Last Thursday evening a companionable London dinner party was just wrapping up when our hostess returned to the table brandishing the New York Times headline on her phone: in giant letters for such a tiny device, “TRUMP GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS.” Three American Democrats and one British Democrat-by-marriage, my fellow diners were exhilarated. One guest declared, “We got him” — soon a triumphant refrain in my home state of New York.
Democrats are so blinded by their own goodness that they fail to grasp how badly this strategy could backfire
Technically a Democrat, sometimes as a sly rhetorical convenience, I was more muted, mumbling quietly once the cheers died down: “But I’m not sure about how this will play out politically.” Fortunately, my reservations were ignored. My intense dislike of Donald Trump constitutes the narrow strip of common ground that I share with my many progressive friends and it was imprudent to cast doubt on my one political saving grace. The evening was late for a knockdown drag-out over the merits of Trump’s “hush-money trial,” and naysaying would have pooped the party’s buoyant mood.
Emotionally, I’m still sympathetic. On the face of it, the verdict seems a win for the self-perceived good guys, so obviously that company was festive. I appreciate the ferocity with which many Americans (not all of them Democrats) revile Trump and genuinely believe he represents an existential threat to our system of government. Yet the problem with deeming any matter “existential” is that, implicitly, all the rules are therefore out the window. When your very survival is at stake, you can’t afford the niceties of due process, and savvy Darwinians fight tooth and claw. To survive, you will do anything — which justifies the Democrats’ no-holds-barred political-seemliness-be-damned behavior of the past eight years.
The “hush money” case is bound to be misperceived by many Americans who’ve been paying scant attention — that is, who have a life — as Trump being nailed for paying a porn star to keep her mouth shut about their seedy liaison (wasted money, as it turns out). We losers who squander our precious lives on newspapers understand that nondisclosure agreements are legal and the case entailed the un-titillating falsification of business records.
The trial has already been parsed in the press and I haven’t space for all the elements that made it a legal farce. Besides, I can hardly do better than two headlines in the satirical website Babylon Bee: “Kangaroos ask people to stop unfairly comparing them to US justice system” and “Twelve jurors unanimously vote to ensure Trump re-election.” Perhaps even better, a commenter on Matt Taibbi’s Substack suggested a new Trump campaign slogan: “Trump 2024: At Least He Was Competent to Stand Trial.”
Still, a few notes. I submit with no exaggeration that Donald J. Trump is the sole American citizen among a population of 335 million against whom these particular charges would have been brought. If this case were a three-piece suit, it would have been so meticulously tailored to Trump’s exact dimensions that he’d be the only guy in the country who could fit into it (“if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit!”). The DA ran for office on the promise that he would get Trump but never mentioned for what. He had the defendant; finding the crime required a shopping expedition. Have person, then find outfit works at M&S. But in law? Wrong order.
Progressive media have gleefully bannered that the former president has now been convicted of “thirty-four felonies.” But all those counts regard a single deal to secure the porn star’s discretion. Trump personally signed nine checks and each check counted as a separate offense. Imagine that I offered you one dollar to go steal a Mars bar for me (which actually would be a crime) but once arrested I’m charged with 100 crimes, because I paid you in pennies.
As all news nerds now know, this case could only defy the statute of limitations by elevating misdemeanors to felonies; thus dodgy bookkeeping had to further another crime. We still don’t know what that other crime was. The jury was given a multiple choice. While all twelve had to find him guilty, they needn’t have agreed on guilty of what — exceeding campaign donation limits, election interference, tax irregularity? Trump sincerely has no idea what he’s being sentenced for in July. Picture going to jail and being hazy on whether you’re being locked up for attempted murder, breaking and entering or an unpaid parking fine.
The prosecution argued that by disguising a squalid story of extramarital sex from the electorate, who might otherwise have been put off, Trump “defrauded” the public in a presidential election. That reasoning would sabotage virtually any candidate for federal office. We can sensibly infer that candidates are obliged to rattle every skeleton in their closets. Thus “Vote X! He cheated on a third-grade arithmetic test!” must be silk-screened on promotional T-shirts.
The principle of Occam’s Razor allows that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. We have four criminal cases — all pursued in an election year against a presidential candidate who’s leading in the polls. From the smallest step back, this appears to be political defenestration through the courts. Many Democrats believe passionately in Trump’s guilt in each instance and yearn to see their lawless nemesis behind bars. Nevertheless, if it looks like a duck…
Democrats are so blinded by their own goodness that they fail to grasp how badly this lawfare strategy could backfire. Many Americans are disillusioned with their country’s institutions, including the justice system. Democrats counting on the fatal opprobrium that ought to attach to a candidate who’s “a convicted felon” are living in the Dragnet world of the 1950s.
Comments such as this one on Taibbi’s Substack are all over the internet: “I loathe Trump and I have volunteered for RFK Jr, but last night I considered voting for Donald for the first time. Hell, even my super lib wife wants to vote for him solely because she hates the Dems more than she hates Trump now.”
Democrats have a serious ends-means problem. But you cannot save democracy by destroying it. Think: nose, spite, face.
This article was originally published in The Spectator’s UK magazine. Subscribe to the World edition here.
