The question of whether or not Republicans will nominate a convicted felon to be their candidate for President of the United States is no longer a hypothetical. Unless they can somehow persuade him to withdraw from the race (and good luck with that) they will have no choice. The primaries are over. The convention will just be a rubber stamp. And Trump's conviction will not disqualify him either from the ballot nor from office should he win. Which is still a very real possibility.
Which is as it should be. Because if Trump's conviction was, as he claims, a politically motivated railroading, then We The People should be able to overturn it at the ballot box.
But that's a big "if". Remember, Trump was not convicted by a judge, he was convicted by a jury of twelve ordinary citizens who voted unanimously to convict on every single one of 34 felony counts, and they did it in three days. It was not an acquittal. It was not a hung jury. It was not even close.
Think about what it would take for whoever had it in for Trump to arrange that. Every single one of the twelve jurors would have had to vote to convict despite the prosecution not having met its considerable burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. How likely is that?
One of the arguments that Trump's defense put forward was that Michael Cohen was lying, and one of the counter-arguments put forward by the prosecution was to ask the rhetorical question, why would Cohen lie? Sure, Cohen despised Trump, which is not surprising considering that Cohen actually went to prison for the things he did at Trumps behest. But Cohen was under oath. Would he really risk going back to prison on a perjury charge just to service a vendetta?
On the other hand, it's pretty easy to see why Trump would lie and claim he's being railroaded. He is not under oath. He is not risking perjury charges by lying. Lying his way to an election victory is pretty clearly to his own personal benefit. He has literally built a tremendously successful career on lying and covering it up. Why stop now? The strategy has never failed him before.
There are only two possibilities here: either Trump was railroaded, or he was not. If you think he was railroaded, if you really think he was innocent, and if you really think he would do a good job as President, by all means, vote for him. But if you don't, if you think the jury got it right and Trump is actually guilty, then consider that Trump is now an unrepentant convicted felon who has been lying about his innocence all along and continues to lie about it. What else might he be lying about?
I get that you might be frustrated with Joe Biden. I am too. I think the Democrats in general have their heads shoved so far up their butts that you can't see the tips of their neckties. I hate what Israel is doing in Gaza. Inflation sucks (though I feel the need to point out that the alternative was to allow the economy to collapse during the pandemic). The pronoun thing is out of control.
But Trump's conviction changes the calculus in a very important way: that he is a convicted felon is now an undeniable objective fact. There are only two possibilities: either he was railroaded, or he is a liar. There are no other options. You have to choose. If he was not railroaded, then he is a liar. And if you decide that he is a liar, then regardless of how you feel about anything else, do you really want to let someone like that to put their finger back on the nuclear button?
No comments:
Post a Comment