I don’t think there’s any realistic possibility of Trump in jail. House arrest, maybe. He could spend a few years confined to Mar-A-Lago, forbidden to leave its perimeter.
You come at the king, you best not miss.
A prosecutor who brings criminal charges against an ex-president, especially for acts they took while in the presidency, is guaranteeing a place in the history books. What kind of place they guarantee–a hero or a buffoon–will be determined largely by whether they’re successful.
The fact that the cases are taking a long-ass time doesn’t mean they’re weak cases. They may be weak cases, and the prosecutors don’t want to admit it; or they may be extremely strong, and the prosecutors want to do everything they can to maximize their chances of success before they reveal the charges.
Right.
Trump would ask for a jury trial. As for the idea of a purely Manhattan-Brooklyn jury, that would not fly. An unanimous jury is impossible due to years of prejudicial pretrial publicity.
This will repel swing voters. And no good will come from a case you think is solid but will result in a hung jury. When you are ahead, don’t turn your opponent into a martyr who walked out of court a free man.
Instead, learn the lesson California taught us yesterday. Nativism goes in cycles in these United States. And Trumpism is past it’s sell-by date.
As for Trump stealing the 2024 presidential, that requires the cooperation of the sitting vice-president at the formal January electoral vote count. Unless Harris is planning to make a party switch, and be a worse Trump toady than Pence, this won’t happen.
Prosecutors shouldn’t think like I do. Instead they should ask if they have a case likely to get an unanimous jury verdict. And they don’t.
It’s not clear that either of these are true. It is clear that a lot of Trumpish “swing voters” feel betrayed and abandoned by Trump, and reminding them of why is probably a better strategy than hoping they’ll remember why they felt that way four years previous.
Trump may personally be past his “sell-by date” (although I’ve been waiting for people to recognize what an utter fraud he is for decades and he still couldn’t be enough of a clown to prove me right) but there is clearly a taste for demagoguery and it isn’t just the far-right, apocalpyter Evangelicals, and white nationalist fringe who are willing to put aside any distaste they may have for a gibbering moron to ‘get back’ what they feel should be their country. The true danger of Trump isn’t that he’s ever going to be an effective leader (and he’s literally too narcissistic to be an effective puppet even if Putin shoved his entire arm up Trump’s ass and tried to do his best ventriloquism act) but that someone more together will come along and seize the opportunity to lead Trump’s throngs by the hand toward fascism. Don Jr. has given it his best shot but, well, he’s a chip off the old block in terms of competence and lacking any panache. But someone else could really make a run at it, and Newt Gingrich is just the Goebbels to get him there.
Stranger
I personally don’t think Trump will ever face any serious prosecution. Something might get to court but get tossed out by some Republican leaning judge.
And to think . . .
We libs dared to fantasize that the prosecutors would be waiting for him with the handcuffs as he stepped outside the White House doors on January 20.
A certain T. Carlson comes immediately to mind.
So, where’s our left-leaning, liberal, progressive demagogue when we need him/her? Who could it be?
I think swing voters are more of a myth than anything else. We’re all in our tribes, there are some that don’t admit it but still reliably vote for one tribe or the other.
Don’t be too sure Donnie is going to walk. The NY tax evasion case is going to be pretty much document-based, those are hard to fight. For Jan 6, I think conspiracy to commit sedition and incitement to riot would be good bets for conviction. Then there’s abuse of power and obstruction of justice, and a host of other possibly prosecutable crimes.
Harris isn’t going to have any more power to change the outcome of 2024 than Pence had. Where it might be stolen are states like GA and AZ where the legislature will simply be able to say “you know what, it just ain’t right that a Democrat gets our electoral votes. We’ll just give them to the Republican, screw the voters.”
I’m coming to the conclusion that DJT will be an existential threat to democracy as long as he draws breath, so if he is convicted of a capital crime maybe it’s better to carry it out. Maybe then his toadies in Congress will be free to express their real feelings for him and break the spell that’s over them and their followers. Sort of like how the Wicked Witch of the West’s guards were grateful that Dorothy melted her.
I could not disagree with you more. First, there’s zero chance he’s going to be convicted of a capital crime. Zero. But if he goes out tomorrow and sets and orphanage on fire on live TV, it’d still be a terrible idea to martyr him. His death cult isn’t the rational sort of death cult that will say, “Oh, now that you mention it, our Grand Leader isn’t so nice, let’s disband the death cult!”
The best bet we have is to isolate him from power and to (using the legal tools appropriately) forever tar his name with his con-artist crimes. Turn him into a sad sack, not a martyr. Turn him into a failed con-artist, not a martyr. Turn him into a bleak joke, not a martyr.
I too am convinced Trump is a federal problem. It’s all well and good that the Manhattan DA seems likely to get a handful of convictions on tax fraud whenever they get around to handing down charges, but that does nothing to address the wrongs committed, say, in Georgia or Arizona. No, the DOJ needs to take decisive steps to protect the integrity of our elections, and that means going squarely after the source. It’s not okay for sitting Presidents to pressure election officials to reverse results.
If a tax fraud conviction puts Trump in the history books next to Al Capone, I’ll take it.
In terms of Trump personally? Sure, me too. But the concern at this point is the problem is much bigger than Trump himself now. The genie is out of the bottle and to effectively combat future demagogues we need to go after this one hammer and tongs NOW. To this end, Trump needs to be made an example of for future generations.
Tucker Carlson is more of a Alfred Rosenberg, an ideologue and propagandist then a leader himself.
Well, Bernie Sanders would certain like to be President-With-Exceptional-Powers and certain has a cult of personality in his most fervent supporters, but despite the conservative media claims that progressives are “fascist”, even hardcore Democratic Socialists aren’t really seeking that kind of authoritarian power and certainly aren’t well organized enough to effectively use power even if it were magically bestowed upon them. While there are a small minority of self-described “neo-Marxists” (shudder) at the extreme of the Progressive movement, in the mean it falls into the camp of moderately liberal in comparison to, say, the political spectrum of Scandinavian democracies. Someone like Richard Wolff (who always makes me think of a political mirror universe version of Dick Cheney in both appearance and manner) is perhaps what you are looking for but as a “left-leaning, liberal, progressive demagogue” but he’s really more of a socioeconomic critic than a demagogue.
Stranger
Yes, I am worried too that it takes so long. Still hope he does not get away with it, nor do his children, acolytes, enablers, co-conspirators etc. etc…
I vehemently disagree. Trump was a very effective puppet for Mitch McConnell.
I vehemently disagree. Heck, look at the 2016 election. My wife definitely leans Republican, and she voted Green. Now, let’s face it, the '16 and '20 elections were oddities - I doubt very much that there were ANY swing votes for Trump, but there are a whole bunch of us out here that may lean towards a tribe, but will vote for the other party when necessary.
Actually he wasn’t. McConnell expressed his frustration several times when Trump backed out agreements or threatened to block bills that McConnell engineered, most notably the FY2021 defense allocation that required a Congressional override to Trump’s veto. The problem with Trump is that he is too stupid and self-aggrandizing to even act beyond his immediate self-interest, so manipulating him is like keeping a toddler constantly entertained.
Stranger
Literally have zero confidence that the AG who got the job as a make-up for having his Supreme Court seat stolen from him is going to have the zeal necessary to prosecute Trump. Even if he can be prosecuted.
Me, I’d charge the bastard with treason, saying that raising a private army and having them attack the Capitol for the express purpose of impeding a Constitutional function is a direct application of the Constitution’s definition of levying war against the United States.
I would put my best lawyers on this, let each and all of them know their careers depend upon making this stick. I would throw the considerable resources of my department into making sure other government agencies don’t get in my way. I would coordinate with GA, NY, the other states with actions against him and his businesses. I’d coordinate with State, making sure they get the message out to certain parties that we are not going to look kindly on any foreign assistance for Mr Trump, including loans, purchases of property, etc.
I would go after Ivanka.
And since this is my fantasy and all, I’ll win, with adoring Americans fighting over who gets to buy me dinner every time I go out to eat. 
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/part1/chapter115&edition=prelim
There are several upsides to taking it slow when it comes to prosecuting Trump. Trump likes a fight, but he hates the lead up to it. I’m pretty sure he’s more miserable now waiting for the consequences of his misdeeds than he would be if he had a discernible threat like an indictment to rail against. It’s also his nature to proactively defend against a perceived threat no matter how undefined, which will probably lead him to committing more crimes that he can eventually be charged with. Lastly, the more removed from the 2020 election, the less a prosecution will look like political persecution.
I don’t think a lot of people appreciate just how slow the legal process is. If a case is serious – let alone one brought against a former sitting (pretend) president – it’s a years-long affair, even if the evidence is perceived to be “slam-dunk.”
Things are moving along at what is a usual pace, for the most part. When big action occurs, it will be sudden and likely with little warning. No prosecuting agency is going to lay a single charge until they’re completely ready to bring their case.
Thus it is and has always been.