No. of Recommendations: 11
the fact that Clinton avoided any sanction for what she did with her private server and the rest of it is a BIG reason regular folks have lost confidence in our system of justice. And this loss of trust is bad for our country regardless of which side of the aisle you set on.
There probably wasn't any way to avoid that. It was a Presidential election. The claim that Clinton was a criminal, and that the only explanation for why she wasn't being charged was political favoritism, was far too valuable for the Trump campaign and its surrogates to pass up. "Lock her up!" Indeed, it would have been political malpractice if they hadn't hammered that morning, noon and night. The only folks who could have done the right thing and effectively pushed back on that narrative would have been conservative media (not just Fox, but the constellation of other hosts and networks and talk radio and commentators with credibility in conservative circles). But it would have been commercial suicide for them to step out in front of that train and try to educate their listeners/viewers about what the law really says. Wasn't ever going to happen.
It's lamentable, but in a "Flight 93" election, no one on the conservative side was going to step up and say, "Well, actually she hasn't committed any crimes, and that's why she isn't being indicted." The mainstream media did some of that, but obviously they have very limited influence in the specific group of "regular folks" that lost confidence in our system of justice over l'affaire Clintion.
They've got a similar (though smaller) opportunity today, of course. They could educate those "regular folks" that the reason that Trump is in trouble while Clinton and Biden (and Pence) are not is not because of DOJ bias. It's because possessing classified documents in a place they shouldn't be typically isn't a crime, but refusing to give them back and trying to conceal that you haven't done so is. I don't expect they'll do that, though. The loss of trust is bad for our country, but it's not as bad to conservative thought and media leaders than being on the wrong side of the former President.
