Did you ever doubt it? Naturally, any jury in New York simply had to convict Trump for being Trump, regardless of how flimsy the charges against him were.
So it proved. He was found guilty on 34 counts, one for each instalment by which he reimbursed Michael Cohen who had handled the $130,000 transaction with Stormy Daniels.
Each count carries a potential of four years in prison, and a custodial sentence is possible if improbable. Let’s see: 34 times four equals 136. Even with time off for good behaviour (and I never thought I’d use the words ‘Trump’ and ‘good behaviour’ in the same sentence), Trump would be unlikely ever to see the light of day.
He could be allowed to serve all 34 sentences concurrently, in which case he might eventually get out, but his political career would have been finished. That, of course, is the whole point of the trial.
Now every TV channel in the US, along with every Democratic politician, will fuse the words ‘Trump’ and ‘convicted felon’ so irrevocably that they’ll sound like one word, Convictedfelontrump. But what exactly was he convicted of?
As far as I’m concerned, the Donald is only guilty of appallingly bad taste in women, although I have to admire his virility. Any normal man would be turned off sex, possibly forever, by the very sight of that hideous tattooed creature. But ‘Trump’ and ‘good taste’ are the other words that don’t belong in the same sentence.
What else? Passing the hush money for something else in the books? Big deal, especially since Trump used his personal funds for that tawdry purpose.
Using the payment to affect the result of the 2016 election? Let’s just say that claim is at best tenuous, which is why the prosecution didn’t belabour the point during the trial. I mean, it’s natural for a married man to cover up a sleazy tryst, hiding it from his wife and, in this case, also from his more discerning friends.
Trump was still convicted of breaking campaign finance laws, even though he didn’t use campaign funds to hush Stormy up. Fine, I’m no expert in the US election laws or the minutiae of New York jurisprudence. But even a rank ignoramus like me has to see that, if Donald Trump’s name were Joe Biden, this case wouldn’t even have been opened.
Hence the driving force of the trial was politics, not justice. And that is a much worse crime than anything Trump might or might not have committed – a much greater problem than America being stuck with Joe Biden (or rather his carers) for another four years as a possible result.
These days every aspect of life is politicised: race, class, art, transportation, sex, marriage, education, pronouns. Each such case of politics trespassing into every walk of life tears the fabric of society into tatters. But linking justice with politics reduces that fabric to smouldering ash.
Yet all Western societies I’m familiar with are busily striking that match. How many criminal defences everywhere are based on the defendant’s race or class, which is to say on political considerations? Don’t bother to count: you’d run out of fingers and toes within seconds.
This has been going on for such a long time that most people have become lackadaisical about these miscarriages of justice. They are now used to cases being decided on extraneous factors, not on factual merits. That’s why most of them aren’t screaming bloody murder at Trump’s conviction, even though everyone knows it was motivated by politics.
This is a slippery slope with an abyss beckoning at the end. If you want to know what the abyss looks like, just read the words uttered in 1918 by Martin Latsis, at the time deputy chief of the Cheka in the Ukraine:
“We are not fighting against single individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. Do not look in materials you have gathered for evidence that a suspect acted or spoke against the Soviet authorities. The first question you should ask him is what class he belongs to, what is his origin, education, profession. These questions should determine his fate.”
I’m not trying to suggest that America or any other Western country has sunk quite so low. We still have enough safeguards against pseudo-legal justification for mass murder.
I quoted Comrade Latsis only to illustrate the ultimate dangers of politicised justice, and it’s not always necessary to slide down that slope in one fell swoop. A country can also get there by incremental steps, each seeming relatively innocuous.
I don’t know if the verdict will cost Trump the election. If anything, his fanatical MAGA fans will become even more committed to the cause. And his detractors won’t hate him any more: there’s no room left to move in that direction.
But the large group in between those extremes just may be affected. Fling ‘convicted felon’ at Trump often enough, and at some point the dirt may stick. We’ll see.
Trump isn’t my favourite political flavour, but I’ve often said that, if I were to vote in the US elections, I’d pinch my nostrils and vote for him because the alternative is too awful to contemplate. When the choice is between unsavoury and unthinkable, the former wins every time.
Yet now, after this embarrassing kangaroo trial, I’d support Trump even if I hated him, which I don’t. That would be a vote not of confidence but of defiance. It would be a resounding no tossed in the face of an attempt to pervert justice by politicising it.
It’s not democracy but the rule of just law that’s the defining characteristic of a civilised polity, and the two should never be conflated. It’s possible for, say, a monarchy to rule by just law, and it’s possible for a democracy to rule by unjust law. If nothing else, this case should serve as a reminder of the second possibility.
P.S. On an unrelated subject, every once in a while a new buzz word starts buzzing all over political and sports commentary. The current favourite is the verb ‘to reference’, as in “John, you’ve just referenced Nigel…”.
Chaps, you reference scholarly papers at the end of a dissertation. When it comes to Nigel, you either mention him or, if such is your wont, refer to him.
A word of avuncular advice: nothing is less posh than desperately trying to sound posh. Misused longer words in particular are dead give-aways.
I’ll have to go with Milton here, apparently the democrats have decided that it is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.
Tacitus would have had fun writing the recent history of the USA. The Judaeo-Christian tradition is becoming increasingly Julio-Claudian. And Donald Trump’s private life deserves the attention of Suetonius. If there’s any politician in the USA worthy of being lauded by Livy or Virgil, I haven’t heard of him.
I’m inclined to think that Biden and Trump are as bad as each other, and I’d invoke a plague on both their houses were it not for the fact that the President appoints Supreme Court judges, and Trump’s record in that respect was probably better than Hillary Clinton’s would have been. So like you I have to hold my nose against the stench and advocate a vote for a nasty, stupid, incoherent twit, on the grounds that the other nasty, stupid, incoherent twit is worse.
P.S. The OED says that the use of “reference” as a verb dates from 1621, but it was rare until 1891 when scholarly writers started to use it in the technical sense you mention. But it’s still obviously a noun, not a verb, isn’t it? Scholarly writers ought to learn to write better.
I’ve come to know people (a very small number, thankfully) who think like comrade Latsis. Apart from being evil minded, these types are unspeakably vulgar and stupid. With such people you should argue, as Nietzsche would say, only with a clenched fist.
There is some anecdotal evidence that the falsified verdict will work in his favor, akin to your vote of defiance. I am tired of holding my nose in order to vote. Such a one-handed political system seems less than ideal. I read somewhere that when only such severely flawed candidates are promoted there must be a problem with the system itself. I will have to look into that.