Trump Alert

GUTTING OUR CONSTITUTION
TO SAVE US FROM THE DONALD

Trigger Warning: This blog post is about the former President (you know, that orange guy with the severe comb-over). If such a discussion would be too upsetting to you, skip it and go check out some Facebook animal videos.

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Reaction to Donald Trump’s conviction on charges nobody seems to understand has been extreme on both sides — whether for him or against him.

After the jury’s decision was announced, Trump’s fund-raising website crashed under an avalanche of online campaign contributions. To date some $200 million has been raised.

But Trump support pales in comparison to the frenzy on the anti-Trump side. Everyone from Robert De Niro, to Hillary Clinton, to those charming crones on “The View” experienced their greatest collective thrill since the introduction of Lume whole-body deodorant.

Such is their unbridled delight in “getting” The Donald — even though this was a case where laws had to be altered to allow felony prosecution of years-old misdemeanor allegations; even though some defense evidence was prohibited from submittal on very arbitrary grounds; even though the prosecutor was a leftist partisan whose election had been funded by George Soros; even though the Democrat-contributor judge virtually directed the verdict.

As Trump put it…

“Mother Teresa couldn’t beat these charges.”

Of course, the proceedings (along with the judge’s gag order) did complicate Trump’s campaigning — if you don’t count the massive crowds at rallies he was able to hold anyway. And according to a Reuters survey, one out of ten Republicans is now uncertain about voting for a “convicted felon.” Then too, stock in The Donald’s company, Trump Media and Technology Group, fell by 9 percent.

So I guess all that courtroom fakery counts for something.

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, summed up this dubious legal episode well…

“I’ve been involved in criminal law for 60 years. I still don’t know what [Trump’s] crime is. Was he found guilty of intending to violate tax laws, to violate the federal election laws, to defraud voters? I still don’t know.”

Interviewed by Fox News host Larry Kudlow, Dershowitz described what Trump was facing…

“A biased judge, a biased jury, a biased prosecutor, a man who ran for office on the theory of, let’s find a crime to prosecute Trump for, and they couldn’t find the crime, so they made it up.”

Now to be clear, Dershowitz is no MAGA loyalist…

“I’m a liberal Democrat. I voted for Biden,” he said

But he asserted that Biden is wrong in urging Americans to respect the legal system that achieved this sleight-of-hand conviction…

“We should not respect the legal system that is rigged.”

Dershowitz equated this situation to another famous moment in the history of jurisprudence…

“Everybody knows the quote from Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the KGB under Stalin, when Beria said to Stalin, ‘Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.’”

While Dershowitz points to many procedural irregularities, my own view is that the people behind this neo-Soviet show trial weren’t all that concerned about how the jury would find. The real goal — as it is in contriving all the charges against Trump in all the various cases — was to drain his resources and keep him off the campaign trail as much as possible.

If The Donald had prevailed in New York, he still would face legal tangles in other venues. So guilty or innocent, they considered the trial a win.

However, there’s a substantial cadre of anti-Trumpers who are positively delirious over the verdict. I’m not talking about the wokesters, media frauds, and deep-state demons who see this as an expression of their most cherished ideological dreams. I’m talking about ordinary folks, good Democrat neighbors down the block, who seem to be missing the very large and troubling point behind this affair.

Our Constitution has suffered an incredibly damaging blow!

Integrity of the legal system has been eroding for a long time. Just look at the egregious distortions of law involved in unjust prosecution and incarceration of the January 6th demonstrators (i.e. playing fast and loose with habeas corpus rights and the constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial).

The Trump travesty expands on that, demonstrating that we’ve now reached a point where legal standards and constitutional guarantees simply don’t matter.

You want to call some accounting discrepancy a felony? Sure. Why not? Just do it someplace where you can get the right prosecutor, the right judge, and the right jury pool.

It would be easy to take comfort (real or imagined) in the fact that this is about Donald Trump.

What the hell, it’s all just politics anyway, right? Trump’s an obnoxious sonofabitch, and I hate him. So who cares?

To answer this rationalization, Alan Dershowitz offered a chilling insight…

“…I get whispered calls from liberal Democrat friends of mine saying you are 100-percent right, but I won’t say it publicly because I’m so thrilled Trump got convicted, even though the conviction was outrageous. Liberals believe that this is an unjustified conviction… [but they are] dancing in the streets  …. I get emails — they are so thrilled we violated the Constitution. I have people telling me getting Trump elected is worse than undoing the Constitution. That’s how extreme some of these people are.”

This is frightening.

We’ve crossed a line. And a lot of folks either don’t realize that, or don’t give a you-know-what.

Constitutional rights aside, the practical effects of this development are already being felt in New York. Grant Cardone of the investment firm Cardone Capital told Stuart Varney of Fox News that he was pulling his business out of the Empire State…

“I have 15,000 investors with me at Cardone Capital. We’ve raised $1.3 billion. If I went to them today and said, ‘I want to invest in New York City,’ they would not give me money to do that.”

Cardone called New York “one of the greatest cities on planet Earth,” but noted sadly that…

“nobody wants to go there and do business. I blame the legal system … [which] … has been weaponized.”

So now ask yourself, dear readers: Do you hate The Donald so much that you’re willing to gut our Constitution, that astoundingly resilient guiding document that’s been the envy of the world?

Sure, this case will go forward into the appeal process, and may be reversed. I want to say that’s likely, but there’s no foretelling the future in this current corrupt environment.

Then too, there’s always the possibility that Trump will be returned to the White House. It would take a lot to overcome the election-theft process the Democrats worked out in 2020. But it could happen.

What would we be facing then?

A really pissed off Donald Trump bent on revenge.

Think carefully, my friends. Think carefully. This is one of those great historical turning points.

One way or the other, things aren’t going to be the same.

 

(Note: The image at the top of this column was borrowed from a Trump campaign email blast.)

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Here’s a typical expression of glee in the Trump verdict that’s showing up on social media…

…appearing along with examples of self-deception like this…

…and snarky little pieces of nastiness like this…

Of course, if there’s a buck to be made, some enterprising folks will step up. Here’s a T-shirt being offered by the Wisconsin-based Minocqua Brewing Company, a purveyor of what they call “progressive beer.” I guess they know their market…

Naturally, Trumpers are expressing their own sentiments, like in this subtle appeal…

…as well as in this more overt statement…

It’s pretty clear that, while all the lawfare has made Trump’s life difficult, it’s also given him an air of martyrdom — even among those who aren’t his natural supporters — that’s showing up in memes like this…

The anxiety that’s growing at this uncertain time in our history is captured in the universally recognized sign of distress that’s appearing frequently online…

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Here’s a link to Larry Kudlow’s interview with Alan Dershowitz. The Harvard law professor has a lot of unsettling things to say about the Trump trial. Check out his thoughts at…

 

Stephen Soukup, publisher of The Political Forum, argues in this American Greatness essay that a coup happened during the presidential election campaign of 2016, the effect of which will be ongoing…

“The Democrats, in their zeal to ‘get’ Trump by any means necessary, have inaugurated a cycle of political retribution that will not soon be stopped. For the foreseeable future, every president who is succeeded by a president from the other party will be at risk of prosecution.”

Banana republic anyone?…

https://amgreatness.com/2024/06/01/after-the-republic-redux/

 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis summed up our current situation in this statement issued after the verdict…