Impunity is the essence of fascism.
Impunity is the idea that you can do anything, and never face consequences, because you’re the victim.
With impunity, all things are possible. War is possible. Lynching is possible. The Holocaust is possible.
It’s impunity that Republicans are deploying now in their fight to take back the country.
Impunity is displayed in many ways. It’s displayed individually, in groups, by mobs. When it’s deployed by cops it’s especially dangerous. Police impunity gives others the confidence they need to act out in the same way.
Impunity cares nothing about danger. It’s different from courage. Courage is conquering your own fear. Impunity is believing fear is a weapon that only you can be allowed to wield.
You can tell the difference when impunity is challenged by arrest. People with courage stand up to the challenge. Those with impunity cry and whine and insist they’re the victims.
Impunity is possible in the face of the virus because only 2% of those who get it die.
We don’t talk enough about those who are disabled by it, temporarily or permanently. If only 2% will die, those with impunity assume that doesn’t mean them. Then, as they lay dying, they may demand a vaccine. This can’t be happening to me. You’re hurting the wrong people. That’s impunity talking.
What’s most remarkable about today’s impunity is the assumption, shared across the political spectrum, that there’s no price to pay for it. Washington insiders and worried Democrats agree. The Republicans could win next year. They could take over the 
Congress and take over the country.
Yes. They can. If democracy doesn’t function as it must. If we don’t fight back. The assumption that it won’t, that it can’t, is fuel for those feeling impunity.
But there’s no evidence we’re not fighting back. Democracies are slow to anger, but once provoked enough they overwhelm everyone and everything in their path, no matter the feeling of impunity. At which point those who practiced impunity cry, “It wasn’t me. I was only following orders!”
Yet there will be justice.
