Rachel Maddow took a look back at how former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder ended up being criminally charged in the mass poisoning of Flint, Michigan -- two counts of "willful neglect of duty."

It's not enough. Short of charging him with mass murder, how could it ever be enough? At least, finally, it's something. Via NBCNewscom:

Former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who ran the state at the time of the devastating 2014 Flint water scandal, has been charged in the crisis that led to the Legionnaires' disease outbreak that killed 12 people.

Snyder pleaded not guilty Thursday morning to two counts of willful neglect of duty, before a judge set bond at $10,000.

The former governor was ordered to not leave the state ahead of his next date on Tuesday. He faces up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

"You know, the thing about the Flint disaster, the thing that drew us to report the story in the first place, the thing about it that helps us understand the disaster that we're now in as a country, I think that the story of Flint was really the story of giving up on democracy," Rachel Maddow said last night.

"At the start of Snyder's first term as Michigan's new Republican governor a decade ago, Rick Snyder signed legislation that allowed him to just overturn an election anywhere in Michigan he wanted to. Yeah, in your town, you could elect your mayor and your town council and all that, but if Rick Snyder didn't like the people you elected, by that legislation, he gave himself the power to reject the choices you and your town made in your election," she said.

"He gave himself the power to declare an emergency, ignore the results of any democratic election, and instead, just install his own handpicked person to come in and run your town or your city or your school board, without any need to have any pesky answering to the voters."