Before I get into my rant, I will admit that my knowledge of American law and the evidence pertaining to all the Trump cases is limited. While I can’t claim to have the answers, I am seeing a pattern.
For the first Trump impeachment hearing, I believe the House Democrats knew the Senate was never going to convict. But they were under pressure from the Democrat base to “do something” about an inept presidency. This was a show trial mostly to prevent some of the soft Democrat base from drifting away from the Democrats. That’s how I saw it.
In addition, the laws used to describe “treason” were vague and obscure — and written a century ago. Sorry, anti-Trumpers, most geopolitics has elements of dirt. Just because this geopolitical situation was more open, amateurishly executed, and served mostly partisanship purposes, this does not mean this “treason” was much worse than all the others.
Besides, I think the USA has a bigger claim of treason against me than Mr. Trump. After all, I have been openly saying American democracy is unrepairable — and I have a replacement system ready for your inspection. Now that’s treason! Or foreign interference! No American justice department is coming after me — yet. You can put me in an American prison for all the obscure laws I have broken.
The second impeachment trial had more legal ground to it. Unfortunately, our legal systems are not good at prosecuting the manipulators of psychology who set up scenarios for mobs to attack political buildings or for experienced drilling engineers to cause oil well blowouts that pollute the Gulf of Mexico.
The buck does not stop at the top — even when the top directly caused the situation for underlings to do silly things. The people at the top do not want to be responsible for their psychological messes. Another reason to build a new democracy.
Rape cases are extremely difficult to prove, especially decades after the event. Most rape victims of long ago would not get a trial, much less a similar verdict as E. Jean Carroll.
The trial surrounding Stormy Daniels makes no sense to me. If Mr. Trump or Ms. Daniels somehow reneged on their deal to keep things secret, that belongs in the civil courts. Besides, all the storyline was made widely known in 2020 — and 2020 voters voted with this information available to them. Yet Mr. Trump increased his vote count from 62M in 2016 to 74M in 2020. If there was 2016 election interference by keeping this story quiet, this affair seemed, mathematically speaking, to have no effect on the outcome.
There are accounting standards for publicly traded companies. But to apply these standards to Mr. Trump’s private companies is nobody else’s business. So if Mr. Trump wants to inflate his companies’ value in some situations and deflate in other situations, he should have the freedom to do that. Rather, the blame should be cast on Mr. Trump’s business partners for doing business with a known shyster.
Or how about the accountants? Is there not a professional association of accountants in the USA that guide and enforce their members to produce reasonably accurate financial statements? Why are the accountants not on trial?
I don’t see a phone call asking to “find an 11,000 extra votes” a great example of election interference. Mr. Trump has a right to question the numbers and make inquiries. Was he making an inquiry or trying to threaten an election official? Hard to determine with only the words spoken. If the phone call had said something like “Find 11,000 votes and I will give you a big government contract later,” or “Find 11,000 votes or I will send Rocky and Mugsy to your house,” that is a different story.
While Mr. Trump has an uncanny ability to “imply” certain things without being concrete in what he is really thinking or wanting, the words he uses are not strong evidence. Even if most of us understand what he meant.
Mr. Trump’s supporters see the proffered evidence as flimsy. They have a point.
The trials may bring out more concrete evidence later. But from what I can see in the media, there is not enough evidence for much of this circus.
If you disagree, then is partisanship affecting your judgment?
Coincidence? Or witch hunt?
From my perspective, the first year of the Biden presidency was in a state of paralysis. Not much got done, which was strange given the great political experience of the leader. There were many articles on Medium chastising this leader and his team to “do something.”
Maybe these articles did exert some political pressure. The last two years were definitely more proactive, including the prosecution of Mr. Trump.
But is it not strange that all these cases came together at the same time — and at the start of the presidential election campaign?
In other words, is this conglomeration of trials just a coincidence? Or were there some back-room discussions of different prosecution offices to bring everything together at the best time to reduce Mr. Trump’s electoral success?
A witch hunt is plausible. Especially when the evidence is really not that concrete.
If there is a witch hunt, it does not seem to be working. If the polls are right, Mr. Trump is still a viable candidate for the job. He is running a good campaign from the courtroom. The mainstream media have no choice but to cover him.
Sort of like the summer of 2016. That’s when it seemed the DNC and left-wing media were helping Mr. Trump win the Republican primary by giving him most of their air time, turning his more sensible competitors into puffs of smoke. The buffoon was so beatable.
Oh, how they now wish for John Kasich vs. Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton. Have I already mentioned how the buck does not stop at the top?
You are missing the point, Dave
Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m not vindicating Mr. Trump in any way. Whatever trials and tribulations he currently faces, he has earned them on his own merit. Had he been of a more virtuous character, he would not be in the legal mess he is currently in.
If Mr. Trump is acquitted on most of his legal trials (a few things will stick), I would not be surprised. If he is sent to prison, I would not be surprised. If he wins the presidency from a prison cell, I would not be surprised. If there is lots of violence after election day (regardless of the result), I would not be surprised.
Changing direction of the popular discussion
While my critics would prefer to debate whether Mr. Trump is truly guilty or not, I want to take this discussion in another direction.
In this article, I have already alluded to an alternative democracy. It will be built by the people. Not the political elite. Not the wealthy. Not the academics.
When this democracy assumes responsibility and authority for governance, people like Mr. Trump will not rise very high in this system.
Is this new system not a better solution than taking the nation through all these court cases? And all the uncertainty of “acquit vs. convict”?
Let me put this notion in different words. Instead of putting Mr. Trump on trial, we should be putting American democracy on trial for allowing him to be a viable contender in American politics. Now the buck stops at the top.
Can you tell me that I am not making sense?
Published on Medium 2024
King George, can we Americans declare Independence?
