Relaaaaaaaax ...

Disgraced former president Trump inches ever closer to avoiding timely trials for multiple felonies. Don't fret. This is what we want.

[AI generated image from the future.]

Here are some things I regard as facts. Prove me wrong.

1. Any Trump-trial held during the election season will be marred by the fact that it is being held during an election season. The chance of a jury including a juror that wants Trump elected breaking the verdict is not small. Trump is the master of turning valid accusations against his character, ethics, and the legality of his acts into self serving campaign fodder. It is possible, perhaps likely, that Trump-trials would increase, rather than decrease, the chance of his winning a second term as President. This is especially true if there is jury nullification. One person can change the course of history by being a holdout in one of Trump’s major trials, and handing the Trump campaign a huge dose of vindication.

2. All things being equal, Trump is going to lose this election if we all do our jobs, and if nothing comes down the pike to derail the Biden train. Biden has as good a chance of winning this race as any president has had in several cycles (more on this below). Yes, polling shows that the chance of a Biden victory may be enhanced by a Trump conviction, but a trump vindication ends the race and we get Trump. It is like shooting fish in a barrel but with a one in five chance you are holding the gun backwards. Maybe leave the fish alone, come back for them later.

3. If all of the felony related Trump-trials happen after Trump has lost to Biden, with a reasonable schedule, each of those trials will be more sane, sensible, and more likely to lead to his conviction on most of the charges against him. (Most complex trials result in a few charges not panning out, due to the culture of jurys.)

So, just relax. When you hear about the Supreme Court kicking a Trump-trial down the road several weeks, think of that as a good thing. Hopefully the trial will be delayed until AFTER Trump loses to Biden. When you hear about Judge Aileen Cannon favoring the defendant more than is normal, relax. That increases the chance of Cannon herself being recused by her peers, or a mistrial that can be picked up later with the case strengthened, and ultimately — with a different judge at the helm — a conviction. The election interference charges, by the way, are likely to be more interesting to the general public and more transformative of both democracy and the operation of the criminal justice system, after one more round of electoral shenanigans. (Not in the courtroom, but very likely in the court of public opinion.)

Relax about some other things. I mentioned this earlier. In the battle with the press over their worship of balance to the extent of insane falsehood-ness, it is helpful to one’s psyche to remember that the worst offender among the major media outlets, The New York Times, is read primarily by Libs who are annoyed by this falsehood, and almost nobody else. When we scream at the NYT about false balance we are screaming into the void. The false balance of The New York Times is a closed loop. Ignore it.

Speaking of false balance, and this is the part about why you can expect Biden to win (if we do our jobs), there is this stupid New York Times headline:

No he didn’t and no he didn’t either.

Biden’s Gaza policy yielded a significant drubbing by an organized effort to vote “uncommitted” in the primary as a protest against the administration’s policy of not pushing Israel strongman Benjamin Netanyahu more forcefully towards a ceasefire. Muslim-majority or near-majority cities, together with college towns and other liberal bastions, produced high percentages of uncommitted primary voters, in a few cases reaching a majority level. Welcome to the Democratic party, this is what we do. We are rightly reminded by Muslim-supporting activists not to tell people “but what about the Muslim band, huh?” when they are busy protesting the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. But people do realize that a second Trump presidency will involve not just a Muslim ban, but a full scale deportation of Muslims, and the possibility of concentration camps or worse is truly on the table. Remember “rule 3” of the planned operation for Trump’s regime: Ignore Congress. That also means ignore the law. And the “rule 2.” Enforce the president/dictator’s will with military force. This is a valid and important protest vote. It is not a pro-Trump vote.

And no, Donald Trump coasted to nothing. In the last two back-to-back primaries, the disgraced former President was hounded by Haley, who scarfed up a strong second place. There is a difference between an estimate of Haley’s chance of winning the Republican nomination (zero) and the meaning of 20-30% of the Republcian party rejecting Trump wherever he goes. There are more Democrats than Republicans in the US, the vast majority of Democrats will vote for Biden, and a good chunk of Republicans won’t vote for Trump. So-called Independents will break towards Biden. The electoral math will still involve most states going for one or the other exactly as expected, with a subset of states making our national level decision of who is the next president. But Biden looks good in those states relative to Trump.

Future eyes on justice and Justices

Regardless of my opinion on how to feel about the criminal justice system vis-a-vis Trump-trials, I do think we are heading for a reckoning. Remember when so many pundits, including liberal ones, made claims about how institutions are strong, and our system will save itself from Trump, especially with the Justice System on the job? Well, that didn’t happen, did it? On their own, our institutions are weak and hapless, and bend towards corruption at worst, indifference or stagnation at best.

I think the last two or three years of watching the criminal justice system has resulted in two very important changes in our culture, at least in the subculture of the oddballs that pay a lot of attention. 1) We all have law degrees from Podcast University; and 2) Historic events have knocked the judges and the high level prosecutors off whatever pedestals on which we might have previously set them. The Supreme Court can decide to set the Constitution on fire, when it is convenient. While there are many excellent judges on the Federal bench, there are some real scoundrels. Special prosecutors have always been suspect, but we now know that our absurd tradition of always siccing Republican prosecutors against Democratic electeds is, well, absurd.

When Congress or the Executive criticizes the courts, the courts and their symps and stans cry “No no no! separation of powers, man!” Meanwhile, what to the courts do? With respect to the law and the Constitution, the entire job from Monday morning to end of day Friday of the Federal Courts is to criticize the actions of the Executive and Congress. Break that down and you get the definition of a bully. You can’t have my lunch money, but I’ll take yours whenever I want and you get a punch in the nose if you object. The Federal Judiciary is a bully, not a savior. And, do you know what? That has probably beren true for more of American History than it has not.

So if our institutions are either corrupt or milquetoast, what do we do?

Give, do, walk, talk. Now, and through November 5th.

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