Trump’s complaints about impeachment & Navy SEALS disciplining their own challenge the value of holding individuals to account for their actions.

Here is a non-exhaustive thread of reasons why accountability matters. 1/

Reinforcing the importance of norms:

Failure to respond to violations of binding rules on conduct communicates that such rules are unimportant. If rules matter, it matters when they are broken. Holding individuals to account shows the rules matter. 2/

Treating individuals as agents

Agents deliberate & choose how they will act in the situations they find themselves in. You respect others as agents by responding to the choices they have made. Good actions merit praise. Bad actions merit blame. 3/

Respect for victims

In cases where conduct that violates rules causes harm to victims, failure to hold perpetrators to account communicates victims do not matter.

Accountability signals that victims matter and that the wrongful harm they suffer demands our attention.

All of these reasons underscore the importance of procedural rules in determining whether someone alleged to have committed wrongdoing did in fact do so.

But complaints about procedural rules only make sense if you presuppose the reasons for accountability at all 5/

You can’t legitimately call a process a witch hunt if you in the next breadth complain about the existence of any process.

You can't legitimately critique a process of accountability if you demand those engaging in the process "get back to business" by dropping it. 6/