- After WW2 the French did what the US did *not* do in Reconstruction or denazification: it executed the collaborators, even those who merely lent unofficial aid, drove them into poverty, stripped them of political power, and marked them as untouchable filth.
- "except in extraordinary and unusual circumstances" is a big enough loophole for a family of elephants to walk through. www.huffpost.com/entry/democr...
- bsky.app/profile/pook... The US *broke* the 14th Amendment only 7 years after the war, allowing former confederates to again return to political office. Section 3 of which was specifically there to prevent this happening. By 1876 Reconstruction had wholly fizzled out in full amnesty.
- Think about how all of this would not be happening if Reconstruction hadn't completely fizzled out in a decade. Had they hanged confederates instead of giving them blanket amnesty in 1872. 1872, a mere 7 years after the war, the 14th amendment was killed. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty...
- Meanwhile instead of that or Operation Paperclip, the French went "absolutely the fuck not, these shitheads will not get away with it" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89p...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigni... Unlike in the US, which gave amnesty to the monsters and then hired them, the French went "You can't hold office. You can't vote. All your titles gone. You can't hold senior positions. You can't get jobs in education or journalism. No pension for you." etc
- Denazification in France also fizzled out. But damned if they didn't show where the actual bar of "fuck these pieces of shit, they are not allowed to return to civil society" is. The US didn't even *attempt* to reach this minimum bar of giving a shit. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigni...
- Anyway, Schumer and Jeffries and basically every journalist employed in an Epstein-adjacent billionaire's media empire, would have a very very bad time if the US went even a tenth as hard as the French did against collaborators for a tenth as long.Feb 5, 2026 04:10
- there are so many moments in french history we should be learning from right now
