#649 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Tuesday May 2)
Good morning,
I’ve been getting a spate of emails from my more conservative friends regarding the prosecutions of Donald Trump and the continued focus of the media on Mr. Trump (including my repeated references to the “disrupter-in-chief”). Here are two examples of these themes:
STOP TALKING ABOUT TRUMP
The claim:
“Sadly, you seem to want to focus on Trump as the great divider. The divide will never be conquered until commentators like you recognize that the offense and the danger is from both sides. When you point out only one side, continuously, the impression of so many of your readers is that the problem is one-sided. That accentuates the problem. Your Musings are so well written and received, you now have a responsibility to help solve the problem rather than to exacerbate it.”
The response:
There are two claims embedded here. The first is that I’m not even-handed enough. Perhaps so, but I believe I have repeatedly commented on the need to balance the federal budget, the excesses in spending, the preoccupation with pronouns, cancel culture, and threats to free speech from the left (and the right). There always is room for healthy debate among perspectives of people of good faith and common purpose.
This writer is no supporter of Donald Trump. I respect him for this. What I cannot conscience, however, is his party’s unwillingness to simply speak the truth to the American people about what they truly think of this dangerous man, who still commands a meaningful lead in the quest for the Republican nomination. We must talk about Donald Trump precisely because his party won’t. When they break from him, we hopefully can move on.
In the meantime, all of us—on all sides of the political spectrum—must accept legitimate election losses, avoid vilifying the other, and work toward compromise for the good of the country.
THE POLITICS OF THE NEW YORK INDICTMENT
The Claim:
The headline hound Jim Jordan has been holding a “field investigation” of Manhattan District Attorney Bragg because of the alleged political nature of the prosecution of Mr. Trump in the matter of the hush money payments in the height of the 2016 presidential campaign.
I received an email from a conservative, also allegedly not a Trump supporter (but whom I am confident would vote for Trump over any Democrat). The email was entitled “Enough Said.” Its content suggested that the prosecution of Mr. Trump was for a crime no one else would be indicted for. It suggested that Mr. Bragg is “busy prosecuting this” while not prosecuting crimes in Manhattan, as “crime is on the rise.” Then it shows a caption reading “Leaders Who Have Their Political Opponents Arrested” [sic], and showing pictures of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Joe Biden.
The Response:
We are all free to have our own opinions but this one is over the top. To compare Biden to Stalin, Hitler and Mao is absurd. This is a classic conflation by association that bears no connection to reality. The implication is that Mr. Biden is prosecuting his adversaries and connecting him to monsters in 20th century history.
The person delivering this email is a practicing attorney. He should know better. Mr. Biden is uninvolved in the Manhattan D.A.’s prosecution (unless the author now wishes to claim that District Attorneys get their direction from the White House). But to the facts:
If what Trump is alleged to have done is true, it was a crime. The effect (or desired effect) of the hush money was to influence an election. This makes his crime, because of its motive and desired result, substantially more significant than that of a similarly situated non-public figure. But other people actually are prosecuted for this type of stuff (remember John Edwards). Plus, Mr. Trump’s co-conspirator already was tried and convicted of a related crime.
I, too, would rather have not “led the story” with this prosecution. Were it timed after some other expected indictments, its news value would have been much less. There will be so many other indictments in the coming months and the egregiousness of those is so much more readily apparent. But my beef is with tactics and timing—not with whether there is enough evidence to prosecute the crime. This reader’s concern isn’t with whether Mr. Trump committed a crime, but, rather, is with the motives of the District Attorney. Neither his concern nor mine really addresses the danger of allowing guys like Trump and John Edwards to influence elections through behaviors such as this.
Finally, the attempt (and that of the absurd Mr. Jim Jordan) to equate the perceived failure of Mr. Bragg to prosecute other crimes, while pursuing this one in lieu thereof, is baseless. Mr. Jordan is engaging in an exercise in deflection and distraction—but in this case it isn’t even true. While crime rates are higher nationally than either of us would like, crime actually is lower in New York now than it was years ago (and certainly in the 80s, when one could barely walk through Times Square without being accosted for drugs or prostitution).
Here is just one example of crime statistics, from New York 1: “Statistics from the NYPD show a decrease in almost all major crimes in February compared with 2022, including a 15% drop in shootings. New numbers from the department show an overall crime decrease of 5.6% year over year.”
“We are very encouraged about the trends that we are seeing, and it is due to the hard work of the women and men of the NYPD,” Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said Friday during an appearance on “Mornings On 1.” https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2023/03/03/nypd-february-2023-crime-statistics. Right from the police chief’s mouth.
Have a great day,
Glenn