“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

So wrote Edmund Burke (1729-1797) the Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher. And history has repeatedly proved him right.

That may well prove to be the epitaph of the Donald Trump Presidency.

That Presidency has made the United States a polarized country.

But it’s not the polarization between Republicans and Democrats, or between conservatives and liberals.

It’s the polarization between: 

• Those intent on enslaving everyone who doesn’t subscribe to their Fascistic beliefs and agenda—and those who resist being enslaved.
• Those who believe in reason and science—and those who worship an “infallible strong man” who rejects both.
• Those who cherish education—and those who celebrate ignorance.
• Those who believe in the rule of law—and those who believe in their right to act as a law unto themselves.
• Those who believe in treating others (especially the less fortunate) with decency—and those who believe in the triumph of intimidation and force.

Since Trump became President, he has:

• Allowed the deadly COVID-19 virus to ravage the country, infecting (to date) 13.4 million Americans and killing 267,000.
• Attacked medical experts and governors who urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves from COVID-19. 

COVID-19. 

• Fired FBI Director James B. Comey for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
• Fired John Sessions, his own handpicked Attorney General, for recusing himself from matters involving the 2016 Presidential election owing to his own conflicts-of-interest.
• Repeatedly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency.
• Gave highly classified CIA Intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Specifically: How Islamic State terrorists planned to turn laptops into concealable bombs.
• Attacked and alienated America’s oldest allies, such as Canada and Great Britain. 
• Identified with and coddled such ruthless dictator as North Korea’s Kim Jong-On, China’s Xi Jinping and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
• Praised Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen. 
• Shut down the United States Government for more than a month—imperiling the lives of 800,000 Federal employees—to extort money from Congress for a worthless wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
• “Joked” that the United States—like China—should have a “President-for-Life.”
• Repeatedly attacked Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer—after she had been targeted for kidnapping and execution by Trump’s Right-wing followers.
• Attacked the free press as “the enemy of the people”—a phrase popularized by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin—for revealing his crimes and blunders.
• Used his position as President to further enrich himself, in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. 
• Urged his followers to illegally vote twice for him in the 2020 Presidential election.
• Fired Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, for rejecting Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 Presidential election.
• Refused to accept the will of 80,117,438 voters who have made former Vice President Joe Biden President-elect of the United States

Future historians may one day write that what didn’t happen played at least as great a role in electing Donald Trump President as what actually did.

There were at least six instances where the Justice Department of President Barack Obama could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2016 election. Yet, for reasons still unknown, it chose to do nothing.

Donald Trump

Case #1:  The Obama Justice Department did not indict Trump and/or the Attorney Generals of Texas and Florida for their roles in the Trump University scandal.

• Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates.
• After Bondi dropped the Trump University case against Trump, he wrote her a $25,000 check for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
• Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton moved to muzzle a former state regulator who says he was ordered in 2010 to drop a fraud investigation into Trump University for political reasons.
• Paxton’s office issued a cease and desist letter to former Deputy Chief of Consumer Protection John Owens after he made public copies of a 14-page internal summary of the state’s case against Donald Trump for scamming millions from students of his now-defunct real estate seminar.
• After the Texas case was dropped, Trump cut a $35,000 check to the gubernatorial campaign of then-attorney general and now Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

But New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, pressed fraud claims against Trump—and forced the real estate mogul to settle the case out of court for $25 million on November 18, 2016.

There have been no press reports that the Justice Department investigated these cases to determine if Trump violated the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act statutes against bribery.

If the Justice Department did not investigate these cases, it should have. And if he did violate the RICO statutes, he should have been indicted, even as a Presidential candidate or President-elect.

Even if an indictment had not produced a conviction, the mere bringing of one would have cast an unprecedented cloud over his candidacy—let alone his being sworn in as President.