Leverage through Complicity

In the Republic, Plato asks us to consider whether or not we would continue to act justly if we had a ring that made us invisible. That is, without fear of consequences, would we do the right thing? For many, this is a potent idea—that morality is dependent upon there being consequences—and many religious people share the concern expressed in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov: that if there is no God, then everything is permitted. On the other hand, there are others, whether Islamic jihadists or Christian fundamentalists such as U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who think that if there is a God, then certain norms and laws can be ignored because God would approve of the outcome.¹

I argue that a corollary idea arises in our current political moment in which we need to ask whether people who have done bad things can be compelled to do worse things through past complicity in wrongdoing. We can see versions of this idea reflected in portrayals of group initiations that require that someone do something wrong to enter a group engaged in other illicit activities.² For instance, a mob or gang initiate may be required to commit a crime both to prove their loyalty to the group and to implicate the initiate into the group’s doings by possessing knowledge of his or her wrongdoing. Or a version can be seen in financial crimes, in which individuals are implicated in a larger system of fraud that rewards them for complying and punishes them for speaking out.³ In these cases, the incentive structure is distorted so that doing the right thing, if it involves going against the desires of a group or leader, is increasingly difficult because it could mean being ostracized from those in the group or even facing legal consequences for what one has done.

This idea, of complicity through wrongdoing, gets us closer to the current dangerous political moment in the United States. In less than a year, President Trump has ordered the military to illegally target boats in the Pacific and the Caribbean,⁴ killing at least 170 people and counting;⁵ ordered attacks on multiple sovereign nations and threatened attacks on civilian infrastructure, among other likely war crimes that have been ordered;⁶ and has even threatened to “obliterate an entire civilization.”⁷ Yet these war crimes—crimes of aggression, murdering non-combatants, attacking civilian infrastructure, and threatening genocide—have not been and will not only be committed by Trump himself. Rather, generals and commanders have implemented Trump (and Secretary Hegseth’s) orders, and soldiers have carried them out.⁸ Because of the constitutional structure of the United States and a dubious ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on presidential immunity, it is these people, not Trump himself, who may be subject to a reckoning. When Trump leaves office, what will happen to these soldiers and other officials depends, in part, on their loyalty to Trump, and the extent to which their loyalty may be guaranteed, I will argue, depends upon what I call “leverage through complicity.”

Patronage through Presidential Immunity and the Power of the Pardon

This dangerous moment has come about through two mechanisms: the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States (2024) and the U.S. Constitutions’ presidential pardon. In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that “the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.”⁹ As we have seen, this impunity—along with the near impossibility of impeaching and removing the president or invoking the 25th Amendment because Trump has surrounded himself with a cabinet that is uniquely unqualified and seemingly chosen because of loyalty rather than merit—has allowed President Trump to redefine and expand the presidency in ways that challenge the very separation of powers. At the same time, the president retains one of the most powerful tools at his disposal: the power of the pardon as granted in Article II of the Constitution. In practical terms, this means that the president can order others to do things that may be unlawful or immoral but, when combined with the pardon, are non-prosecutable. These two features—the unaccountability of the president and the power of the pardon—make a terrifying combination in the hands of someone subject to no legal or, it seems safe to say, ethical guardrails.¹⁰

If the president orders wrongdoing and the wrongdoing is then carried out, the president’s authority then grants him enormous leverage over those who are complicit in what has been done. This leads to a situation in which loyalty supersedes individual judgment, and loyalty is further guaranteed because those who follow such a morally and legally bankrupt leader may themselves be subject to social and legal consequences unless they benefit from his continued patronage in the form of a pardon. This legal blackmail is the basis for “leverage through complicity”: to do what is demanded or even just expected because another person holds discretion over whether you will face certain negative consequences.

In Trump’s case, this concept describes how individuals may be beholden to Trump in such a way that they may further degrade themselves, either because they can without legal consequence; because, psychologically and morally, each infraction makes it easier to commit another; or because they must if they want to avoid being forced to fend for themselves. This of course matters in the current moment, when we read about Trump’s threats to attack essential civilian infrastructure or destroy civilizations in the context of the war on Iran,¹¹ and worry that generals and commanders may initiate these illegal orders. This worry is reasonable, given that Trump has shown a willingness to pardon war criminals and those engaged in wrongdoing on his behalf.¹² Recent reporting suggests that Trump has removed the legal threat hanging over the heads of those acting on his behalf, allegedly promising to “pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval Office.”¹³

While this situation is troubling enough at present, we also should wonder what military officials—along with anyone else seeking his favor—may be willing to do for President Trump in the future. In the 2026 midterms, will Trump move to disrupt an election that may result in a Democratic takeover of Congress? Might he attempt to use the military to undermine free and fair elections in the 2028 presidential election? In the event he does order something illegal—or even less directly signal that this is what he wants done—will these officials respect their constitutional oath and ensure the peaceful transfer of power, or will some be coerced through leverage or otherwise compromised into supporting someone who can provide a pardon?

Grappling with Complicity

Even beyond the pardon, it may be that loyalty to someone like Trump and his vision of what is necessary to promote America helps those who have done wrong to grapple with the ethical discomfort that attends to those “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.”¹⁴ That is, many of the actions that are occurring very well may lead to what psychologists now recognize as “moral injury,” a term that originally captured the experience of soldiers who had done or witnessed actions at odds with their deepest beliefs. And yet, the realization by soldiers and political officials that what they have done, or may yet do, is deeply wrong may come too late because the justifications and propaganda the Administration is providing help to rationalize these actions and delay such reflection.

One of the mechanisms by which individuals attempt to cope with discordant actions is through forms of what Albert Bandura calls “moral disengagement” or what David Livingstone Smith describes as dehumanizing one’s enemies.¹⁵ And, indeed, there is daily support for this coping mechanism being provided by Trump, Hegseth, and government social media accounts toward those involved in these unethical and illegal activities, as well as for other government officials. In the case of the Caribbean and Pacific extra judicial killings, these acts are being defended and reframed as necessary measures to save lives: “Every one of those boats is responsible for the death of 25,000 American people and the destruction of families. So when you think of it that way, what we're doing is actually an act of kindness.”¹⁶ With the war against Iran, the conflict is being portrayed as somehow divinely-sanctioned,¹⁷ and the shape shifting explanations for the war coming from the administration permit those involved to choose from a buffet of justifications.

Outside of the military, these same methods are being used to encourage domestic law enforcement officials and politicians to engage in illegal and unethical behavior. The discriminatory and illegal activities of ICE toward large segments of American’s immigrant community are being promoted on social media accounts as a way to remove “garbage” and “animals”—whether citizens, or documented and undocumented migrants.¹⁸ Trump also routinely refers to Democrats and political critics as “evil”—in one social media post referring to the Democratic Party as “The Party of Hate, Evil, and Satan”—which makes actions taken to undermine elections likely more palatable to those acting on his behalf.¹⁹

In both the first and second Trump administrations, political and military leaders have been willing to push back on some of Trump’s suggestions, at times drawing on an ideal vision of America or ethical values.²⁰ However, in the case of the military, Trump, along with Secretary Hegseth, has publicly called for a reconsideration of the U.S. soldier’s ethos, arguing against restraint and in favor of what Christopher Kutz, in this same venue, has described as glorification of violence and a rejection of “the dignity of ethical warriors.”²¹ In the political realm, too, Trump’s invocation of the term “evil” toward his enemies helps reinterpret democratic politics in a populist manner, so that his position is the “true” will of the nation. The extent to which the line will hold against these developments depends upon those in leadership positions refusing to go along with these illegal and immoral actions and a motivated civil society providing a stronger ethical counterweight through protests and political pressure.

On Degrading Society and Shame

Degrading acts done by individuals in the name of the state have effects that reverberate through society. It is hard for citizens of the United States to see our soldiers as war criminals and murderers, or our government as a terrorist regime or outlaw state. For instance, in the United States during the unethical—and legally dubious—War in Iraq, protests against the war were often cynically reframed as criticisms of the soldiers themselves, which made opposition to the war more challenging.²² Citizens also struggle with a cognitive dissonance that makes it tempting to redefine these actions and the conflict itself as more positive or even justified because we do not feel like we really are that bad, and it is hard for “us” to see ourselves themselves in any way analogous to the “ordinary Germans” in Nazi Germany—again, through acts of moral disengagement or dehumanization.²³

The danger in the United States, then, is that these unethical and illegal actions are normalized, that we pull our punches in calling the perpetrators out, and that we allow ourselves to lower our standards for our government and ourselves as citizens. Even worse, that so many Americans may find themselves implicated in these schemes—whether as soldiers in illegal wars in which war crimes are being commissioned, as elected officials engaged in election interference, or as law enforcement providing support for ICE to continue its many illegal actions—leads to a growing class of citizens dependent upon the patronage of the president to avoid consequences, which is dangerous when the president seems to recognize no moral constraints. This not only degrades the image of America abroad, but it risks creating more and more people subject to the collective trauma that results from moral injury performed on such a vast scale.

This is not to say that all Americans are sitting idly by while this occurs. Plenty of Americans have heroically protested and resisted the actions of our government, most notably in Minneapolis, and the “No Kings” protests have been some of the largest protests in U.S. history. And yet, we can still wonder what the social costs will be to the American ideal and our national consciousness. Moral injury, while most frequently studied in the context of soldiers, does not only occur in soldiers but can affect those within a broader society who witness these actions.²⁴ While it is worth saying unequivocally that the deepest concern should be on the direct victims of the Administration’s actions, we should also be concerned about the psychological and ethical costs the Trump Administration is imposing upon Americans more broadly.

Americans should have an ideal of themselves that causes discomfort to those who may be willing to blindly follow illegal and immoral orders or refuse to condemn the actions and rhetoric by which the Second Trump Administration continues to degrade itself and the American people. Our American identity, as are all national identities, is always being renegotiated through the stories we tell ourselves. Since the mid-twentieth century the American identity has contained ideals of democracy, human rights, and attempts to hold war criminals responsible (even if some of the most egregious criminals were our own and have not met justice). This ideal provides reasons to act in a certain way and, historically, it has been one on which Americans have drawn upon to help others or to hold others responsible. This is not to over glorify America, which remains an imperfect project, but it is a guiding ideal that at its best can push us toward improving our institutions and policies. And to that effect, what is needed more than ever in the twenty-first century is not an “America First” that rejects collective action and institutions, but a willingness to follow international commitments on existential threats like climate change and nuclear proliferation.

In the wake of the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, after offering a revisionist praise of Kirk for which he had been criticized, stressed the need for us to find a way to live together without “social shame and pressure,” rejecting the idea of social sanctions toward those whose views we find beyond the pale and, instead, search for commonality.²⁵ In response, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò argues that,

“…shame serves as a robustly liberal alternative to the political violence that Klein and company rightly abhor. It is, quite literally, the least one can do to ensure rules of social conduct that uphold minimal levels of dignity for all involved. Most of the alternatives involve either subjugation, combat, or both. Put another way: designating disrespect and denigration as beyond the pale, as grounds for exclusion from polite company, is ‘turning the temperature down.’ Klein and others are helping to turn it up.”²⁶

To those engaged in politics that undermine the dignity of others, Táíwò suggests using shame as a social sanction against those who attempt to engage in discriminatory and exclusionary politics, precisely because this way of doing politics is disrespectful and at odds with the moral norms implied in democratic politics. In much the same way, shame can be motivated by an ideal that views “beyond the pale” attempts to undermine the ethical, constitutional, and international obligations to which officials are bound. While we can, and must, do our best to ensure accountability through formal and informal political processes, until then, American society needs to draw on a robust counterweight ideal to the leverage that a pardon may hold. While the America ideal may be contested by competing visions, an “America First” that draws strength from the leverage of coercion cannot be permitted to override a more ambitious ideal that has learned from many of the worst moments of our country’s and the world’s history.

—Drew Thompson

Drew Thompson is an editorial fellow of Carnegie Council's journal, Ethics & International Affairs. He received his PhD in philosophy from Loyola University Chicago. Thompson wrote his dissertation on the ethics of immigration and Habermas’s discourse ethics. He completed his BA in philosophy from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he initially studied jazz performance. Thompson has taught ethics and political philosophy at several universities.

NOTES