{"id":1457,"date":"2026-08-12T07:11:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T07:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1457"},"modified":"2026-08-12T07:11:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T07:11:47","slug":"battle-lines-accountability-will-be-the-dividing-issue-in-the-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1457","title":{"rendered":"Battle Lines: Accountability Will Be the Dividing Issue in the Midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Over Easter, Matt Ford suggested Donald Trump might one day soon be hunted down by the International Criminal Court and put on trial like a mass-murdering warlord from the Balkans or the Congo.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump Warns of \u2018Jihadists\u2019 Among Democrat Candidates<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be no post-presidential peace for Donald Trump,\u201d Ford thundered in the pages of The New Republic<\/em>, before providing a litany of high crimes and misdemeanors that would justify a meeting with fate at The Hague.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shuttering of the Kennedy Center may be the least of Trump\u2019s second-term sins,\u201d Ford opined.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first year since returning to power, Trump and his subordinates have pushed the country toward fascism and oligarchy. He has turned Washington into an orgy of corruption and self-dealing beyond even the most cynical observer\u2019s imagination. He has transformed Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol into a lawless paramilitary force that has besieged American cities and killed at least five U.S. citizens and 22 foreign nationals. He has abused Americans and their immigrant neighbors alike simply because he can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given everything that happened to Donald Trump during his first term and then the four long years of the Biden presidency, it should come as no shock that his enemies are already thinking of ways they can punish him, his family, and his supporters as soon as they have the power to do so.<\/p>\n

The plan for retribution\u2014and there is a plan, rather than just a diffuse sense that Trump must be punished\u2014is now taking shape under the rubric of \u201cProject 2029.\u201d The name is a knowing wink toward the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025, which set the agenda for the second Trump administration in so many different ways. Although the main focus is on 2029, there\u2019s no clear frontrunner to lead the party at the moment, with recent polls suggesting Gavin Newsom might not be the favorite\u2014a Democratic win at the midterms will allow the process of retribution to begin in earnest.<\/p>\n

Back at Easter, there were some intimations of exactly what might happen if November goes the Democrats\u2019 way, but now Reuters has added some real meat to the bones.<\/p>\n

According to Reuters, \u201cSenior Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and committee aides have discussed using hearings, subpoenas, and document requests to obtain records from entities tied to Trump\u2019s political and business orbit\u2026 It is a bet that investigating private companies and outside financial players will prove more fruitful than directly confronting a White House they expect to resist oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Impeachment, that bluntest of weapons, is out. Democrats have finally learned their lesson, it seems. They know impeachment is unlikely to succeed and that President Trump will be able to turn proceedings to his advantage, portraying himself as the victim of a merciless witch-hunt (imagine that!).<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one wants a failed vote on day one,\u201d a senior Democrat aide said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus is on building a body of evidence through investigations that can hold Trump accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several major companies have already been singled out. Among them are Apple, Alphabet, Blackstone, BlackRock, and Palantir. Not surprisingly, companies owned by Elon Musk\u2014whose support was instrumental in returning Trump to the White House and who oversaw the Department of Government Efficiency\u2014are also targets.<\/p>\n

Reuters continues, \u201cDemocrats are expected to examine Department of Homeland Security contracts, financing for Trump\u2019s planned White House ballroom, corporate donors, and alleged pay-to-play arrangements, two sources said. They also plan a probe of Trump-linked financial vehicles, including 1789 Capital\u2014a venture capital firm where his son Donald Trump Jr. is a partner\u2014and foreign sovereign wealth funds whose investments in Trump family-linked entities could raise questions about administration influence, the sources said.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more British Police Unit Flags Over 100 Social Media Posts for Arrest Amid Immigration Backlash<\/a><\/p>\n

Party leaders have now begun sending out letters in advance of subpoenas after the midterms. These include requests for information from Paramount Skydance about its dealings with the Trump administration and the proposed Warner Bros. Discovery deal. They want information about Alphabet\u2019s $24.5 million settlement with President Trump, and they also want answers from private prison operator GEO Group and security company Salus Worldwide Solutions about their contracts with the Department of Homeland Security. Commodity traders have been asked about sales of Venezuelan oil since Nicol\u00e1s Maduro was deposed in January.<\/p>\n

At this stage, of course, the letters have no power, and the recipients are in no way compelled to respond. But they serve as signals of intent, warnings that the price of cooperation with the Trump administration could be about to increase steeply. As a strategy, it\u2019s likely to have some effect, and given Trump\u2019s current low favorability rating, largely thanks to the Iran war, the warning will be felt. The Democrats have reason to be confident.<\/p>\n

Republicans will be campaigning on accountability too, albeit of a different sort. In the last couple of days, we\u2019ve also learned the GOP will focus on the Democrat party\u2019s violent lurch toward the left or \u201ccommunism,\u201d as President Trump has described it, and on the inability or unwillingness of the party\u2019s leaders to stop it.<\/p>\n

According to Axios, via Republican sources, the party is going to tell America, \u201cbut they\u2019re worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, you\u2019ve got your gripes with us\u2014maybe you\u2019re still pissed about the price of gas, maybe you think things went too far in Minneapolis, maybe you\u2019re just tired of Donald Trump\u2014but trust us, they\u2019re worse.<\/em> Much<\/em> worse<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBetter the devil you know\u201d is a risky strategy, and in some sense an admission of weakness, but then again, I suspect it won\u2019t be too hard to convince many voters the Democrats really are a much worse sort of devil this time around. Americans should be scared of DSA-approved politicians and candidates like Zohran Mamdani, James Talarico, Melat Kiros, Claire Valdez, and Francesca Hong, a woman who, by her own admission, would be better off strapped to a bed, listening to soothing music, rather than running for governor of Wisconsin. Although senior organizers like James Carville are warning of a \u201cschism\u201d in the party and vowing they\u2019ll resist the \u201chostile takeover\u201d of the Mamdanis and the Talaricos, it really does look like the radicals are winning. They\u2019re more motivated and angry, they know how to whip up minority voter bases, and the Democrat establishment is still reeling from the total embarrassment that was Harris-Walz 2024. The DSA now has well north of 100,000 members and growing.<\/p>\n

The Republicans will use their first-ever midterm convention in Dallas next month to \u201cmount a sweeping, made-for-prime-time case that Democrats have become captive to their activist left,\u201d Axios says. Central to that case will be \u201cfootage of Democratic figures\u2026 that they\u2019ll use throughout the convention to paint the Democrats as outside the mainstream.\u201d<\/p>\n

That means Americans are probably going to hear Gen Z darling Hasan Piker tell them the streets must be sluiced with the blood of the oppressors. \u201cKill them. Kill those motherfuckers. Murder those motherfuckers in the street. Let the streets soak in their fucking red capitalist blood, dude.\u201d His actual words, by the way. They\u2019ll hear him call for the murder of former governor Rick Scott and tell his viewers to \u201cgut\u201d their opponents and \u201cslice them up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps they\u2019ll hear the charming clip that resurfaced at the end of last week, in which Piker laughed about the extermination of white people and the rape of white American women by immigrants brought into the country by leftist politicians.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna bring in immigrants to this country just so they can fuck your sister and then maybe your daughter\u2026 We\u2019re gonna destroy the white race, bitch.\u201d His actual words.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur video trove is endless,\u201d a Republican source said.<\/p>\n

If voters choose to avert their gaze and stick their fingers in their ears, they\u2019ll only have themselves to blame.<\/p>\n

Read more Judge Blocks NYC Mayor\u2019s New Luxury Second-Home Surcharge After Homeowners Sue<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over Easter, Matt Ford suggested Donald Trump might one day soon be hunted down by the International Criminal Court and put on trial like a mass-murdering\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-elections"],"yoast_head":"\nBattle Lines: Accountability Will Be the Dividing Issue in the Midterms - Urban Economy news<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1457\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Battle Lines: Accountability Will Be the Dividing Issue in the Midterms - 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