It’s not hypocrisy. It’s not unfair. It’s reality.
"You know they’re not going to let you go,” an old friend told President Donald Trump in an intimate Oval Office meeting during the summer of 2020. “They’re going to come after you, after your kids; they’re going to come for your money; and they’re going to try to put you in jail.”
The president, he told me later that day, look frightened, even startled, as if he hadn't considered there could be anything worse than defeat at the ballot box.
"Unfair” is a child’s protest. “Hypocrisy” is the adult version — a fine word for the powerless to hurl against the powerful (to no avail).
Underestimating just how far his opponents across all strata of society would go to hurt him was a frequent tic of Trump’s first term. The 45th president of the United States was slow to realize position and power are not the same thing. And now, four years later, he’s been convicted of a bogus crime by a man who won office by promising to lock him up.
It can feel cathartic to point out that Trump has been found guilty of disguising hush money as "legal expenses,” while Hillary Clinton did the same to hide payments to a British spy to compile the far more insidious Russia dossier. You can yell “Hypocrisy!” on a friendly network and the host might nod along.
It can feel witty to explain how clearly the judge violated Trump’s Sixth Amendment right "to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.” Judge Juan Merchan actually told the jurors they didn’t need to agree on what “unlawful” act Trump might have committed to upgrade a misdemeanor outside the statute of limitations to a felony charge. You can write “Unfair!” on X, and your friends might retweet you.
It can feel like a relief to know the Supreme Court will likely intervene and might even do so quickly. Merchan’s obvious work to assist the prosecution, undercut the defense, and gag the Republican candidate for president makes a strong case for appeal. The prosecution’s “novel legal theory” is fair game, too. Merchan might even face review and censure. Phew!
But in the words of Clinton herself, “What difference does it make?” “Unfair” is a child’s protest; my 8-year-old sometimes yells it to no avail. “Hypocrisy” is the adult version — a fine word for the powerless to hurl against the powerful, also to no avail.
Democrats were never going to let Trump go and were leaving as little as possible to chance, launching cases up and down the country. They weren’t even hot on Bragg’s “novel legal reasoning” until it appeared likely to deliver while the other cases faltered. “Whatever they can get him for,” the noisy NeverTrump lawyer George Conway said last week, “is fine with me.”
It's about power and the will to use it. Merchan did not lack the will, even if it means short-term suffering for it. “Merchan,” Federalist CEO Sean Davis wrote, “is going to get his bogus conviction, retire, get an absurd amount of left-wing money laundered to him in the form of a book advance, and become a CNN/MSNBC contributor.” -- excerpt, rest at link above --
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
After George Washington, I can think of no man less likely to snap under tremendous pressure he undergoes.
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” . ~ Thomas Jefferson
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Wed Jun 05, 2024 11:51 am
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