One of the most referenced tropes among the Big Lies used by the “resistance”/Democratic Party/mainstream media alliance to de-legitimize Donald Trump’s Presidency was that he was uniquely willing to discard tradition, established practice, and “democratic norms.” The alleged authorities appealed to by such Trump-bashers as the Times and the Atlantic were Harvard political science professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who wrote a pure partisan screed masquerading as scholarship called “How Democracies Die.”Ethics Alarms discussed it and them here, here, here and here (Big Lie #6). In the last I wrote,
The exact conduct being engaged in by the “resistance” and the Democrats is projected on their adversaries, accompanied by the false claim that they are endangering American democracy. In truth, the calculated efforts to de-legitimatize the President, his election, and the Supreme Court by “the resistance”(and in this group we must include unethical academics like Levitsky and Ziblatt) has already harmed our institutions and the viability of democracy, perhaps beyond repair. For these two propagandists to make the absurd argument that it is [Trump] who undermines institutions and his party that “plays dirty” when it is so obvious to any honest and objective observer that it is their party and their political allies who are doing so is as insulting as it is infuriating.
And, of course, the New York Times gives the two a platform for their distortions. Of course.
Well, Biden’s in trouble, so the Times has summoned Levitsky and Ziblatt again to make the same untenable and intellectually dishonest argument. This time it is, if anything, more spectacularly hypocritical and insulting than their earlier efforts. Their latest is headlined, “Democracy’s Assassins Always Have Accomplices”—you know, like Levitsky and Ziblatt?—and illustrated by the drawing of the boot-licking dog above, as the two Harvard professors dutifully try to paint Joe Biden as democracy’s champion…this uniting figure!…
and Donald Trump as an existential threat to liberty who is being blandly supported by those dangerous fascist MAGA Republicans. In advocacy, one should always lead with one’s strongest argument, and the two partisan boot-lickers think this is their most persuasive:
Remember, as you read this offal, that Maddow is arguably the least villainous of the assorted Marxists, racists and liars employed by MSNBC, and is certainly the smartest.
A New York Times story by reporter Alan Feuer claimed “Trump has made no secret in private conversations with his aides of his desire to solve his jumble of legal problems by winning the election. If either of the two federal trials he is confronting is delayed until after the race and Mr. Trump prevails, he could seek to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general simply dismiss the matters altogether.” Maddow, being a corrupt journalist herself, naturally assumes anonymous sources’ hearsay statements as interpreted by a New York Times propagandist is Gospel truth, even though its impossible to tell if the last part of the section (which Maddow read) is what Trump said, what the sources claims he said, or what Feuer thinks he meant (that would be double hearsay). Never mind: it was good enough for Maddow’s fearmongering purposes, so this was her follow-up analysis…
This is unbelievable: I saw the story yesterday and ignored it assuming it was a hoax or something. But no.
Hours before a Georgia grand jury handed down a pack of indictments yesterday charging Donald Trump and 18 lawyers, allies and associates with crimes in their efforts to challenge the 2020 election, a document was posted on the court’s website stating that the former President had already been charged. The grand jury hadn’t even voted yet. Oopsie!
The Associated Press, now a consistently biased news source that gives every Trump story as hard a pro-Democratic Party, Trump Derangement spin as possible, notes that this bizarre episode “gave the former president an opening in court and on the campaign trial to try to paint Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ case as tainted and the criminal justice system as rigged against him.” Gee, ya think, AP? Just because the court announced the jury’s decisions before they made it? Boy, those Republicans will pounce on anything!
You know, I try to eschew sarcasm, but only disgust and mockery will do in this case. “There is no evidence that the grand jury process was somehow compromised, or that the document was intentionally leaked by prosecutors or court officials,” says the AP, in a spectacular example of Rationalization #64, “It isn’t what it is.” There’s no evidence—except for the fact that the grand jury’s conclusion was publicized before it was reached! I’d call that rather substantial evidence that the process was compromised and the document was leaked, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t anybody? Wouldn’t particularly those Americans who are convinced that the Democrats have weaponized the legal system to hold power and to imprison the opponent and critic whom they most fear come to that conclusion? Shouldn’t they?
As do I, and as commenters here have made clear, many believe that the best way to punish the Democrats for their unprecedented legal pursuit of the ex-President (which began when he was President-elect in 2016) is to, once again, elect the object of their undemocratic, indeed Soviet-style, assault on democracy as a protest and demonstration of contempt.
That may be appetizing, but at what price? More than once, most recently here, I have analogized the shock election of Trump in 2016 to the climax of “Animal House”:
Electing Trump certainly seemed stupid. Yet it served a purpose, indeed several purposes, just like the “stupid and futile gesture” that is the climax and operatic finale of “Animal House,” when the abused members of Delta House turn Faber College’s homecoming parade into a violent riot…
Voting for Trump was an “Up yours!” to the elites, the sanctimonious media, the corrupt Clintons, the hollow Obamas, and obviously corrupt Democrats like Pelosi and Harry Reid, machine Republicans like Mitch McConnell, and pompous think-tank conservatives like Bill Kristol.
“Americans got tired of being pushed around, lectured, and being told that traditional cultural values made them racists and xenophobes. They decided to say “Screw that!” by electing a protest candidate whose sole function was tobe a human thumb in the eye, because he was so disgusting to the people who had pretended to be their betters. Don’t you understand? It’s idiotic, but the message isn’t. It’s “Animal House”! and “Animal House” is as American as Doolittle’s Raid….In Germany, The Big Cheese says jump and the Germans say “How high?” In the US, the response is “Fuck you!” Obama never understood that…. I love that about America. And much as I hate the idea of an idiot being President, I do love the message and who it was sent to. America still has spunk.
But you can’t keep justifying repeats of the same stupid and futile gesture. Eventually, you have to get serious. (The Capitol riot was a more literal emulation of Delta House’s protest, but even more stupid and futile.) That so many people are actually considering a sequel is evidence of just how difficult it is to determine what the “right thing to do” is when ethics zugzwang looms. It can’t be the right thing to let the strategy adopted by the “resistance”/Democratic Party/mainstream media alliance (aka. “The Axis of Unethical Conduct,” or AUC) in the 2016 Post-Election Ethics Train Wreck succeed, but if the cure—re-electing Trump, another thumb in the eye— isn’t worse than the disease, it’s still reckless, risky and irresponsible.
So now what? The Ethics zugzwang theme is magnified by the competing theories about what the Democrats hope to accomplish by prosecuting Trump for anything they can think of. Is it as simple as trying to use the justice system to remove him from the field? Is the AUC really that stupid and naive? Of course this strategy enhances Trump’s status with those inclined to support him, just as the bogus impeachments did. Nah, it must be that the Left is playing three-dimensional chess…you know, like the deranged Custer of “Little Big Man…
I really don’t know what’s going on, and the many commenters on Ann’s post don’t agree either. For example….
…he would announce that he was withdrawing from the Presidential race immediately, because the prosecutions he faces, just or unjust, will be a destructive distraction from the election as well as an impediment to him serving as President if he were nominated and elected.
And if I were an aardvark, I could save money on groceries by eating ants and termites.
Trump won’t do this, of course (that is, drop out, not eat ants and termites), but it is the only ethical alternative. A lawyer facing a single serious indictment would step away from his or her law firm. An ethical judge would resign. A doctor facing indictments would take a leave of absence. A general facing such legal jeopardy would retire. The United States cannot have a Presidential candidate laboring under the shadow of multiple criminal prosecutions any more than it can afford to have a mentally declining President who serves as a puppet for aspiring totalitarians. Trump continuing his candidacy increases the likelihood of both.
If Richard Nixon had been like Trump—a toxic narcissist—he wouldn’t have resigned, and the nation would have been roiled and scarred by a genuine impeachment process. Clinton is like Trump—maybe a teeny-weeny bit less of a narcissist, but not much—and he should have resigned as the truth of the Monica Lewinsky allegations emerged. The nation and the Presidency—and his party—would have been far better off today if he had, and Clinton’s scandal was not even in the same metaphorical ballpark as Trump’s, which also includes a sexual assault civil ruling.
At this point, Trump continuing to seek the Presidency can only do damage, and the question is just “How much?” I don’t want to think about how much. His entire career has been built on a foundation of stubbornness, resilience and a refusal to admit defeat: quitting his quest for redemption goes against his core. Real patriots and great leaders, however, can muster the character and courage to do what needs to be done even when it violates all of their baser instincts. Unfortunately, I am not an aardvark, and Donald Trump is neither a real patriot or a great leader.
I had a post about half-written, talking about the fact that SCOTUS justices are nominated and confirmed (or not) primarily for their adherence to certain political principles rather than for their integrity, judgment, legal expertise, or temperament.
‘Twas not ever thus. In my lifetime, five SCOTUS Justices were confirmed by a voice vote and three others received all 100% of the votes. Another seven received at least 80% of the votes. But of the current members of SCOTUS, only Chief Justice Roberts received majority support from Senators of both parties… and that was by a single vote. Justice Thomas, who’s been around the longest, is the only currently-serving member of the Supreme Court to have been confirmed by a Senate controlled by the party not in the White House at the time.
This, I was about to argue, makes the process depressingly predictable: liberals over here, conservatives over there, with Roberts as the closest thing to an unreliable vote for “his side.” I was getting around to talking about the allegations against Justice Alito: did he really do something wrong, or is furor mostly partisan in nature? Answer to both questions: yes.
But then, despite the predictable split in the two Affirmative Action cases, we also see Gorsuch writing a scathing dissent on Arizona v. Navajo Nation, Barrett and Kavanaugh voting with the liberal bloc on Moore v. Harper, and Jack saying pretty much what I would have said about the Alito case. I may want to return to the general outline of my half-written essay at some point in the future… but the timing isn’t right, now.
So let me go off in a different direction and talk about a faculty member dismissed from an elite university for her political statements. The headline on the FIRE article begins “Yale shreds faculty rights to rid itself of professor…” Certainly we’ve seen a fair amount of that kind of fare here on Ethics Alarms. What’s different is what follows in that title: “…who called Trump mentally unstable.” Well, that sure goes against the whole “universities are cesspools of Woke indoctrination” mantra, doesn’t it?
Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah announced on June 15 that her office had closed the pending criminal case against Donald Trump after an investigation she claimed was conducted “objectively, and independent of politics, party affiliation and personal or political beliefs.”
Right. Who believes that? Rocah, a Democrat, decided that the “Get Trump” effort being simultaneously carried out for years by Democrats (like her) in multiple jurisdictions as well as in the U.S. Congress, the Justice Department and the FBI (in redundancy there is security) had finally succeeded with special prosecutor Jack Smith’s indictment. Why waste public funds on one more politically-motivate prosecution when the goal had been achieved?
“WAS THE HONORABLE THING TO DO IN THAT I DID NOTHING WRONG.”
“BUT WHERE AND WHEN DO I GET MY REPUTATION BACK? WHEN WILL THE OTHER FAKE CASES AGAINST ME BE DROPPED? ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!”
Does he really believe the case was dropped for honorable reasons? Whatever the decision was, it wasn’t “honorable.” If Trump actually misled authorities about the value of the Trump National Golf Club Westchester to pay less on property taxes, then the honorable thing would be to prosecute him. If he didn’t, then the investigation was probably politically motivated. If Rocah really was honorable, she would exonerate Trump and announce that a full investigation found that the allegations against him were false.
(Isn’t there some DA somewhere who will prosecute Trump for writing social media messages in all caps?)
This one should have been obvious, but was so devious that I missed it. I bet you did too.
The indictment says that Trump’s alleged illegal conduct related to 102 classified documents. What you see above are four of six photos the Justice Department included in the indictment, apparently showing Trumps trove of stolen government materials. I don’t know how large the documents were, but assuming that those photos weren’t staged, they must have been taken before the boxes were examined. I’ll believe they contained paper (unlike the very similar piles of boxes in three of the rooms in my home, which also contain, for example, dinosaur models), but it is wildly unlikely that the boxes contain just 102 classified documents.
Never mind: that’s how all of the news sources presented them, and that is why the Justice Department probably included the photos: to poison public opinion against the former President. Poisoning public opinion is also poisoning the jury pool, and as we know, much of the public doesn’t have to be metaphorically poisoned. I realized this open deceit as I read my Facebook friends’ comments mocking the photos as proving how flagrant Trump’s “crime” was. The photos, in fact, prove nothing, except this: 1) the Justice Department lawyers who prepared the indictment violated the ethics rules and 2) it worked, because so many Americans want to believe that Trump is guilty.
That stylish-looking gentleman above is Ty Cobb III, a descendant of the iconic baseball player, himself a rather infamous ethics dunce. I never quite figured out Ty III’s relationship to Ty the First, but that is neither here nor there. I wish I didn’t have to write this post: I know Ty a bit, for we were in the same class at Harvard (where he already was sporting that handlebar mustache), and I knew many of his friends a lot better than I knew him. He is a nice guy, a funny guy, and by all accounts a terrific lawyer. He may have been the best lawyer ever associated with Donald Trump: Ty joined the White House staff to manage legal matters surrounding the Mueller investigation—yes, the Russian collusion scam run by the Democrats, the FBI, and the news media. He reported directly to Trump, and he was extensively quoted during the media frenzy over that disgusting set-up.
On May 2, 2018, Cobb announced that he was retiring as White House special counsel, and later that year, said that he did not think the Mueller investigation was a “witch hunt,” later saying in an ABC News interview on March 5, 2019, that he thought Mueller was “an American hero.” I almost blew my ethics whistle then; I didn’t: I should have. As a lawyer the public identified with President Trump (though his client was the office, not the man), Ty’s apparent vouching for the investigation was bound to be taken by the public (and certainly the news media) as a hint that someone on the inside with legal expertise knew Trump was guilty. I know I looked at it that way.
Now he’s done it again. Cobb told the news media that the “feds are coming fast” for Trump, and predicted that the investigation into the his alleged mishandling of classified documents will land him in prison. Spewing his opinions like an oil gusher, Cobb said,
When I was discussing the recent jury verdict finding Donald Trump liable for defamation and sexual assault with an astute trail lawyer friend, he expressed surprise that the sexual assault civil case wasn’t barred by the statute of limitations, as the criminal case was. Among the glaring problems with the jury verdict was that it found by a preponderance of the evidence that the sexual assault—not the rape allegation , which, strangely, is what Trump called a lie on social media, prompting the defamation suit—took place even though Carroll couldn’t say what year it had occurred in. “This is the reason we have statute of limitations,” my learned friend said. “Memories fade, evidence is lost, testimony becomes unreliable. I’m amazed New York’s statute allows this.”
Well therein lies a tale. The statute didn’t allow it until, coincidentally <cough> last year. The Adult Survivors Act was passed by the New York legislature and signed by Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul in 2022. It created a “one-year lookback window for survivors of sexual assault” to legally pursue their alleged abusers, irrespective of when the abuse took place.
It was and is a blatantly political measure, pandering to the #MeToo crowd, which itself is deeply conflicted and corrupt. Now bad, bad men like Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and…surprise! Donald Trump, can be sued during a convenient one year window no matter how long ago their alleged sexual misconduct took place, or how blurry memories of the details may be. Never mind that the protection against unfair sexual assault and sexual harassment lawsuits based on accusations that only surface when the accuser calculates that there are forces at play in society (like “Believe all woman”) making a victory likely should be available to all citizens. Never mind that such late-hit lawsuits rely on emotion and politics as much as evidence.
Ethics Alarms 