If anybody else in his position posted what Trump posted yesterday he’d be in jail already:
Special counsel Jack Smith asked a judge to quickly set limits on what Donald Trump’s team can do with the evidence that will be shared with them in the election subversion case against the former president.
In a Friday night court filing, prosecutors pointed to a Trump Truth Social post from earlier in the day to argue that the former president has a habit of speaking publicly about the details of the various legal proceedings he’s facing.
The disclosure rules they have proposed, they said, are “particularly important in this case because the defendant has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him.”
“And in recent days, regarding this case, the defendant has issued multiple posts—either specifically or by implication—including the following, which the defendant posted just hours ago,” the special counsel’s office wrote, including a screenshot of the Truth Social post from Trump that read: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
Consider that sending Trump to prison after he’s convicted in the DC trial this spring would solve a bunch of problems.
(1) It would eliminate him as a presidential candidate, probably. The MAGA core makes up about half of the Republican voting bloc, which means it includes about 20% of voters, which means it includes about 12% of American adults (don’t you feel better already?). Sure those people will riot in the streets, meaning they’ll yell at the TV when FOX is on, but the vast majority of the American public will be somewhere from thrilled to indifferent that Trump is in prison, especially the “independent” voters he needs to actually get re-elected. Prison, after all, is still a very stigmatizing thing, and it will stigmatize Trump with everyone but his cult followers, who again make up a little less than half of Republican voters.
(2) It would prove THE SYSTEM WORKS and that in America, unlike every other country on Earth, we have equal justice under the law. Trump would become the Lord Ferrers of 21st century American justice, the exemplar of the system’s unique ability to treat the most exalted persons in the exact same way it treats the lowliest criminal etc. etc. etc,
(3) It would give Republican elites what they want, which is to get rid of this increasingly unstable clown, so they could get back to the critical task of upward wealth distribution, which fascism makes far more volatile and unpredictable than they would like. I mean it’s fun and profitable to manipulate the mob, but at some point Order Must Be Restored (sounds better in the original German). Among these elites, of course, are the half dozen other Republicans currently running for president, each of whom is prayerfully awaiting this very outcome.
(4) It would provide a media spectacle of the first and most profitable order. Think of the Netflix specials!
If Trump were an ordinary criminal defendant, his conviction in the DC case, where the evidence is overwhelming and particularly damning, would be a foregone conclusion. Nor would there be any impediment to that conviction happening by next spring — indeed the case would almost certainly resolve before then in a plea bargain.
Obviously he’s not an ordinary defendant — the myth of Lord Ferrers is after all a myth — but nevertheless his conviction would serve the interests of a very wide slice indeed of the power elite, so . . .
