Top Oversight Democrat says Merrick Garland should testify on Epstein

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23. this expectation of some is a degeneration of norms

...but more than that, it's a part of the frustration watching the republicans and Trump break every rule and law they want that's in their way, seemingly with ultimate impunity from accountability and judgment.

It's part of why dictatorships often have appeal to populaces who've been subjected to government failure to produce for the people.

When trust in the systems in place that are supposed to ensure and defend those things collapses, that appeal of 'extra-judicial' or similar disdain for laws and norms blocking interference or partisan political use of the DOJ can ignite in that vacuum of lawlessness in favor of a sort of righteous vigilantism which throws it all in a chaotic muddle of competing interests, instead of strict adherence to the law.

That's what people who are invested in the law are protecting when they, for instance, refuse to publicly reveal dirt of political opponents; especially in the midst of a political election in which one of the candidates is a subject of investigation.

There's also an unhealthy expectation that the Garland DOJ should have been more concerned with winning the election for Democrats, instead of following the evidence and defending it against appeals and challenges in the grand jury process which all federal prosecutions first rely on to bring forth charges on the jury's recommendation.

Absolute power corrupts. absolutely.