“The fact that one of the two men likely to be president next year is now a convicted felon sets up the possibility that those very same judicial institutions that guarantee the rule of law will come under the most ferocious political attack in our history,” according to Columbia's T. J. Naftali. The American Conservative's Curt Mills foresees "an arms race of recriminations." So it is once a noncooperative equilibrium breaks down and the punishment cycles become the Order of the Day. Emory's Mark Bauerlein is pessimistic. "The civic faith collapses." Decide for yourself, dear reader, whether that is for good or ill. There's unhealthily much reliance on the national government and on the presidency.
It goes on in that vein. There's been a lot more reaction, probably too much for one post, and there will be more over the weekend. Town Hall's Guy Benson might summarize the thinking for a lot of people who were never impressed by Donald Trump's schtick, and yet have been put off by the bait and switch of the Biden presidency.
Let's start with the felony falsification of business records.
A former President of the United States, and a current leading contender for the presidency, has been convicted of 34 felonies by a New York jury. The 'crimes' in question were internal corporate bookkeeping mis-categorizations 'committed' nine years ago. There was no victim in these bookkeeping mis-categorizations, which were subsequently deemed records falsifications. Misdemeanors. They stemmed from a sexual encounter Donald Trump had with a porn star, which he sought to cover up via a nondisclosure agreement. The woman was paid six figures to abide by the agreement. The money was furnished to her by Trump's sleazy personal lawyer. Trump then reimbursed said sleazy lawyer over a period of time. This is all very sordid business. None of it was criminal. Those reimbursement payments were categorized as legal fees, as selected from a pre-populated drop-down menu embedded in the company's software. They were not listed as "hush money payments to a porn star."Donald Trump, as we have noted repeatedly, has long been notorious for tomcatting around. Voters knew that and made him president once anyway, and they might, as Mr Benson notes, do so again. That, of itself, says something about the mood of the country. Mr Benson gets into the thinking by which those charges were drawn up and argued, should you wish to review them. His objection is one that might be troubling more than a few undecided voters.
The goal here, as I see it, has been to emblazon 'convicted felon' across Donald Trump's forehead prior to the election, then repeat those two words endlessly until November. If the conviction gets thrown out on appeal down the line, as is likely, so what? The charges were political, the trial was political, and the result was orchestrated to achieve a political result. This is undeniable, in my view, and is therefore deeply disturbing. This is a major abuse of the criminal justice system. As I've written previously, if a former president (and current major candidate) is to be criminally prosecuted for the first time in our nation's history, the case against him ought to be crystal clear. The legal theory underpinning said case should be well-tested and extremely familiar. The alleged violations should be grave. This unfolding scenario goes 0-for-3 on those points.Many of those voters might be thinking along the same lines Mr Benson is.
I have found Donald Trump to be a volatile, capricious, myopic, petty man for as long as I've been aware of his existence. I have voted against him in two presidential primaries (and would have a third time if my state's Republican Party hadn't canceled its nominating contest in 2020, in obsequious deference to the incumbent). I have voted against him (third party/write-in) in two general elections. My full intention has been to do so again this November, despite my deep opposition to the governance of the Biden administration. Biden has been a far worse president than I'd expected, and my expectations were low. The reason I've been planning to nevertheless vote for someone other than Donald Trump once again is that he has always been fundamentally unfit for high office, in my opinion. Many disagree, and I respect that difference of opinion. But that was, and is, my assessment, even as I supported many of the positive outcomes he achieved during his presidential term. In terms of governing results, he was a better president than I'd expected. After the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, for which I hold Trump principally responsible, I called his conduct impeachable and wrote that the GOP would be "demented" to nominate Trump again. The party's voters proceeded to do so this year. That is their prerogative, just as it is mine to have urged against it, to have voted against it, and to decline to go along with it again this fall.It's a long column, and he gets into the niceties and the complications. It's where he winds up that is instructive, and scary.
But for the first time, I am seriously reconsidering my planned choice. I am now strongly entertaining the possibility of voting for Trump. I stand behind, and still believe, every single thing I wrote in the preceding paragraph. What I'm grappling with now is whether the appalling lawfare so brazenly employed against Trump in this case is more dangerous than anything Trump, and his worst excesses, represent. To be clear, I don't believe Trump is "above the law." I've written about how the federal classified documents and obstruction case against him is well-grounded in evidence.
This is all very unhealthy for our already-strained civic health. If Trump loses in November, tens of millions of Americans will believe the race was effectively stolen from him. Unlike last time, they might have a point. For Trump's opponents, this ghastly approach will have 'worked,' a corrosive lesson. If he wins despite the trial result, tens of millions of Americans will have their faith in our system eroded or shattered. How could our fellow citizens have elected a convicted felon? The 'resistance' will re-emerge with a vengeance, and that V-word may well dominate much of Trump's governing mentality, given what his opponents have put him through -- both with the Russia "collusion" hoax, and now this. This is as dirty as dirty politics get, even it the target is an unsympathetic figure to so many. It cannot be rewarded. It must be punished, in fact. And perhaps the only real, painful way to punish it is to elect Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States. I do fear some of what a second Trump term might look like, particularly under these circumstances. Furthermore, this horrible situation does not 'undo' or 'cancel out' the national disgrace of January 6th. And Trump is still, in my mind, fundamentally unfit. But, again, for the first time, I am truly considering voting for him anyway, something I never thought I'd really contemplate. The abuses unleashed in the name of 'resisting' him (Russia collusion, laptop conspiracy, and this just-concluded lawfare sham are strikes one, two, and three) are arguably as dangerous, or more dangerous, than anything he's done. So here we are.I'm right there with him.
I know this isn't about me, but it is about a lot of people like me. I'm confident there are many Americans who feel the way I do right now, or for whom at least some of this resonates. They face an unpleasant-to-excruciating choice this fall, and they resent the two major parties for cornering them into it. The so-called 'double-disapprovers' (who disapprove of both Biden and Trump) will be a, or the, determinative demographic in this election. There are surely some 'swing' voters who will recoil from a convicted felon, even if they were perhaps leaning in his direction prior to the verdict. Others will come off the sidelines for Trump, out of deep indignation of the banana republic-style abomination of a political show trial that just concluded in one of the country's most lopsidedly partisan jurisdictions. How will these dynamics shake out over the next few days, weeks, and months?His conclusion, "I'll confess that right now, I'm at a loss," is mine, although I'm less troubled if there's low turnout for the presidency, gridlocked federal government in the House and Senate, and lots of local interest in the school boards and city councils.
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