Here’s just one more reason that Trump is going down: people are starting to “put two and two together.”
No matter how stupid you are, you know that lying under oath has serious criminal consequences. And then you ask yourself why no one who believes Trump is innocent is willing to make a sworn statement to that effect.
Apparently, Jerry Blackwell, the prosecutor in the George Floyd murder trial, left jurors with these final words before deliberation began: “The truth of the matter is that the reason (Floyd) is dead is because (his murderer Derek) Chauvin’s heart was too small.”
Well, that’s quite a statement, considering that:
• In the 21st Century, we’re a good 500 years past the point that we believed the heart is the locus of our feeling of compassion and decency.
• We’ve left the role of the heart in our personal affairs to our small children who, to this day, enjoy “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” Our kids and we ourselves recall how, after Mr. Grinch found his conscience, the film concludes, “The Grinch’s heart grew three sizes that day.”
• Whoever the criminally deranged character that Chauvin actually is has far more to do with his mind than his heart.
So what gives a person like me the right to comment here? I am unlicensed to prosecute a criminal case for jaywalking, let alone something that, once again, highlights that our country deals with barbarity like this on a day-to-day basis.’
Having said that, I may have gone with something a bit more direct, perhaps:
The defendant used his power as a member of law enforcement personnel to purposely torture a defenseless captive to death. There is nothing fancy to be said here, and certainly nothing about a white cop’s deliberately executing a black person in full public view. This country may be arguing over the role that race played in this case until we’ve colonized Mars, but nothing will ever change the basic facts of that horrible day.
This figure is up markedly from the 52% who felt this way six weeks ago, but that was before the January 6th Committee’s televised hearings.
In an earlier post, I wrote that this percentage will top out at a certain level; it has a hard limit that is built in by the fact that some people are incapable of changing their minds, regardless of the strength and nature of the evidence.
I’m going to predict that, by the time the indictments are unsealed, the percentage of Americans who believe that charging Trump was the right thing to do will have hit 75%, a 3:1 margin. And, by the time he goes to trial, it will have maxed out at 80% (4:1).
In 2016, U.S. voters elected a truly evil man to become the most powerful person on Earth. Four years later, a sufficient number of the folks had realized Trump’s true nature and that his re-election campaign was doomed to defeat, and so he began to weave the narrative into the Republican base, “The only way I will lose this election is if it’s rigged.”
The Big Lie culminated in the insurrection. (more…)
This is what’s known in logic as a “false dilemma” or “false dichotomy.”
No one is calling for the Second Amendment to be abolished. Does anyone think that the Founding Fathers would have protected the rights of deranged teenagers to access assault rifles that can kill a roomful of people in just a few seconds?
I would love to know how many times the conversation here has played itself out across this great nation of ours.
It would also be interesting to know how many children of parents who watch Fox “News” have worried that part of their inheritance is now in Trump’s wallet.
Tune in to Jeopardy tonight to see Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program Staff Attorney Megan Wachspress!
Megan is an associate attorney with the Beyond Coal Campaign. Before joining the Sierra Club, Megan worked at a public interest firm representing employees, labor unions, and community organizations. Megan holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, where she wrote a dissertation on seventeenth-century pirates and traitors, and a J.D. from Yale University, where she represented criminal defendants, prisoners, and homeowners facing foreclosure in several student clinics.
What a thrill to watch her dethrone a six-day champion, and then come to know that her life’s work has benefitted every living being on this planet.
Many of us live in fear that American society will never regain its capacity to discern truth from lies, and that the impact Trump has made on his base has permanently transformed our nation into a citizenry that can no longer think rationally.
I’m not convinced.
I expect that this guy’s brother exemplifies a trend that’s already begun and is gaining momentum: people’s realizing that Trump actually is a criminal, and quietly going back to life as it existed before the conman arrived on the scene.