Probably not unlike a few people, except for idealogues right and left, and the not negligible amount of the apathetic and indifferent— I have rather mixed feelings about the New York indictment.
Although I am not in favor of it, in contrast to a lot of conservatives, I don’t find it “outrageous.” I don’t find it even that “political” either. I don’t think Alvyn Bragg is bending the law necessarily to put Trump in jail, not anymore than a lot of other prosecutors or district attorneys who have decided to prosecute difficult people in history. On one hand, because I hate Donald Trump, and I regard him as a demagogic enemy of America, I’m glad to see someone stand up to him if they think they can. And I would be happy to see Trump lose or go down for something. On this count I sympathize with various leftists. But on the other hand, there is something disappointing or even disillusioning that he is going to be treated as an ordinary criminal, and that he could go to jail for a technicality, running afoul of an accounting law.
Donald Trump, the worst president in American history, a despicable villain of the first rank, brazenly corrupt, and without even the pretense of moral scruples, half psychopath, half narcissist, potentially going to jail for falsifying business records, paying hush money to a porn star?
It would be one thing if Trump were anyone else, anyone, a politician like Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton or Andrew Cuomo, or someone like that. Trump is not an ordinary politician nor is he an ordinary criminal though; not because he is a former president. That title in itself doesn’t make him deserving of better! It enrages me how conservatives keep committing that hollow sentimental fallacy. I am not sad and gaping at how unprecedented it is to indict a former president. Boo fucking hoo.
It’s a million times sadder that we elected the idiot in the first place. So shut up.
I’m not sentimental. I don’t care about traditions or precedents. None of that nonsense matters to me. I just think Trump deserves much worse in proportion to the corruption of his character, his degradation of executive office, and in proportion to the gravity of the other more serious crimes he is alleged to have committed, attempting to overturn the results of an election, inciting an insurrection, stealing and attempting to conceal classified documents. Edward Luce summarizes my feelings exactly in his op-ed, “It’s Unwise to get Trump on a Technicality,” in the Financial Times,
“The law is the law: it seems plausible that Trump did commit a felony over the hush money. But the law is also an ass (an English saying that refers to stubborn mules rather than backsides). It is as though the International Criminal Court were to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin on the charge of shoplifting, rather than abducting thousands of children to Russia.”
We should have a more refined sense of justice, and indeed we should have more contempt than to indict Trump for paying hush money to a porn star. Here’s Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal, “The Wrong Indictment Against Trump,”
“Charging him in the Stormy Daniels case is below us—not below him, but us. The subject matter is below us. The nature of the charges is below us. The players in the drama aren’t people of import who stand for big things, they’re not fate-of-the-republic people, they don’t have any size. They’re tacky lowlifes doing tacky lowlife things. The case involves a questionable legal theory that depends on the testimony of Michael Cohen, who is half-mad in his own right and also in the way all “close Trump advisers” past and present are half-mad: money-addled, fame-addled, power-addled, screwball in their thinking.”
This indictment, whatever the result, whatever the consequences, is just a waste to me. It makes Trump banal. It’s a gratuitous waste of an opportunity. It is symbolic of yet more institutional decline. I can only chalk it up to the opportunism and the careerism corroding civic virtue in the 21st century. That this DA would dig up a zombie case from years ago and indict Trump, armed with a meager untested legal theory—Alvyn Bragg, unless he has overwhelming evidence of Trump’s knowingly malicious conduct no one can imagine, has to be doing this for career ambition or grandiose reasons to go down in the history books. Probably both.
If he really cared about justice, he would be willing to overlook this unworthy case, and forego prosecuting Trump on a technicality, and he would let Trump go down in Georgia or for staging the insurrection. If anyone actually cares about justice, one should want Trump to go down for those other events. Not paying off porn stars.
What a terrible waste.
— Jay
I apologize for spelling DA Bragg’s name wrong twice. It’s Alvin, not “Alvyn.” I have no idea why I thought it was spelled with a “y.” But I really thought as I wrote my piece, that was how I saw it spelled somewhere. Stupid mistake.
"Can't he go away forIf he really cared about justice, he would be willing to overlook this unworthy case, and forego prosecuting Trump on a technicality, and he would let Trump go down in Georgia or for staging the insurrection. If anyone actually cares about justice, one should want Trump to go down for those other events."
I'm for all three?