> The laws are broken, so regardless of what you think "should" be legal, it isn't. They are being selectively enforced, though, and that's both the problem and probably the thing more worth your philosophical energy. Is that okay, when a criminal operation is too wealthy and influential to be held accountable?
All the laws have been being selectively enforced for decades. The people who were previously running these departments may have written the right incantations and negotiated a consensus with the departments that are supposed to watch the watchmen, but they had no more accountability to the average citizen/voter than the people who are moving in now.
The voting public no longer cares about "legal" versus "illegal", because they recognise that those categories have no bearing on anything relevant. This has been brewing for years, but the establishment benefited too much from subverting the rule of law to fix it. At this point they've made their bed.
The laws have been selectively enforced and it has led us here, yes, and it does mean that broad support of the bureaucracy has justifiably waned.
Was it okay then, when it was a bureaucratic governing class encamping in the public coffers? Is it okay now, when it's a single vulture capitalist harvesting the public coffers?
What's "okay"? My position is that the current state of affairs is far from ideal, but also not significantly worse than what came before, and so I'm suspicious of the motivations of anyone who's selectively concerned about public accountability now.
To to drain the swamp you probably have to dive into the swamp, or at least get your feet muddy. Every successful reform/anticorruption programme I can think of has involved giving a few trusted people some fairly extraordinary powers - special prosecutors, special judges, special task forces and the like. Sometimes the end result is no better, or is even worse, sure. But I'll take trying something that might work over letting the prior status quo continue indefinitely. And I don't think the system would ever have been capable of reforming itself while staying within its bounds.
All the laws have been being selectively enforced for decades. The people who were previously running these departments may have written the right incantations and negotiated a consensus with the departments that are supposed to watch the watchmen, but they had no more accountability to the average citizen/voter than the people who are moving in now.
The voting public no longer cares about "legal" versus "illegal", because they recognise that those categories have no bearing on anything relevant. This has been brewing for years, but the establishment benefited too much from subverting the rule of law to fix it. At this point they've made their bed.