Princeton University politics professor Jan-Werner Müller is urging Democrats to reject the familiar refrain of “looking forward, not back” as they decide how to respond to President Donald Trump.

Writing for The Guardian on Monday, Müller argued that the election has produced a mandate for “accountability.” Yet speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday after the election, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) adopted similar forward-looking language — a stance that cast doubt on his Speaker bid among members of his own caucus, even though the party’s large House majority makes him the presumptive Speaker.

“The American people don’t want us to get even. They want us to get things done on their behalf. Because life is way too expensive. We ran on affordability. We won on affordability. And now it’s our job to govern on affordability,” Jeffries said.

The backlash was swift. Incoming Democratic members of Congress said that if Jeffries did not care about accountability, he should quit while he was ahead. Less than 48 hours later, the minority leader was singing a different tune, making clear that accountability is not the same as revenge. Müller contends that Democrats do, in fact, hold a mandate to enforce accountability.

“It is imperative not to treat accountability as some kind of abstract moral question; even the most hard-headed politicians have to understand that the inability to deal with crimes and misdemeanors now will come back to haunt them – and, in fact, the nation as a whole,” Müller explained.

He cited writer Richard Beck, who has traced how past presidents escaped consequences for breaking the law: Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon after Watergate in 1974, the limited fallout from the Reagan-era Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, and the war on terror. In Beck’s account, that record of moving on without consequences led the United States into the era of Donald Trump and has given him the comfort to obliterate norms and laws.

If Americans ever want to be taken seriously on the international stage again, Müller argued, they must begin holding officials accountable for breaking the law. Failing that, “the message to present and future politicians will be: there are never consequences.”

“For any other government ever to trust an American administration again, there would have to be globally visible accountability, as well as a comprehensive cultural distancing from Trumpism,” he added.

Müller acknowledged that practical obstacles are likely. Witnesses could resist subpoenas, court proceedings take time, and he said it is clear the Justice Department is unwilling to investigate the administration impartially. Even so, Congress holds a historical power to detain uncooperative witnesses — an authority known as inherent contempt, last exercised in the 1930s — though it is unlikely the Speaker would allow that step.

While many Democrats are excited by the prospect of a third Trump impeachment — he was impeached twice before, in 2019 and 2021, and acquitted by the Senate both times — the votes simply are not there. They might materialize eventually, but hearings held well before any such vote — addressing scandal after scandal — could be what moves the needle.

“It shows citizens the evidence for crimes and misdemeanors, and that evidence, carefully assembled, can then eventually also be helpful to a Department of Justice that has regained its integrity,” Müller said.

In his view, those in the “move forward, not back” camp profoundly underestimate “citizens’ desire for justice; it also fails to see that, with a large majority in the House, one can do more than one thing.”

The original report was published by Alternet.