I Don’t Care If Trump Doesn’t Spend a Day in Prison

Politics & Elections
1

And I hate his orange guts as much as anyone I know. If he had to do a life sentence at hard labor pounding boulders into dust on nationwide free 24/7 TV, I would enjoy the spectacle, but if he gets off scot-free, I won’t mind.

Because the object of punishment, to my mind, is deterrence rather than revenge, and I think the more effective way to deter future fascist coups is to punish severely all of those who helped him in his coup. I want to see Meadows, Barr, Eastman, Giuliani, and about 40 others I could name behind bars, their lives forever ruined.

Because I want, above all, to deter future coups, and the best way to accomplish that end is to make all future putschists remember what happened to this band of putschists. I want the next underling who gets asked to plot a coup by a future President who lost his bid for re-election to think “Oh, no. That will end with me in prison” immediately and forevermore.

I want him, instead, to go on TV, announce he is resigning his office, and explaining why he is resigning. And for everyone else who serves the President to do the same, all reasoning that the only way to save their hides is to get as far from an indictment for coup-plotting as possible.

And for future coup-plotting Presidents to think that there is no percentage in even bringing up the possibility with his most trusted aide—that’s my goal.

The downside of punishing Trump personally is that we then give the false impression of being a banana republic, where political opponents are enemies who must be jailed or executed. I think Trump deserves jail, I have no moral qualms with his severest punishment, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t need to see it and another part of me that fears the optics. The GOP will proclaim, as they did with Nixon, for a generation or more about their martyred saint, punished by Dems who lusted for bloody revenge. That’s certain.

This way, they’re not going to make a martyr out of Sydney Powell or Scott Perry (to add two more names to my lengthy list of co-conspirators). And Trump will be punished, to an extent, by spending the rest of his life in court, just answering the charges already filed against him and to be filed against him. Come to think of it, though, those charges are so numerous that he will be found guilty of some felony or another, just by the luck of the draw. No objection here, in that case. But I’m OK if he spends the next six or nine years in court after court, spouting lies in his defense, and spends a few fortunes appealing the guilty verdicts, and then passes away in disgrace without spending a day in lockup (which in his case would probably be some form of unsatisfying home confinement, anyway.)

2

What office??

3

Yes, but surely “deterrence” must include a clear object lesson to all those who might want to follow in his footsteps, not the notion that the status of “former president” somehow exempts one from criminal liability.

4

I think he’s referring to the office held by “the next underling who gets asked to plot a coup by a future President”

5

Whatever office this hypothetical future Presidential aide is (or was) holding at the time.

6

You can want that all you want, but the protection of the President is a powerful thing, especially if backed up by one or two of the other branches of government. When you want to kill a rattlesnake, you don’t aim for the rattle.

7

So, if I’m understanding things correctly, you want everyone involved to go to jail, but you don’t care one way or the other about the leader of all those people.
How will that deter their next leader?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to make sure they can’t find a leader in the first place? How about we punish everyone.

8

Elucidate, please?

9

“Between the people that support me in the Senate and the House, the people I’ve put in charge of the agencies that might otherwise go after you and the judges that I’ve put on the Supreme Court, it would be better if you sit tight. Besides, the right-wing media will turn your life into a living hell if you don’t.”

10

Moderating:

I’m going to preemptively say that as a moderator, I dislike OPs in P&E that begin with basically a rant and without a clear outline of the scope of the thread and what is to be discussed.

I will leave the thread open for the time being, but you might devote some time to addressing these concerns. If the thread becomes nothing more than another “bashing” thread, I will shortly be asking you if you prefer it to be moved to the Pit.

11

So just to clarify for my own sake: you want to make the very idea of a coup so radioactive that no sane President will even propose the idea and anyone else will hopefully squash it immediately? I like it, I’m just not sure how to pass the laws that would ensure this happens with the GOP acting as they are currently.

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There is a more fundamental issue.

What good is a law if the people charged with upholding the law decides it doesn’t apply to them? Laws are not enforced if the ones who are supposed to enforce them choose not to.

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By making it clear to him/her that followers of coup plotters get their asses thrown in the slammer, and consequently that his/her own followers are going to be very unenthusiastic about the prospect of signing on to his/her coup plot.

Deterrence at one remove, so to speak.

No, but crushing the vertebrae is ultimately just as effective as crushing the skull. Which I think is a more apt analogy for the concept of a Presidential coup. The “underlings” in question aren’t just functioning as a source of noisy threats: they are what makes the specific actions happen.

However, while I agree with the OP that punishing “underlings” who engaged in criminal actions is a worthwhile thing to do, I don’t agree that we should refrain from punishing higher-ups, even among the very highest, for the same cause. ISTM that refusing to hold exalted officials responsible for their actions comes across as at least as “banana republic-y” as political vendettas.

14

Thanks for the chance to clarify.

The scope of this thread is intended to be the usefulness of punishing Trump with imprisonment, which most of his foes wish for, as opposed to the usefulness of not punishing Trump formally at all. I believe it may well serve the public better to imprison as many of his enablers and helpers as severely as possible because I think that will be a more effective deterrent against future coups–ya can’t pull off a coup by ordering one if everyone you order says “Uh, uh, not me, boss.”

Obviously some disagree–I’m interested in having that discussion outside of the Pit.

ETA: while the first sentence is certainly rant-like, it’s just there to establish that I’m far from being a Trump fan or apologist. The rest really has no ranting.

15

Yes. We’re effectively doing that already, jailing Proud Boys and other low-level insurrectionists. The problem there is that many of these miscreants, and their future ilk, may lack the brains needed to see the connection between their “patriotism” and their jail terms. The higher ups, mostly lawyers, will see the connection much more clearly.

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As a moderator:

Yeah, I probably came down a little hard. I was thinking about other recent P&E threads that I find virtually indistinguishable from Pit threads. Should have caught them sooner and it is too late now, but I wanted to avoid a repeat with yours.

Thanks for squaring up the corners of the parameters of your proposed discussion. We do appreciate it, not the least because it makes it much easier to moderate effectively.

As a poster:

I want them all punished and held accountable to one degree or another, no matter how long it takes. Including Trump.

As someone not a lawyer but intimately familiar with legal procedure, I know it is going to take a long time. The amount of time taken to date to get to where we currently are is not unreasonable in the total scheme of things.

@Czarcasm is correct. A former president and/or a sitting member of Congress has a lot of protection that the average joe doesn’t. A lot more tools at his or her disposal to delay justice. Issues of law that must be decided and taken up all the way to the SCOTUS because these matters have never been tested before. Claims of executive privilege that no one else can make. This includes a lot of persons who are potential witnesses against Trump.

Think of the potential obstacles of bringing charges against the likes Scott Perry, Lindsey Graham or Paul Gosar. I say bring charges against all of them. But it is going to take a lot of time.

And by the way, they all know this. That’s why delay via the court system is the name of the game.

From what I see, Eastman and Giuliani are toast. Meadows is probably going to be a cooperating witness, but he’s not going to get off scot free. He’s just too culpable for DOJ to give him a total pass. Reduced sentence for cooperation is most likely the best he can hope for.

Tea leaves indicate that Jack Smith is casting a wide net, intending to scoop up a lot more of the 40-ish others you’re thinking of. Those involved in the fake electors schemes as well as many of the inner circle, including Bannon, Flynn, Navarro, Stone, Stephen Miller, probably Graham and several other sitting members of Congress. It’s going to be hard and above all, it’s going to take time.

Make no mistake, he’s going for Trump. IMHO, it’s important to charge and convict Trump because Trump was the impetus for all else that followed. It’s crucial to show that coups are flat out of bounds if a leader calls for them. And calling for them is punishable by law.

As for how the Trumpists will portray it, I don’t care. They’re going to say Trump is a martyr no matter what. That should never be a reason to turn away from pursuing true justice.

It’s an old saw for a reason: The wheels of justice grind slow. But they grind exceedingly fine. I’m confident we’ll get where you want us to be, eventually. You can take the recent successful convictions by the DOJ for seditious conspiracy against Oath Keepers and others as proof that building a careful case means bringing a successful conviction. That’s their goal – for all the players.

17

He needs to go to prison or this kind of thing could happen again. Even the president has to answer to the law.

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To my mind, the object isn’t deterrence or revenge; it’s that we carefully decide, as a society, that X is the sort of thing that merits the following declaration: “Hey, Doing X Is A Put-You-Behind-Bars-Offense; Maybe It’s A Do-Hard-Labor-While-You’re-There Offense, And Maybe It’s An Eventually-Get-Executed Offense, But The Point Is: Don’t Do X Unless You Want Us To Put You Behind Bars” — and then, when a guy steps up to say “Yes; That’s Me,” we shrug and say, “Okay.”

If there’s a case to be made that Trump is that guy, then I’m not out for revenge and and I’m not interested in deterrence; I’m talking about offer and acceptance, with incapacitation to follow.

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Alternatively, they will be VERY enthusiastic about making sure the coup works, and they will therefore face no consequences.

20

yes, this is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. If Trump goes to prison or he avoids that fate, someone will complain that it’s a pure Banana Republic outcome.

Which is why I put it the way I did: it’s not that I wouldn’t approve of Trump behind bars–I would love it. But I don’t really care if he doesn’t go to jail as long as 40 or more of his co-conspirators, and hundreds of their followers (who physically caused the insurrection on January 6th) do serious time. That’s key. Trump going to prison is just the icing on the cake–I’ll eat it if you serve it up, but if you don’t, I’ll live.

I appreciate your flexibility.