We Messed Up ‘Too Big to Fail.’ Now we’re ‘Too Affright to Indict.’

Trump Must be Indicted — Democracy Hangs in the Balance

6 min readMay 24

From what I see, the similarities are eery. Both cases required near-term trouble to ward off long-term catastrophes.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) is gathering evidence and deciding whether to charge the former President of the United States, Donald Trump. There are many reasons why this issue is fraught.

In 2023, if the DoJ prosecutes Trump, it would split the country and cause mass bloodshed. Additionally, it would set a precedent that the Republican Party would indict Biden or a future Democratic president. Of course, there’s no guarantee that indicting him would lead to a conviction. But we have to at least try.

In 2007, as the US economy was collapsing and the horrors of the subprime loan crises were clear, the argument was similar.

We couldn’t let the big banks fail, because millions of people would lose all their money. Banks were so interconnected that the entire financial system would be ruined if we let a bank ‘fail.’

So what did the US do? We gave the banks enormous sums of money. We also gave airlines and other massive industries a boatload of free money. The consequence? Main Street was annihilated. The housing market cratered. Millions saw their bank accounts, retirements, and financial safety nets, obliterated.

The banks survived, as did airlines and cruise ship companies. But the economy went into a tailspin that took years to fix. The subprime mortgage crises left considerable holes in our nation. Many families already on the margins economically, never recovered.

The January 6 Committee captivated everyone except conservative right-wing media with their public hearings. We learned many details unknown beforehand. The hearings narrated the picture not only of January 6, 2021. But exposed the planning in the months before it.

In the Committee’s Final Report, they recommended the Justice Department indict Trump for, among others: