I don’t often ask for sympathy for late night comedy writers, but: Pity the poor, cursed souls who wrote for late night comedy shows between 2016 and 2020. Because Trump made our lives hell. For starters, he threw off our rhythm: Late night shows film in the early evening, but Trump would do twelve crazy things between dinner and bedtime that would make your piece instantly passé. Trump also made comedy writers unnecessary; I was reminded of this when I saw the pictures of shredded documents that Trump failed to flush down the toilet. You don’t need a comedy writer to bring out the funny in that — what zinger could I add that would enhance the actual thing? Trump’s presidency was four years of bad jokes, repetitive pieces, and situations that couldn’t be exaggerated for comedic effect. We all lived through Trump Hell, but comedy writers were condemned to the circle where Satan whips you with barbed wire while you write infinite jokes about “covfefe”.
Of course, I’m being glib: Trump’s presidency was some serious shit. I won’t go on a diatribe about how I agree with Dick Cheney that Trump is a unique threat to democracy, and how we must uphold the rule of law blah blah wankity wank — you’ve heard all that before. Suffice it to say: I’m very glad that Trump doesn’t hold office and I hope that he never does again.
Of course, Trump isn’t gone. The raid on Mar-a-Lago reminded us that there are still chapters in this story. And — ugh…fuck — they matter, and — God, kill me now — we need to talk about them. Because Trump will eventually exit the political stage, but how he leaves will determine how much we’re haunted by his (probably metaphorical) ghost.
Would it be good or bad if Trump faced criminal charges? To me, that’s a question like “Should we move to single-payer health care?” or “Was Game of Thrones any good?”: I can use it to start an argument with anyone on Earth. Because I’ll argue either side of those questions; both arguments seem really strong to me.
Let’s start with why it might be bad if Trump faces criminal charges. One source of discomfort is that using the justice system to take out your political opponents is a hallmark of authoritarianism. The playbook is simple: When an opponent emerges, you sentence him to 20 years for fishing without a license, portray yourself as a defender of the rule of law, and then trounce an array of nutcases and weirdos in your next election. We should be extremely wary of criminal charges being used as a political weapon.
This is, of course, one of Trump’s worrying behaviors. He leaned on Volodymyr Zelenskyy to try to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, publicly threatened Hillary Clinton with jail time, and “lock her up!” chants were a staple of his rallies. Of course, the fact that Trump mishandled classified materials after treating Hillary’s middling-to-pissant e-mail impropriety as the Crime Of The Century is surely sending irony shockwaves through the universe that will be detectable on distant planets. But Trump’s eagerness to treat such a minor infraction as a serious crime demonstrates the potential for abuse of executive power.
If criminal charges end Trump’s political career, Republicans will portray it as a partisan hit job. This will be true even if the FBI finds several murdered Girl Scout troops in the Mar-a-Lago freezer. To wit, Republicans are already portraying Trump as a righteous victim of political persecution; the first Nelson Mandela comparison might be only days away. The justice system obviously shouldn’t bend to the whims of partisan messaging, but the fact remains that if the Trump era ends with a criminal conviction, then it never really ends.
A better way to drive a stake through the heart of Trump’s political career is for him to lose at the ballot box. Of course, he did already lose an election, and his most credulous followers just pretend that he didn’t, but by 2024 Trump might be a 78 year-old two-time loser. For Republicans to nominate him again in 2028 under those circumstances would be like Disney committing to five John Carter sequels. Personally, I’d love to see Trump lose the Republican primary, because perhaps nothing would improve our nation’s health more than a sane Republican party. I know that Trump losing the primary wouldn’t instantly purge the GOP of authoritarian tendencies, and I’m unlikely to develop puppy love for Ron DeSantis or anyone else the GOP might nominate. But Republicans will only inch back towards sanity when the total nutcase faction of their voter base becomes small enough that it can be ignored, and defeating Trump would help with that.
So, part of me strongly prefers that the voters, not the Justice Department, end Trump’s career. And yet, I can’t go so far as to hope that the Justice Department stands down. Which brings me to the argument as to why it might be good if Trump faces criminal charges.
First, let’s assume that Trump has committed a crime. This strikes me as a less-than-bonkers assumption. I’m not a detective, and our justice system is based on evidence, not hunches from comedian bloggers, but Trump’s behavior makes him about as superficially guilty of wrongdoing as a guy tiptoeing out of a bank holding a bag marked with a huge dollar sign. Trump is almost certainly guilty of tax evasion, and I can think of 60-80 ways that he might be guilty of fraud, and there’s reason to believe that he might be involved in things like money laundering and sanctions violations. There was also that time that he pretty obviously obstructed justice, and — oh yeah — that time that he bragged about committing multiple sexual assaults. He has boxes of classified documents on his property. He tried to overthrow a democratic election. There are probably 10-20 plain-as-day felonies that I’m forgetting. My point is: I’ll make this argument assuming that Trump has committed some crime, and operating under that assumption doesn’t seem like a total waste of time.
Waving away Trump’s criminal liabilities in the hope that voters will put him out to pasture would place Trump above the law. And declaring a chief executive untouchable — much like prosecuting your political opponents — is a hallmark of authoritarianism. It’s what enabled Hosni Mubarak’s looting-and-occasional-governance regime, and also Castro’s egregious smoking indoors spree. The president enjoys special considerations like executive privilege, the pardon power, and 20 percent off of tire rotation at participating Jiffy Lubes (Article II of the Constitution!). But aside from specific and well-considered carve-outs, standards of justice need to apply universally.
So, two beliefs are operating here: We should be wary of the Justice Department investigating the president’s rivals, but no-one should be above the law. These principles don’t really conflict so much as define the parameters in which the DOJ should operate. The narrow “healthy, functioning democracy” road is lined with authoritarian pitfalls on either side.
The good news is that there’s evidence that the authorities understand this. In this article, James Comey biographer Garrett Graff says: “This was presumably the highest burden of proof that the Justice Department has ever required for a search warrant.” The FBI director is a Trump appointee. The White House apparently learned of the raid via Twitter, which would normally be humiliating but is entirely appropriate here. Things are still developing and the amount we don’t know could fill the Grand Canyon, but I don’t see any evidence yet that the Justice Department is running amok.
The bad news is that it’s easy to imagine the DOJ showing terrible judgement. James Comey’s decision to break protocol and announce a new investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server 11 days before the 2016 election remains one of the most brain-meltingly terrible decisions of my lifetime. I’ve spent about as much time on this blog complaining about that decision as I have decrying the trite pretentiousness of George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky. Also, a Justice Department that acts as the president’s personal Goon Force was clearly one of Trump’s ambitions, and the DOJ under William Barr was pliable if not totally subservient. This isn’t ancient history; this was two iPhones ago. We need to remain vigilant against a DOJ that shows college-student-on-spring-break levels of awful judgment.
If charges are brought, one hopes that they’re for very serious crimes and that the Justice Department is prepared to meet an extremely high burden of proof. I have to believe that the FBI is pursuing something beyond mishandling of classified documents. I spent much of 2016 frustrated that people struggled to put Hillary’s frankly quite lame breach of protocols into perspective, so I’m not going to become a classification fetishist overnight. I’m not really capable of doing that; I’ve worked in government and know that over-classification is a major problem, so I’m aware that there are CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS and 🙄🙄classified documents🙄🙄. Of course, the nature of the offense matters; if Trump is using the nuclear codes as a napkin in Mar-a-Lago’s public dining room, then, yeah, that’s a problem. But an investigation into an ex-president that’s anything less than ironclad seems destined to melt down, so I hope the DOJ is picking its spots.
Every Legend of Zelda game has the same plot: Ganon — the ultimate evil — was imprisoned long ago. But he somehow escapes, and our intrepid hero, Link, must go on a quest to recapture him. Which begs the obvious question: Why doesn’t Link just kill that fucker? They’ve been making those games since the ‘80s — Ganon is a 29-time offender at this point. I’m not even mad at Ganon: I’m mad at Link. Ganon’s gonna Ganon, but Link has had 29 chances to splatter this guy’s brains on the forest floor. So, when Ganon kidnaps Zelda (I’m also mad at Zelda: Be harder to kidnap), Link is really to blame. Do better, Link.
I’m worried that a less-than-rock-solid prosecution will turn Trump into Ganon. Electoral defeat kills Trump’s political future; an airtight conviction of serious crimes does the same. But an unsuccessful prosecution or a ticky-tacky conviction extends our time in Trump Hell. I think that the Justice Department understands this. But if I’m wrong, then we might be condemned to Trump Hell for a very long time.
The hell is not Trump. The hell is everyone else who is hysterical about Trump. I am so tired of this shit, man. I am so tired of hysterical shrieking overreacting overly sensitive people on the Left. GET A GRIP. Trump is not the person we need escaping from. It is the oppressive censorious puritanical madness of the new left. I can't stand any of them anymore and I used to be a devoted loyal blue-check democrat. But now I can see clearly who and what the left has become: an insulated, isolated protected class. They have destroyed comedy, destroyed journalism, destroyed science, destroyed art and destroyed access to the truth. Trump is just a guy who says dumb things. That's all he is. Turning him into a super villain HAS DESTROYED the left. There is no coming back from that.
I would very much like Trump out of sight and out of mind sooner rather than later so that my liberal friends can finally snap out of the derangement that has consumed them for the past 6+ years.