I have been so obsessed with the doings in Miami that I have entirely neglected a larger scheduling problem. Trump now faces the certainty of two criminal trials and one civil trial and the very great probability of two additional criminal trials. In October, the Trump organization goes on trial in New York in a civil case brought by the state attorney general, Latitia James. Next March, Trump goes on trial in a criminal case brought by Alvin Bragg. At some point yet to be determined, he will go on trial in the criminal trial in Miami in which he has just been indicted. It is now virtually certain that he will be indicted in Georgia in the case being brought against him and others by the Fulton County Atty. Gen. And I think it is also virtually certain that sooner rather than later he will be indicted in DC in the most serious case of all concerning the effort to overthrow the American government by reversing the result of the 2020 presidential election.
I confess it had not occurred to me that this situation
creates enormous scheduling problems. A criminal defendant cannot be in two
courts at once. Someone is going to have to give way in the coming year or year
and a half.
As many commentators have observed, Trump’s principal
defense is to get himself reelected as president and then pardon himself or
squelch the cases before they have been completed. In life you must find pleasure where you can, and this promises, in the words of WS Gilbert, to be “a
source of innocent merriment.”
20 comments:
Letitia James has said that she will postpone her civil trial of Trump until his federal cases are disposed of. (She also said that Alvin Bragg would do the same with his criminal rial of Trump, on the grounds that federal trial take precedence over state and city cases--- but Bragg has not echoed this norm.)
Fani Willis, on the other hand, says that her state criminal case will go forward in Georgia.
But, yes, there will be genuine scheduling problems.
Plus, Trump’s in hot water again with E. Jean Carroll for defamatory remarks he made after the recent verdict against him.
The possibility of trump becoming president again is terrifying. And if its a fact that if he did so become president he could either pardon himself or have his criminal minions shut it down is depressing. One is angry that trump the malignant narcissist, pathological liar, sociopath, criminal and authoritarian, would not be held accountable. Part of me does believe this will happen, but the anxiety that it may not is unsettling.
I'd also like to share a link to Jeff Sharlet and his book The Undertow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR5yH6sf31k
And it seems Cornel West will also be on the Green Party ticket which gives him access to more state ballots. No Labels will have a convention in April.
Regarding Trump’s documents case, a friend of a friend, who just retired after 40 years as a US Attorney, asserts that the prosecutor assigned to this case is an utter nitwit. Which means that this case is a turkey, and anyone with any sense RAN AWAY from it as fast as they could.
But we all knew that, right? The federal laws and regulations concerning paperwork are like the laws and regulations concerning timekeeping and paystubs—they are extensive, labyrinthine … and effectively impossible to follow to the letter.
The political calculation is, obvs, that it’s worth bringing a turkey of a case, because that may be enough to keep Trump from getting elected. But Trump is a lot like a serious bacterial infection. If you don’t kill it with antibiotics, you just end up making it stronger and drug-resistant.
If you’re stricken with a nasty case of (say) flesh-eating bacteria, do you want it treated with intravenous vancomycin, or some stuff that your Marin County rich-hippy sister-in-law picked up at the health food store?
Just to spell this out: the body politic is the body, Trumpism is the bacterial infection, and this case is a 3-oz. bottle of Dr. Bronner’s All-One-God-Faith “anti-infection peppermint tonic” …
There's a difference between not following a particular regulation "to the letter" and taking the regulation to a garage, dousing it with kerosene, and watching the blaze.
Regarding “No Labels”, I was so taken with this as a political philosophy I put it into practice at home … sure, there have been some teething problems, like my brushing my teeth with Preparation H and giving my girlfriend rat poison in place of “sleepy time tea” … but YOU CAN’T ARGUE WITH THE LOGIC BEHIND IT.
It's not a given that Trump will face criminal prosecution in Florida. While perhaps unlikely, the judge in Trump's federal case could dismiss the charges. Or simply delay any trial until after the election. After which he might be pardoned by whomever wins the election. Justice delayed is justice denied, perhaps.
To follow up on John Pillete's notion that the US is dealing with a political/bacterial disease: recalling the science behind the responses to Covid--what was its cause and how was it spread--which led to treatments and health procedures, what I generally find missing in relation to the Trump disease is any science. Sure, it's a social disease rather than a biological one. But shouldn't the same sort of thoughtfulness be applied to understanding its causes and its modes of proagation? Maybe that's what J.P. was getting at?
anon.
Barrels and barrels of ink have been spilled by journalists and social scientists on the causes of Trumpism.
After a false start where many (natural) scientists etc. seemed to think Covid 19 was spread mainly by touch and touching contaminated surfaces, they figured out that the main mode of transmission was airborne.
Unfortunately, the causes of social phenomena don't yield quite as readily or definitively to investigation as the causes of natural phenomena do. That said, I think the main drivers, if not "causes," of Trumpism are by now reasonably well understood. To go into this further wd take too much time and possibly derail the thread.
Trump almost always attacks every problem he confronts with a show of strength. I hear the flatterers around him are urging him to do so as well. Through such public pronouncements of his special superiority & uniqueness he is giving his prosecutors ammunition to use against him.
Why is a show of strength in politics every time there exists a bad situation a bad policy?
--If Saddam Hussein would have admitted he had no WMDs then there would never have been an invasion to topple him.
--If Rehoboam would have humbled himself before the tribes of Israel & taken the humble advice of the Elders, Israel would have had no good reason to split from Judah during his lifetime.
LFC said... "Unfortunately, the causes of social phenomena don't yield quite as readily or definitively to investigation as the causes of natural phenomena do"
as simple as this statement sounds, this seems to me to be a central problem. There will be hardly anybody who does not think: It is clear, I can measure nature with more or less suitable scales. Even this leads in the border area of nature to extremely complex measuring instruments like the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.
On the other hand, one only has to look at the effort that Thomas Piketty, for example, put into the data collection for his book "Capital in the 21st Century" (https://wid.world/). Behind the research were entire teams that spent years collecting and analyzing data.
In addition, atoms have no emotions and no interests. As long as they are not manipulated, they live relatively contentedly in close relationship to the thermodynamic equilibrium.
Thanks for your instruction, LFC. As to derailing the thread, it's so easy to just wallow in the symptoms rather than talk about the disease, I suppose. I happen to consider that it's the causes of the phenomena that deserve debate--because, despite what you say about all the ink that has been spilled, that's where the disagreements, and hence the genuine discussions/debates lie. Come to that, we don't even know what the phenomena are once a framework is repudiated. Likely, we're all talking at cross purposes when we all imagine we're talking about the obvious, when we don't try to describe the phenomena in more considered ways. How far do we get by saying again and again, 'Trumpism is bad; I wish it would go away'
Trumpism IS bad, and I wish it would go away.
anon.
I take the point. If you want to express a view re the phenomenon and cause, I don't think that wd derail anything. But I'm not sure I'd have the time to respond properly right now to what you might say... just fyi.
anon, if names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.
Trumpism isn't a thing. We've had neoliberalsim and now we have fascism.
I agree, it would be nice if all of this simply “went away”, even if this meant only having it sink beneath the high tide of a widely-distributed prosperity (as in the postwar era), but I don’t see that happening in the next 16 months.
It’s been a while since I read “The Authoritarian Personality” and I recall some parts of it being heavily criticized, but I’d say that the basic thrust of the book holds up: there are more “pre-fascists” out there than we realize.
Partly as a sociological experiment, two years ago I moved from a cartoonishly hyper-liberal enclave (Marin County) to a place that that is (also cartoonishly) its opposite. Gore Vidal once called San Diego “The Vatican City of the John Birch Society” and that pithily sums it up.
We good liberals tend to cluster together. We can live our entire lifetimes in one liberal enclave after another and thereby be misled about what the good ol' US of A is really like. Can you blame us? For one thing, the food is better, and indeed the entire “style of life” obtaining in these enclaves is more genial. (And yes, I am now in the process of moving back.)
But do authoritarians have their own sort of geniality? There is a colorable argument to be made, but I’m going to say, “no, they do NOT”. These folks are not “genial” in any real sense. They may be superficially friendly (enough) if you’re transacting some routine business with them, say chit-chatting about the weather, or about sports (or about guns, or about motorcycles), but underneath it all, deep deep down, they are not friendly, and maybe are in fact incapable of friendship. Certainly not with us, but (lucky for us) also not with others of their kind. Not really.
And forget any serious discussion of ideas. They are hostile to any kind of free thinking because following an idea wherever it may lead to will inevitably bring that idea into conflict with another idea, resulting in an ambiguity. And ambiguity is experienced as a kind of intolerable tension. What is wanted are definitive answers that are as simple as possible: rubrics, black letter law, that sort of thing. The world is made up of rules, to be followed, not questioned.
This is the psycho-social base of fascism. It isn’t going away, there are more of them then there are of us, and they’re armed to the teeth. Lucky for us, these same folks (or “volk” harharhar), are all kinda stupid. They’re incurious, incapable of original thought … they are, more than anything, unaware of their own psyches. They don’t even understand themselves. Let's hope that that this weakness will prevent the worst from happening ...
John Pillette,
I'm always a bit skeptical about any narratives which depict "us" as having all the virtues and "them" as having none.
You say that "they" are "incapable of friendship", even with "their own kind".
I would bet that they form bonds of friendship which may take slightly different forms that "our" bonds of friendship do and certainly would exclude someone like me who does not understand "their" codes or social rules besides the fact that I don't share their political values.
Are they "stupid" as you claim or just anti-intellectual, which is not the same as stupidity?
John Pillette:
The position that those constituting a threat to a society are an infection, or disease of some sort, a 'cancer on the body politic', etc., is always the position of the dominant force in society in relation to the folks causing them problems. The only way to save civilization is to excise the infection. Not to put too fine a point on this but it was, as I understand it, the position of Heidegger. The English position on the Irish Famine, aka Genocide, was famously "Ireland would be better off without the Irish."
As to whether there are more of 'them' than 'us', I am doubtful. Biden's advantage was 7* million as I recall, and Trump's vote was higher than in 2016. I read yesterday that Trump's favorability rating was higher than Biden's which is worrisome, but not proof of anybody's point.
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