these people. So what if he becomes a martyr. What’s right is right.
Ignore the assholes, if they persist and start breaking the law, build more prisons. At some point, they might wise up.
I don’t see any grey areas about this (except my new hairs).
---
### Author:  [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/835 "2025-05-26T13:31:52Z")
As I’ve said, impeachment and conviction in the Senate. If you can’t get that (because there’s not enough popular support for it), having a sitting administration prosecute the guy he just defeated and would face again in the next election just doesn’t work.
---
### Author:  [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/836 "2025-05-26T14:16:55Z")
Sure, it’s bad ‘optics’ to the morons that support him. But we all saw the same thing. We saw the insurrection live. Sure the morons say it was a peaceful protest, but we can’t let the people that drank the cool-aid take over and destroy our country.
And it’s happening because it wasn’t ‘nipped in the bud’. Now our, and the worlds economy is in tatters. I wonder how many billions if not trillions of dollars of peoples retirement funds have gone right in the toilet? All because of Trumps revenge and his complete and total misunderstanding of economics.
Is he really that stupid, or is he doing insider trading? Revenge? We know he is a very vengeful person. He may want to destroy our country out of spite.
---
### Author:  [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/837 "2025-05-26T15:01:25Z")
So our choices were “rule of law” and pardons, and have the Republicans shiv democracy in the bathrooms, or just lock up all Republicans until they learn the error of their ways? I may be exaggerating here, but I guess there’s no gray area?
---
### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/838 "2025-05-26T15:36:40Z")
If we locked up the ones committing crimes, the ones not committing crimes might have learned not to enable criminals.
---
### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/839 "2025-05-26T15:43:53Z")
It should be as simple as the tried and true method of separating the sheep from the goats, slaughter the goats and let the sheep adjust to their new sheepdog. But it’s not the same world as when Richard II could proclaim “villains you were born and villains you shall remain!” People have more rights, and they will fully abuse those rights; and squander them out of sheer irrationality
---
### Author:  [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2025, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190/840 "2025-05-26T15:53:09Z")
> [@natureboy](#):
>
> I am cautiously optimistic that, eventually, ordinary people will be angry enough to fight back more meaningfully, but how far gone we are at that point is anyone’s guess.
Pft, just the statement “I’ve cut those toxic messes out of my life permanently” is a bridge too far for a lot of moderates. When people are comfortable enough they’re biggest concern is whether the person in the next stall pees standing up or the color of the farm worker’s skin who picks their organic artisan vegetables, there’s a LONG way to go before people are uncomfortable to start with the “fighting back”.
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#):
>
> So our choices were “rule of law” and pardons, and have the Republicans shiv democracy in the bathrooms, or just lock up all Republicans until they learn the error of their ways? I may be exaggerating here, but I guess there’s no gray area?
We were on the right track when Manafort and Stone were in prison and Trump was on his way. We don’t need to throw everyone in jail, but starting with the criminals blatantly flouting the law is a good way to remind EVERYONE the law matters. Maybe the current Secretary of Homeland Defense might even bother to understand what habeus corpus means.
On the original thread topic, I have to admit the Garland naysayers were right, given Trump’s reelection. I have plenty more blame to throw around (Judge Cannon, the entire Fifth Circuit Appeals Court, etc.), but I was wrong on Garland.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190.md?page=41)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-merrick-garland-he-wont-be-going-after-anyone/968190.md?page=43)