NB: I hate Trump. Hate, hate, hate. I bow to no one in the intensity of my hatred of Trump, and I will fight you to the death, just claw your guts out with my fingernails and chew your entrails and spit them out over your children if you want to challenge me on that, okay? Got that? I also despise Gerald Ford for letting Nixon off the hook, and think his whole “I spared Murica the long national nightmare of seeing Nixon behind bars” was a bunch of despicable, cowardly, partisan faux-patriotic hooey.
But, as much as I would like to see Trump in handcuffs and then wearing an orange jumpsuit (perfect color, no?) I think it’s far more important for the country to see Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, and other high-level henchmen imprisoned.
Why, you ask? Two reasons.
You want to deter anyone from carrying out illegal orders (or suggestions, hints, implications, etc.) in the future. I don’t object to throwing 100 henchmen in the clink, down to the delivery-boy who brought takeout food to the Willard Hotel if need be, as long as it conveys the message: Never pull this shit again. In the future, your byword is: “No, Sir, I can’t do that. What you’re asking me to do is illegal. And if you’ll excuse me I must report this conversation to the FBI ASAP. Sir.”
When right-wing lunatic jackasses say that jailing Trump will make the US into a Banana Republic. I will concede that for once they have a point. It’s a bad precedent to jail ex-Presidents. Looks bad, smells bad, is bad. Even Trump. And I’ve gently implied how I feel about Trump.
Getting him on breaking state laws is okay by me, particularly state laws where documents are plentiful and juries of his peers execute the law. It’s just charges like “Sedition” or “Conspiracy to defraud the US” that open up the doors to the Banana Republic stuff.
I agree 100%, that those who have been found to have broken laws, down to the lower (possibly lowest?) levels should be tried and jailed - and not just the federal jerks, but perhaps especially the state legislature/government enablers.
I include Trump in this list - I strongly disagree that there should be an exception made - sure, it looks bad to his supporters, but to anyone else, letting him skate if the evidence is there looks even worse. His supporters will not agree even if the evidence is there, but we knew that already.
No, we should punish criminals, severely and quickly. I want to see ALL the insurrectionists jailed for a long time. But Trump is different.
He should be punished but not for crimes that appear to be political. He’s done enough criminal acts–rape and fraud included–that will keep in prison if they are pursued effectively by local authorities. If he weren’t a criminal on such charges, maybe I would advocate prosecuting him for sedition and such. But since we’ve got him on the plethora of state charges, we don’t need to go after him for sedition, and if we can lock up a few dozen Mark Meadowses, his place in history will look blacker than Nixon’s.
We’ve certainly seen governors go to jail before (I’m looking at you, Illinois), why not presidents? I’m in favor of blind justice- it doesn’t matter who you are, if you’re a crook you get investigated and if tried and convicted you pay the penalty. Would it make Donnie a martyr? I don’t care. He needs to get what’s coming to him.
I don’t care too much who does or does not go to jail. What I can about is making sure that any investigation or prosecution is done is such a way as to make it clear to anyone who is remotely willing to be unbiased and is engaged with the world even at a superficial level that what Trump did was an anathema to Democracy, This is the only way we can take our country back from the brink.
There is going to be a portion of the country that are unreachable and will never be convinced of anything, we need to make sure that this group is as small and isolated as possible, such that expressing those beliefs largely leads to ridicule and social ostracism. I want Republican politicans saying “Trump who? I never supported the man.”
Ideally I want election truth conspiracy to hold the no more sway than 9/11 conspiracies, and for Donald Trump to hold the same position in the popular consciousness as Nixon of Joe McCarthy, THis may not be achievable but that should be our goal. I would rather have a widely publicized Truth and Reconciliation style analysis of the Trump years, than have 20 high ranking Trumpsters as well as the man himself sent off to prison in what half the country sees as a witch hunt.
We have never had a completely evil person in the White House until Jan 20,2017. Nixon had his demons, but he did accomplish some good while president. He would have been impeached and convicted had he not resigned, since at that time being Republican was not synonymous with being evil. DJT completely destroyed any shred of decency and humanity in so many people and I don’t think the Republican Party can every recover, nor should it. Trying and convicting a former president will not turn the US into a banana republic- but letting him skate and possibly return to the White House to complete the destruction of democracy will turn the US into a banana republic.
“what Trump did was an anathema to Democracy” is an abstraction. The perfect concrete application of that abstraction would be if 100 or so conspirators became felons, and the Felon-in-Chief was punished by the state of New York (or Florida, or wherever he committed the most provable rapes).
It may be that what you propose is the best way to achieve my goals. I admit that I’m side stepping the question of the thread by not specifying what should be done, because frankly I have no idea. All I’m doing is expressing what really matters for the future of our country, which is forming some degree of consensus that what happened was wrong and arguing that compared to that the fates of a few individuals is small potatoes.
I guess what I’m saying is I want is whatever prosecutions make the strongest case with the greatest publicity.
By stating this, you are letting them (right-wing lunatic jackasses) set the agenda and frame the available responses.
I submit that this is never a good strategy. Yes, their responses needs to be considered (impact thought about carefully), not discounted or hand-waved away, and responded to appropriately (electroshock therapy?).
I guess what I’m trying to express is that convicting him of crimes in NY State gives them less to argue about (What, he didn’t rape that woman who convinced a jury of his peers that he did?) than a federal charge of sedition, with which they’ll almost certainly charge the next Democratic ex-POTUS if they have the legislative majority and a GOP-run DoJ.
The thing is, as bad as they are, rape and fraud aren’t things that, at least on the individual scale, will destroy the United States as a coherent, modern nation.
Trump’s political crimes just might do that, and it’s even more likely that his spiritual successor will succeed, if he fails.
This is what we need to put a lid on, as hard as possible.
If he weren’t a felon on numerous other charges, I’d agree with you that we just have to bite the bullet and take our chances because it’s too important a crime to overlook.
But we lucked out. He’s indictable on numerous other felonies.
Take the win.
If you’ve got him in prison on non-political crimes, and his 100 top henchmen in prison on political charges, that’s a total win AND we never have to hear that it was all political. WIn-Win-Win.
I strongly disagree. Trump and his followers already claim all the non-political crimes being investigated in NY (and elsewhere) are motivated by political desires (possibly with a bit of truth to it, but if he’s provably a criminal anyway, I play the world’s smallest violin for him). Having any charges brought against him will be considered political and/or falsified (by the ‘deep state’) by those who are already invested in the Trump-brand-reality. Which is anywhere between 25-40% of the population depending on the polls you look at.
Charge him with what you can legally prove, political or not, and send him to jail. Granted though, the vast majority of the proposed criminal business practices and crimes against individuals are easier to prove in a court than the more nebulous charges of sedition and the like. So in the long run, I suspect those are the ones that are going to be made to stick.
Amen. As I said some months before, until the 2020 election I had never voted for either the Republican or Democratic candidate for President clear back to Nixon in 1972. However until 45 I also had never thought for a moment that the President was doing what he thought was right for the US and its citizens, however misguided that might be. With T**** it was always and completely about him.
Except that’s exactly what we’ll hear. The facts don’t matter to the Republicans, so anything will be spun as political.
“Oh, look, everyone else was “guilty” of the political stuff, but they couldn’t prove anything about what Trump did! So they just made up some state-level BS to get him because they couldn’t get him any other way! Free Donald Trump! Free Donald Trump!”
