I mean this to be an emotional response to the indictment of Donald Trump, not a legal analysis. As such, you will have to forgive me if I say some things I've said before, because they are best way I know to express my thoughts.
When Trump first stuck his head into the spotlight during the Obama era. I immediately thought he'd be the death of the Republican Party. Who but Trump could make Obama look a victim? When Trump ran I was amazed at his success, but was still not a supporter and though I did not vote in 2016, disgusted that it was the best I could do, I was overjoyed at his unexpected victory as a slap in the face to the pathetic remains of our poor excuses for journalists, now reduced to partisan witch hunters, no more dispassionate, realistic or fair than medieval spectators at a heretic burning.
As he took office, I watched like everyone, trying to be as objective as possible, and could rarely find anything I disagreed with. Not surprisingly, he turned out to be a moderate, but one who faced the greatest resistance to his administration of any president since Lincoln not only from a disloyal opposition, but also a rabid and frantic media, big tech and never-Trumpers in his own party. And there is no convincing them otherwise but for a few epiphanies. Trump and all his relations and associates, are the "Jews" now, guilty as if by blood.
From before he took office, the resistance tore into him
with ever growing ferocity. I often refer to one comment I read in the NYTs
(for a half century my favorite media source and now, politically, buffoons) which perhaps few people saw, but I think typifies the mental state
of those suffering with Trump Derangement Syndrome (“TDS”) – “No credit for
Trump ever.” It wasn't a policy prescription. It was a cry of despair by what at least seems to me like a Zombie.
For a long time, just as their fervor helped him to win the
2016 election, I wrongly believed it would help him win again. I was unaware of what
power the nonstop drive to destroy or even kill him was when combined with the docility
and cravenness of so many in the R party who I often describe as cowards.
Perhaps that's being unfair and their political beliefs just differ from mine,
but Rs struck me then as naive beyond measure in believing that if they keep
turning the other cheek and showing their dedication to great restraint from attacking Ds, the D party
and there even further left compatriots, perhaps I should say in some cases
comrades, will stop punching them in the face, or, in believing that by losing
with dignity and affection for American values, their adversaries will stop lying,
exaggerating, falsifying, and acting in general like fascists.
None of this is easy to say. Some people afflicted with TDS are
among my favorite people in the world. They are my family and friends and I
trust, like, love, respect all of them - except when they try and talk about Trump
and sound to me like zombies repeating the anti-Trump mantras while they at least symbolically put their head through brick walls and glass windows
seeking to devour him. To quote one friend of mine I have always thought of as
kind, intelligent and level-headed, “I don’t care what happens to me or America
so long as Trump is defeated.” I’m sure that many a German said something
similar in supporting Hitler. They were so frightened by communism, they
embraced one of, if not the worst dictators in modern history, and even looked at him with respect and awe.
Perhaps the virus has so far spread as to infect everyone,
so that even most of those who support him cannot truly like him. I know that
describes me. Virtually every R or conservative I know on Long Island almost
reflexively says before they praise him, something like “I don't really like
him, but. . . .“
Often there are two valid arguments, sometimes more. That is so in many court decisions of which I have a difficult time coming to a conclusion. But, quite some time ago, in the 00s, I know I stopped feeling that way. As I have written endlessly here (I say it so you won't), the left is heading down a path the Nazis headed down before them and though it happens differently each time, it always ends up the same - with coercion, violence and many deaths. They do not care about logic, shame or decency. They are just determined to win.
But, that doesn't mean I think there are just fascists (like Pelosi, Schumer, Antifa and many others) and good guys. Many Biden supporters are not fascists. My friends and family are not fascists. I believe (and they would vehemently disagree) that they are hypnotized by their media or unable to see past the left-wing rhetoric they were raised on (as I was for many years) and are not motivated to self-educate, which took me years. I've long been fascinated by why so many decent people went along with horrid ideologies like Nazism and Bolshevism. No doubt they thought they were the good guys too.
There are many answers as to why that happened, and I am not getting that deep here, but I will say that it seems it is not hard to accomplish for groups that are energetic and relentless enough. A little read book these days is the 1955 book by American journalist Milton Mayer, who moved himself and his wife into post-war Germany to investigate why ordinary people became Nazis. Those he interviewed in the town he settled in knew he was an American journalist, but not that he was Jewish. To his surprise, at some point, he realized that the former Nazis had become his friends. No doubt, because they - like him, all of us - were just people.
I have no doubt that any of my friends or family considering that they are following fascists would be, if not outraged, amused at what they would take as my delusions and alarmist beliefs. They should read Yeonmi Park, the North Korean refugee who went to Columbia University and has written on what she saw there and how we are following the same pathways the North Koreans did. They should talk to people who were raised in Communist countries.
I am not advocating conservatism at all. I have no more use for stubborn resistance to change than I do for its leftist opposite. I love the G. K. Chesterton (who wrote many things, including the Father Brown stories) chestnut: "The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected." Frankly, if you believe you are a moderate, but you aren't against the people I think are fascist, I likely wouldn't consider you moderate (for which there is no penalty, and I'm sure they think the same of me). Moderate doesn't just mean in the middle. Not to me, anyway. I used to write long posts on these types of issues, but I haven't in a while. I've already expressed myself and it takes a long, sustained effort to convince anyone of anything, and that's only if they are open to being convinced that they could be wrong about something. They usually start out with negative emotions. I did.
Indeed, socially, times are difficult. Since his election we
have become fragmented to a far greater degree than we have been since the
Civil War. I lived through the sixties and though I was young then and not
politically motivated or knowledgeable, I did not miss the riots, political
assassinations and extremism. This is different. It has stifled conversation to
an unprecedented degree. Polls show how great it has become. Dinner table
conversation at holidays has changed, people do not feel free to speak their
minds out of fear of cancellation, rousing the anger of friends or family or
even losing their livelihoods. The mere mention of Trump can send people into rages, unable to have a conversation or see any argument as rational that doesn't have their chosen result, not able even to see civil conservation as anything but provocation and an attempt to deceive. Though this has always been true of people in large on any side, it has become a core emotional component of many anti-Trump warriors.
I make no mistake about it. NY's fascist AG and NYC's fascist DA take political prisoners. The State failed to figure out a crime against him, because there were none. The DOJ and even the FEC tried and stopped because it wasn't close. This isn't a case of . . . Well, let's hear the facts. We already know most of the allegations. It is simply about revenge, anger and trying to prevent him from running again. Like with Obi-wan Kenobi, I hope striking him down makes him stronger. He now has my full support, without few reservations, even though I feel DeSantis has a better chance against the Empire, even though I fear he has come off the wheels as a result of the relentless attacks.
I could go off here on a tangent as how the anti-Trump feelings are aligned with western culture destroying social justice/woke/cancel culture, but I decline. I'll just end with a few quotes I saw online that resonated:
John Turley, a widely respected attorney and professor, a decent man who is somehow, despite all he has written about modern Democrats, still one:
"This indictment, if it is reportedly following the theory that we've been talking about, is political. It's a raw political prosecution."
*
"First of all, it's a federal
crime the Department of Justice chose not to prosecute. Bragg's own predecessor
declined to prosecute it, but he is attempting to bootstrap that federal crime
into a state case. And if that is the basis for the indictment, I think it's
rather outrageous. I think it's legally pathetic."
Joe Tacopina, one of Trump's attorneys.
“In my opinion—and I don’t say this with pride or
pleasure—in my 32 years as a lawyer, both as a prosecutor and a defense
attorney, I feel like the rule of law died yesterday in this country.”
Tulsi Gabbard, former D, who has run for the hills when she realized what her party had become.
"The politicized indictment of Trump is just the latest example of the Dem establishment putting their own person & partisan political interest ahead of the interests of the American people & our country. It's a despicable, extremely dangerous turning point for our country.
Alan Dershowitz, another D (somehow) pointing out that the ostracism of any NY juror by NYers who felt he/she was in some way responsible for an acquittal would be worse than the ostracism he had faced on Martha's Vinyard:
“Nobody
would ever speak to them again. There’s no possibility he could get
a fair trial in Manhattan.”
"It’s
the archetypal abuse of the prosecutorial function to engage in a political hit
job, and it’s a disgrace. If it turns out to be what we
think it is politically, it’s going to be damaging to the Republican Party
simply because I think it’s a no-lose situation for the Democrats."
*
“From
what I understand, it’s a pathetically weak case."
*
Mike Pence, who has no reason to be Trump's friend:
“The indictment of a former president of the United States on a campaign finance issue [would send] a terrible message to the wider world about American justice. There are dictators and authoritarians around the world that will point to that to justify their own abuse of their own so-called justice system.”
Nancy Pelosi, once again trying to make her fascism even more obvious:
"No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence."
