Tough Times for Trump Supporters
There’s a reason that it makes no sense to argue with hardcore Trump supporters, and it’s embodied in the memes to the left and below.
You don’t take blind people to art museums, you don’t take deaf people to concerts, and you don’t try to persuade people for whom logic and reason do not exist that Trump just might not be telling them the truth.
The weeks and months that lie ahead will be a true test for these people, as it becomes increasingly clear that their president is a sociopathic criminal. Maybe they’re OK on that, given that the alternative was someone running a child pornography ring out of the basement of a pizzeria.
Seriously, the revelations that are starting to usher forth are going to cause these people some real heartburn; perhaps we could call it “cognitive dissonance on steroids.”
MarcoPolo, you read (and criticize) everything I write, so, since you’re seeing this, can you help me with something from your perspective as an attorney? Isn’t directing someone to commit a felony itself a felony?
Yes, a sitting president can’t be indicted of a crime, but are we all good with the notion that the leader of the free world is quite clearly a felon?
Craig,
I fail to see how insulting half the countries voters and the President, assists your cause.
Calling the President a “criminal sociopath”, isn’t original or a helpful to promote constructive political or social debate.
However, in reply to your question, “Isn’t directing someone to commit a felony itself a felony?”, there’s no clear answer and different jurisdictions have different laws and interpretations.
In such cases the question would be “who is the directing mind” and “mens Rea” , or intent to commit a crime.
These are strict matter of law, not opinion or speculation. When a lawyer consents to be an intermediary and agent, he takes on certain responsibilities. The client can argue that although he was the beneficiary of the action, he had a reasonable belief the action was lawful and his lawyers was capable and qualified to perform the action without breaking the law.
This case may be more complicated since the ‘offense’ has a highly technical aspect concern the use of electoral funds. Since a large percentage (over $66 million) of the President’s early funding was provided by himself, he can argue that in his mind any funds provided for the settlement were simply erroneous bookkeeping errors by an incompetent or dishonest attorney.
Given the many contradictory statement by the lawyer, that’s a reasonable explanation.
Paying off porn star(s) for alleged one night stand(s) 10 years earlier, isn’t an offense in itself. (The action may cover up a moral scandal, but consensual sex isn’t a crime).
Mueller’s prosecution of Micheal Cohen has nothing to do with defending the US electoral system against Russian influence, but does appear to have evolved into a vendetta to “get” the President at all costs.
“Getting” the President by exposing scandal in his personal life is not the job of Special Counsel appointing themselves as Inquisitors. It may be the task of prurient journalists and other politicians, but not officials charged with impartial administration of the law.
The same applies to Paul Manafort. None of the offenses occurred during his brief tenure with the President’s campaign,instead relate to conduct many years before he met the President.
“Guilt by association”, may be popular among lynch mobs, but hasn’t yet made it to the statue books.
From all these proceedings emerges a fairly unsatisfactory picture of those who headed major American Institutions during the Obama years, and even how men like Robert Mueller can be caught up in misuse of power and office.
The main defense available to the President is his personality. He is by nature fairly amoral in his dealings, which is typical of business developers, entrepreneurs, promoters etc, and relies upon lawyers to ensure he stays inside the law. In the eyes of his opponents, that may make him unqualified to be President, but the constitution says he just has to get elected.
Donald Trump has never concealed his personality or claimed the high moral ground, that is why scandals that would have sunk and destroyed other politicians don’t affect him. His supporters just don’t care who he had sex with ten years ago, (and. I suspect. probably envy him), it just all a part of his persona. Those supporting Trump didn’t elect a saint, they elected a more old fashioned sort of President.
If anything, the President’s flaws make him look human in an era of excessive political correctness.
So far the President is in no danger and the Mueller inquiry seems to have run out of steam proving any “Collusion”.
What it has uncovered is a lot of evidence about wrong doing by the Democrats and their allies in the CIA and FBI, along with dirty tricks and black propaganda that would make the Watergate plumbers look like choir boys.
The problem for Robert Mueller is he has now got so enmeshed in this imbroglio, he’s in danger of looking like being a conspirator to “get” the President, and cover-up for the Democrats. I don’t think that was Robert Mueller’s original intention, but the way things are unfolding his actions are more and more indicative of a witch-hunt than and investigation into collusion.
He needs to either get his investigation back on track, or wind up.
The repercussions of this excessive and misguided “special investigation” will plagued governments and the American political process for generations. It will deter competent people from entering public office and reduce the quality of American leadership and political life.
Craig,
I haven’t practiced law for a long time, although I’m still qualified in several jurisdictions.
Perhaps I didn’t show enough respect for your plea, “are we all good with the notion that the leader of the free world is quite clearly a felon?”.
Setting aside the question of whether or not President Trump has broken any law, you raise a interesting question to which I didn’t pay enough attention, and for that I apologize.
I think you asked, “what should Americans expect from a President” ?
That’s a big, big question, not really capable of an answer in a few paragraphs.
I suppose Americans must first ask themselves, “Is there really still a ‘Leader of the Free World'”? Or, is this now just an empty delusion to covering US decay and faded glory?
Were President’s ever really all that great. and moral ? Or, in a different era, Presidential prestige was less intensely scrutinized and the press had more integrity and a greater sense of responsibility ?
Subjected to the vitriolic 24 hour news cycle of baying crazy journalists can any President maintain sanity, let alone prestige ?
In hindsight, even great President’s like JFK and FDR had flaws and were only lionized because of the times in which they lived. In his book about Churchill, Boris Johnson makes the point that the highly eccentric Churchill could never have been elected in the modern era.
Today, FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, Truman, Morganthau, Harry White (a soviet spy) and Colonel Bernard Bernstein, would be charged and found guilty before an international court of ‘crimes against humanity’ for the brutal and cruel implementation of JCS 1067.
Harry Dexter White was a active Soviet spy, and yet with the connivance of Eleanor Roosevelt and Secretary of the Treasury Morganthau escaped penalty or prosecution.
Could any of these events be imaginable today ?
In 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt instructed Morgenthau to examine the taxes of William Randolph Hearst because Hearst was planning to use his newspapers to launch a major attack on Democrat economic policies. Treasury Secretary Morgenthau obtained tax information about William Randolph Hearst, actress Marion Davies and confidential information on other private citizens and supplied that to FDR for the political purpose of a preemptive attack on both her and Hearst.
Could you imagine the outcry today at such clearly criminal behavior ?
Even JFK, the great President of my teenage years, was clearly a notorious philander before and during his Presidency, with accusations of teenage sex parties and drug use etc.
The litany of allegations of corrupt criminal and sexual misconduct by LBJ was already astonishing before he became President, and continued unabated in office, but can never alter the fact that many of his more noble acts changed America for the better.
Craig, I really can’t answer your question, except to say I’m a citizen of two Constitutional Monarchies, we have the advantage of not viewing our Prime Ministers except as possessing any great moral attributes, we accept their personal flaws and judge them as politicians.
Moral prestige and virtue is reserved for the Head of State.(A duty Queen Elizabeth has discharged to perfection for 65 years).
For Americans like yourself, the status of President must be difficult. I think a certain amount of hypocrisy and loss of ideals must be inevitable in every President. Perhaps you ask to much of any incumbent.
Jimmy Carter was a very nice guy, but a weak and ultimately ineffectual President. Clinton was flawed, but a product of his times and an effective politician. Obama, grew hesitant weak and ineffectual, in the end he also grew deceitful and cowardly form exhaustion.Yet in many ways, he was also an inspirational President who served his nation to the best of his ability.
Maybe, in a time of no rules, President Trump is the perfect President !
But, I can understand, empathize and even admire your desire to elect a President who is a shinning white knight, a figure of moral and intellectual honesty and respect. A man who can serve as an example for the best of American ideals.
However, I suspect that outside of Hollywood, Donald Trump is more like what most Americans really are, not your idealized image. maybe it’s the age of the ‘deporables’ ?
What can be done about it ? In my opinion, maybe Pres.Trump is the catalyst America needs to eradicate the old hypocrisy and pave the way for new, more honest and better Presidents of the future representing a more realistic America.
A president should be the embodiment of the beliefs of the people in his country. He/She should be honest, honorable, and informed on what needs to change in his country to make it a better place. President Trump shows none of these qualities, but he is better than Clinton!