The case for retribution post-Bluenami
By Spencer Ackerman
Edited by Sam Thielman
Nov 5, 2026
NOW IS THE TIME to impose consequences—or, as the military says, to reestablish deterrence.
One of the most disastrous mistakes of 21st Century America has been to avoid imposing consequences, political or legal, on malefactors of great political and economic power once their moment of vulnerability arrives. Examples abound. The 9/11 Commission assigning no blame to any official in power on or before 9/11—indeed, by crafting the parameters of responsibility for 9/11 so narrowly as to obscure the blowback that produced it. The no-fault Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. The golden parachutes for the architects of the subprime mortgage crisis that nearly destroyed the global economy. Barack Obama, who needed the CIA to wage his lower-intensity version of the War on Terror, choosing to look forward and not backward at CIA torture. Joe Biden facilitating a genocide.
The arguments for not imposing consequences are understandable. The election was the consequence. The problems facing the United States are too serious to allow for retribution. Besides, retribution will set off a cycle of recrimination that its architects may come to regret once voters grow tired of what the Democrats are offering. Lincoln said, during times even more
consequential than ours, that for our country to heal and grow we need malice toward none and charity for all.
Then they shot him in the head. When the smoke cleared, the Confederates won the peace, rewrote history, and consigned millions of the emancipated and their children to eighty years of shadow bondage.
As you read this, 65,000 people are in ICE concentration camps. Trump’s threat to re-escalate the Iran War after the midterms—”You’ve heard a preview that it would be a short-duration plan. I’ll just say this: their plan is insane,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, who has been briefed on the plan—looks to target civilian infrastructure. The U.S. continues murdering fishermen in the Caribbean. Unless there are consequences for the architects of these atrocities – consequences first threatened and then imposed – all this will continue. Maybe at first it’ll seem less conspicuous, like ICE after Minnesota. Then, when outrage diminishes, it will intensify, like ICE this summer.
Officers from Adm. Brad Cooper on down need to hear that the Uniform Code of Military Justice has clear consequences for violating the laws of war and obeying illegal orders. It’s not just potential time in the brig; it’s that hard-won military pension vanishing into thin air. For the civilians, Rep. Delia Rodriguez of Illinois is showing the way. Last month, Swin Suebsaeng and
Andrew Perez reported that Stephen Miller fears prison, even despite the president’s plenary pardon authority. Fears like his need to be stoked. Investigations in Congress should lay the groundwork for prosecutions whenever possible. In states under Democratic control where ICE killed, kidnapped and violated other laws, grand juries need to be empanelled.
There can be no more tolerance for elected Democratic politicians—whether centrist or DSA, I do not care—who fear confrontation. The public needs to pressure those politicians into enacting retribution, since the donor and consultant classes of the Democratic Party will do everything they can to evade it. Whenever powerful people commit crimes, Democratic powerbrokers suddenly demur from the punitive measures they demand when powerless people commit crimes. They ensure we repeat this endless cycle of impunity for malefactors and neglect for the material needs of the people – a cycle only expands the ambitions of fascists, who remain an election away from reclaiming power. And it works out fine for them, because they never experience the consequences of fascism.
No band-aids this time. Surgery.
AMEN!