site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

10
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Breaking news. It looks like the jury convicted Donald Trump in the "hush money" case.

This verdict will likely galvanize voters come November – leading to record turnout among Republicans. I might even vote for the old rascal myself as I view this lawfare as both morally wrong and deeply destabilizing.

To make a prediction closer to home, we're now certain to cross 1000 posts on the weekly thread.

So far, it seems like the felony conviction has mostly galvanized support for Trump.

He has raised almost $34 million within 6 hours after the conviction, and $52.4 million within 24 hours. 29.7% of donors are new donors: https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240531368/trump-campaign-says-it-raised-35-million-after-guilty-verdict-nearly-doubling-its-prior-recordl

Early polling shows that the number of people who said they would vote for Trump if he was convicted of a felony has increased post-conviction: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/majority-believe-prosecution-donald-trump-upheld-rule-law-not-motivated-politics

This is true across democrats, republicans, and independents.

One betting market had Trump's odd job up: https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1796288757177446654

It went from 45% at the start of the trial, to 58% after the trial. As of 6/1, it currently sits at 54% https://polymarket.com/event/presidential-election-winner-2024

Just to provide some a counterpoint, this poll from Reuters suggests there would be some drop in support for Trump: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/one-10-republicans-less-likely-vote-trump-after-guilty-verdict-reutersipsos-poll-2024-05-31/ (Note that the number of republicans who said they would be less likely to vote for trump if he was found guilty has actually decreased post-trial.)

This article suggests other betting markets had Trump's chances fallen although that betting market they quote still puts Trump ahead of Biden:https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240601270/betting-markets-give-lower-chance-of-trump-election-win-even-as-billionaires-back-him

The source Morningstar uses shows across multiple betting markets Trump is ahead of Biden: https://www.realclearpolling.com/betting-odds/2024/president

Trump saw a big leap and then a small correction but he is still ahead compared to when the trial initially started.

It seems like the anti-Tump side has to try much harder to spin this in a negative light than the pro-Trump side has to make it seem like a positive.

The most relevant point is made in several places and deserves its own discussion:

Trump is accused of using personal money for a campaign purpose.

  • His lawyer paid a hooker to sign an NDA, and when Trump reimbursed him it was marked this as a legal expense.

  • The accusation is that this is a campaign finance violation because this benefited his campaign and therefore should have been marked as such.

However, it is not illegal to pay somebody to sign an NDA. Suppose Trump had done what the NY state prosecutor is implying he should have done, which would be to use campaign funds to pay off this hooker.

Would it be better? That seems unlikely.

The regime sees Trump as illegitimate. Because of this any political action he takes is illegitimate.

The most relevant point is made in several places and deserves its own discussion:

Trump is accused of using personal money for a campaign purpose.

And without getting into the sleazy details, this is something that every sentient person assumes every candidate does to some extent, and Trump is the only one signled out for it.

Talk to any small business owner/gig worker, and the lines between personal and business spending are sort of vaguely (mis)understood and largely unobserved. You should see the uncomfortable faces when the bookkeeper in our local small business circle talks about this subject. Everyone is bad at this this. At times, it seems almost impossible to dilligently keep track of these things in accordance with the law. The general assumption is that small, non-malicious fudging of that line will be overlooked. This kind of petty gotcha on Trump on this subject is unlikely to substantively move the needle for anyone already sympathetic to him.

What would be the legally acceptable way to quietly pay off a mistress like this? If a Pro-Trump Super PAC had paid Daniels instead of Cohen/Trump personally, would that be unambiguously legal? If the National Enquirer had caught-and-killed the story with David Pecker’s personal funds instead of merely informing Cohen, would that be unambiguously legal? What if it was simply a friend of Trump who paid, with no business relationship to the president? A surface level reading would suggest not, because by these trial standards that would technically involve more than $2700 or whatever going to something that could possibly benefit the campaign.

A personal payment from Donald Trump to Stormy Daniels would not be an issue under campaign finance law (spending your own money on your own campaign is 1st-amendment protected activity) and would not generate any business records that could become the basis of a "falsifying business records" charge.

Why didn't Trump do it that way? Partly because his personal lawyer was a lying crooked sack of shit who couldn't give him decent legal advice. Mostly because he doesn't think that laws apply to him in the way they do to little people.

Mostly because he doesn't think that laws apply to him in the way they do to little people.

They don't, actually, because these charges have never been used against anybody before in the history of the world.

Err wot? Falsifying business records is charged in almost every white-collar criminal indictment in New York.

See here or here for surveys on the issue, or here for an example of a criminal defence firm which holds out this kind of charge as an important practice area.

I agree that there is a bit of a reach to get to felony falsification in this case - the point I was making was that Donald Trump clearly committed a misdemeanour completely unnecessarily (and may have committed a felony depending on a legal technicality he didn't feel the need to ask a competent lawyer about) because he didn't care.

There is a real question of whether the record was in fact false. If my contractor builds my deck and pays out of pocket for materials, would it be a false record if I label my payment to him as construction expense even if it reimbursed in large part those expenses?

I think the Trump defense mangled this argument a bit but we don’t have to.

Trump has been doing business in New York for 40 years and the only crime they can charge him on is something nobody has ever been charged for before -- "falsifying records" is one thing, this is falsifying records used totally for internal purposes, as though he committed fraud upon himself (this has been discussed to death in other comments in this thread by now).

There is no one who has ever been charged with anything similar to this. You want to make it sound as though Trump is contemptuous of law because he described money paid to his lawyer as legal expenses, for arranging an NDA, which is legal, with a porn star, which is legal. If Trump was as contemptuous of law as you suggest, maybe there would be other bookkeeping crimes to charge him with that don't involve felony upcharges on underlying crimes that are not specified.

Trump has been doing business in New York for 40 years and the only crime they can charge him on

The business-related crimes Trump has been successfully bought to justice as a result of the NY AG-led investiagtion include:

I am not including the stuff that is plausibly "three felonies a day bullshit" like housing discrimination, SEC penalties for improper disclosures when one of Trump's companies was publically traded, antitrust litigation, or ordinary commercial litigation of the type any sufficiently large company gets involved in regularly.

The Trump University scam probably isn't a crime, and it looks like Letitia James brought the loan fraud allegations in civil fraud because she couldn't prove mens rea against individual Trump org executives beyond reasonable doubt. But that is 3 and a half serious crimes of which someone in the Trump organisation is factually guilty, and the evidence points to it being the boss.

The District Attorney’s press office and its flaks often proclaim that falsification of business records charges are “commonplace” and, indeed, the office’s “bread and butter.” That’s true only if you draw definitional lines so broad as to render them meaningless. Of course the DA charges falsification quite frequently; virtually any fraud case involves some sort of fake documentation.

But when you impose meaningful search parameters, the truth emerges: the charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor – in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere – has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever. Even putting aside the specifics of election law, the Manhattan DA itself almost never brings any case in which falsification of business records is the only charge.](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-convicted-but-prosecutors-contorted-the-law.html)

((It's not clear that the underlying crime was actually the federal campaign finance matter; the jury instructions just reference 17-152, which itself requires "unlawful means", and the judge verbally instructed the jury to pick any combination of FECA, other paperwork record violations, or state tax laws.))

Those surveys tend to back this up: the lightest or attempted theft in this page is still 300 USD in Ramirez, Murray in the multiple thousands, Kirkland for 350k USD(!). I can't find exact numbers for Freeland or Holley, but napkin math puts even a short duration puts it around 200 USD/month and Freeland covering multiple months, and Holley's insurance fraud claims are almost certainly closer to Murray than Ramirez. In this case, the erroneous classification probably increased, rather than decreased, Trump's final tax payment.

Trump is accused of using personal money for a campaign purpose.... The accusation is that this is a campaign finance violation because this benefited his campaign and therefore should have been marked as such.

It should be noted that this "accusation" is not actually in the indictment.

It is part of the jury instructions (at least as reported by AP), and the modifier (doing it as part of a campaign finance violation) was one pathway towards treating this as a felony.

my enemies’ lawfare, my rule of law

It’s hard to take the lawfare accusations seriously.

  • there are tons of high level republicans who are not subject to prosecution, with the obvious explanatory difference being that they, you know, didn’t commit crimes

  • dem DOJs go after dem politicians for similar violations

  • the same DA goes after normal people for similar violations

This looks like a case of “man does crimes, gets prosecuted for said crimes.” The only remarkable thing is that this man is a former politician with a loser cult of personality.

Let me flip it around: can you honest to god hand on the Bible imagine a scenario in which Trump committed a crime and you don’t call the resulting prosecution “lawfare?”

Edit: I also suspect that the venn diagram of people calling for Trump to lock up Hillary over the made-up email thing and people calling the prosecution of Trump "lawfare" is close to a perfect circle.

  • -19

Count me outside of that circle. I never really understood any of the things Hilario was accused of, I do think the Trump prosecutions have been hilariously overdrawn.

I think Hilary was trying to evade FOIA.

She used a private email server to do government business a practice ubiquitous, but illegal, because it let's you sidestep FOIA requests. Look at the recent fury over Fauci doing the same. Hillary had the misfortune of having her sever hacked, unlike everyone else. But, the fortune of having all the emails deleted by a careless aide before they could be subpoenaed.

She used a private email server to do government business a practice ubiquitous

Not exactly. A lot of government officials use private email accounts to sidestep FOIA. Obama did it, Pence did it. Hillary set up a private email server, which is different and extremely rare. It's the difference between opening up a separate bank account, and opening a separate bank. If you use a private email account, at least all the network traffic, data storage, and encryption is being handled by Microsoft, or Google, or some team of engineers that has spent millions of man-hours solving the important technical problems. Hillary just had her own server, run by some IT guy she hired. Then she put classified documents on it. Imagine if she took taxpayer money and moved it from the Fed to the Bank of Hillary. It's an unlocked shed with a camera. Security, she probably has some. Did somebody take the money? Did she take the money? Nobody can say, because as soon as it turned into a scandal she deleted all the records, the FBI gave her subordinates plea deals in exchange for cooperating, and Comey absolved her of doing anything all that bad.

There was no reason for Hillary to set up her own private email server, unless: 1) She was doing horribly corrupt things on it 2) She was extremely willful and ignorant and insisted on doing something that everyone around her would have told her was a bad idea.

There was no reason for Hillary to set up her own private email server, unless: 1) She was doing horribly corrupt things on it 2) She was extremely willful and ignorant and insisted on doing something that everyone around her would have told her was a bad idea.

I actually think it's a worse double compounding of these two things;

She did it because the people around her knew she was doing horribly corrupt things and convinced her this was a really good idea so that she could avoid responsibility down the road.

Hillary had the misfortune of having her sever hacked

Most of the clueless boomers have the decency to just use gmail or something for their hidden emails -- for all their faults, Google does have a reasonably competent security team, unlike the pimply-faced local losers Hillary hired to stand up her private server. As I recall the only reason we have any of the emails is that they were a bit incompetent at deleting them, even.

The emails weren't merely deleted, her staffers destroyed electronics with hammers.

Count me outside of that circle as well. While I did acknowledge that it was not a complete legal nothingburger, I proudly have receipts that I was on Team No Indictment. This Trump case relies on implicitly conjuring up a federal elections charge which simply would not stand against a vigorous defense and Supreme Court precedent if it were to be seriously taken up by a serious court of law (by which I mean as opposed to a trial court).

there are tons of high level republicans who are not subject to prosecution, with the obvious explanatory difference being that they, you know, didn’t commit crimes

No the obvious difference is that they never went to war with the establishment the way Trump did. Also, admittedly Trump is publicly a liar and sleazeball so that makes a lot of people think that he must be a criminal too, which creates a favorable environment for pursuing a prosecution.

This looks like a case of “man does crimes, gets prosecuted for said crimes.”

No he did not commit a crime.

  • Paying hush money to a mistress is not illegal
  • Paying hush money as a pre-tax company expense to avoid embarrassment for the CEO is not illegal
  • Paying hush money from non-campaign funds is not illegal, in fact, arguably the opposite would be illegal. This is an area where the law is inherently ambiguous and something of a catch-22.
  • Keeping the payment of the hush money secret from the American public is not illegal
  • Trump never tried to hide the payment from the tax authorities.
  • A CEO making a false description of some expense in order to avoid potential leaks and embarrassment of a business the CEO wholly owns is not illegal. The NY law is against making "a false statement with intent to defraud." This is used in cases where an employee is defrauding the CEO or shareholders, or the tax authorities, etc. Trump cannot make a false statement that is somehow defrauding himself.

So to get a felony conviction here, the prosecutor, judge and jury had to introduce multiple unprecedented or ridiculous leaps:

  • Claiming that any false entry is inherently fraud against the state of NY. This is novel, no one gets tried for this.
  • Claiming that the false entry was in furtherance of another crime ... without actually including that crime in the indictment and without that crime ever being adjudicated in court
  • Hinting that the false entry was in furtherance of some kind of attempt at electoral fraud, but without that charge ever actually being adjudicated.
  • Arguing that this crime corrupted the 2016 election even though the crime happened in 2017
  • They had to infer that Trump actually intended to "defraud" someone, despite there being no direct evidence of this. Again, intending to make a false entry to avoid embarrassment is not a crime.

Here is an establishment liberal explaining why this prosecution was so unprecedented: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-convicted-but-prosecutors-contorted-the-law.html

Let me flip it around: can you honest to god hand on the Bible imagine a scenario in which Trump committed a crime and you don’t call the resulting prosecution “lawfare?”

Yes, of course.

The thing about Trump is that he is a sleazy guy who lies a lot, but he is ultimately a show-man Boomer business man who listens to his lawyers and doesn't do obviously criminal things. He is not mobbed up. His faults are those of a carnival barker, not of a Bernie Madoff. There has been an enormous media campaign to portray Trump has some kind of obvious fraudster criminal but that is not actually who he is.

Edit: I also suspect that the venn diagram of people calling for Trump to lock up Hillary over the made-up email thing and people calling the prosecution of Trump "lawfare" is close to a perfect circle.

I'm in the tiny sliver of people who thought Comey got it right. He was right to have the press conference explaining what she did wrong to the American people, but also right not to prosecute. Her violation wasn't serious enough to try warrant overriding the electoral process with a judicial process.

When it comes to prosecuting the highest-level politicians, I would use this rule of thumb: If you explained the crime in a few sentences to George Washington, would he say, "what? I don't even understand why that is a crime in your era." Or would he say, "Of course that is a crime." Actually taking bribes, deliberately leaking secrets to enemy powers, executing opponents, etc, are all real crimes and should be prosecuted regardless of the person. But prosecuting high-level officials for technical crimes and gray-area crimes and crimes invented in the last 80 years gives far too much power to the bureaucracy.

If you explained the crime in a few sentences to George Washington, would he say, "what? I don't even understand why that is a crime in your era." Or would he say, "Of course that is a crime."

You don't think insider trading should be considered a crime?

Isn't that mainstream thinking among many economists?

Regardless shareholder disputes in the Dutch East Indies company are documented as early as 1605, so the concept of short sellers, insider trading, and shareholder advocates was all mainstream by the time of Washington.

I don't think we should be selectively picking and choosing lawmakers and pedantically going through their actions to decide whether their actions do or do not technically count as "insider trading" or not and then prosecuting the ones that the prosecutor chooses to prosecute at their own discretion.

Instead I think we should make a new law that unambiguously singles out lawmakers, prevents them from buying/selling/owning anything other than specially licensed (and public) index funds, limit their transactions to certain times of year, and also prevent external sources of income. Then ruthlessly enforce that law on all of them, which should be tailor-made to be less ambiguous than existing insider trading laws which are not designed with politicians in mind.

Obviously this will never happen because the politicians are the ones who make laws and don't want to cripple their own sources of income. But if it magically happened then I would feel comfortable prosecuting it.

"Hey George, some lawmakers are buying companies, then passing laws favorable to those companies. Think that should be illegal?"

It's really not hard.

That's not insider trading as it's usually defined. Insider trading is more like knowing your company had a good quarter and so buying shares before publicly releasing this news.

Yeah I suppose so. Washington seems like a pretty bright guy though--I don't think it would take him long to grasp the concept.

Insider trading can easily be compared to betting on a fixed match, something George Washington would recognize as wrong.

When it comes to prosecuting the highest-level politicians, I would use this rule of thumb: If you explained the crime in a few sentences to George Washington, would he say, "what? I don't even understand why that is a crime

Great post. I wish you would post more.

Claiming that the false entry was in furtherance of another crime ... without actually including that crime in the indictment and without that crime ever being adjudicated in court

This is the part that bugs me the most. How can a crime be asserted as a predicate fact in court when that crime has never been charged, tried or convicted?

If the argument is that the crime exists because Michael Cohen pled to it as part of a bargain, isn't that irrelevant with regard to Trump? AIUI, one person cannot be convicted by proxy of another person's trial; Trump would be entitled to his own defense.

Further, the insinuation that it is electoral fraud for a political candidate to mislead the public opens unlimited potential for lawfare fuckery. Does this mean it's possible to charge Joe Biden with Electoral Fraud for saying that his son's laptop was fake during a Presidential Debate? Or any other outright lie or even half-truth told in the course of any campaign?

I admit, seeing most active politicians from the past few decades jailed for dishonesty might be a nice corrective, but selective prosecution is not the way to go about it. It seems like this case is going to come back at the Democrats in severely unpleasant ways.

This is the part that bugs me the most. How can a crime be asserted as a predicate fact in court when that crime has never been charged, tried or convicted?

Would you feel any better if you found out that the referenced crime need not even have occurred? And that this has been the case for hundreds of years? Look at common law burglary, for example (modern statutes usually expand the definition, but we'll keep things simple). Unauthorized breaking and entering of a dwelling in the nighttime with the intent to commit a felony therein. Say Bill breaks into Tom's house at night. A neighbor sees him break in and calls the police. The police apprehend him and he's carrying a gun. Tom was not home at the time. A witness testified that Bill told him he was going to kill Tom. There's sufficient intent to prove burglary. The fact that he can't be convicted of murder is irrelevant. The fact that he can't even be convicted of attempted murder is irrelevant. The fact that it would have been impossible for him to even commit the intended murder is irrelevant. He's not getting this reduced to criminal trespass.

Attempt crimes always have allowed for mistake of fact and are not given the same sentence as the crime itself. Not only is this set of facts enough to prove burglary, it also would prove attempted murder.

This is not akin to the Trump case, because in your case we would know that the alleged felony that the burglar had the mens rea to commit was murder. But in the current case, we do have an exact crime. Instead the prosecution waved at a bunch of statutes and said its possible that Trump committed those crimes (while they and the judge didn't let Trump put on an expert witness who would have said he, in fact, did not violate those laws). This is a novel application of the law in many ways, so its not really serious to compare it to burglary.

Nor even something else like criminal conspiracy, where again you need not succeed in robbing the bank, but it is enough for your gang to buy guns and masks and bags with money signs on them, then drive to the bank, go into the bank, and if you get arrested at the front door, you still are guilty of conspiracy to rob the bank. Again, totally unlike the current situation.

Tagging @zeke5123a since this response also applies to his comment from yesterday that I didn't get a chance to respond to.

You're confusing mistake of fact with impossibility. Mistake of fact is a defense that obviates some element of the crime, the classic example being the theft of property one wrongly believes to be his own. If I take a coat similar to mine from a coat room at a bar because I thought it was mine, I can use mistake of fact as a defense because I haven't formed the sufficient mens rea. Factual impossibility, on the other hand, is generally not a defense but the opportunity to even raise it is so rare that it's not really a huge issue. The hypothetical I gave doesn't involve impossibility, though, because the conduct doesn't amount to attempted murder. There's no generally recognized point at which mere preparation becomes attempt, but it's but it's basically hornbook law that lying in wait or looking for the intended victim don't rise to that level. Cases involving this test usually focus on things like whether the bullet you fired had a realistic chance of hitting the target, which is well beyond what I presented.

The reason I presented that specific fact pattern is that it illustrates a point I'm trying to get — the intent requirements of some crimes don't require you to prove those other crimes. The crime of burglary developed at common law specifically because the act of breaking into someone's home did not in and of itself rise to the level of attempt, but the courts agreed that it was still a crime. So when New York law prohibits anyone from falsifying business records with the intent of concealing another crime, whether or not you can prove that he committed another crime isn't important. Whether or not you can even specifically identify that other crime isn't important. With respect to crimes like this, there's a certain res ipsa loquitur aspect where the mere commission of the act is evidence of intent in and of itself; if a defendant is found having broken into a jewelry store with his face concealed and in possession of burglary tools, the prosecution usually doesn't have to go any further than that to show intent. They don't have to — what some are suggesting would be required in Trump's case — give extrinsic evidence showing that the defendant broke into the building specifically to steal jewelry.

The fact that Trump may not have violated election law is therefore irrelevant. The fact that the prosecution couldn't demonstrate the very specific scienter requirements required to prove an election law violation are also irrelevant. Trump wasn't charged with violating election law. The elements of the crime he was charged with are independent of the elements of the crime he is alleged to have concealed. You may not like this, or think the DA is stretching the law, but that's just The Way It Is, and it's been that way for a very long time. If you're looking for an appellate court to overturn the conviction because you disagree with one or another of the principles involved, that's fine, but even as someone who's broadly liberal I don't know if I'd welcome that, as it would give the Warren Court a run for its money on how defendant-friendly it is.

But a necessary element of the felony is that he falsified business records as a part of a scheme to cover up another crime. In many ways you'd argue in the other direction. The element is even more difficult to satisfy. Trump needed to know how was committing a crime AND known he was covering it up. You'd have to prove both.

The argument you are making makes the misdemeanor/felony distinction moot, which is antithetical to a good reading of laws. What you are saying is that the falsification of the record itself demonstrates the intent to cover up a crime, but that makes no sense. Falsification with intent to defraud is the misdemeanor charge. There is the additional element of the second crime that makes the felony charge a felony. So you cant just waive it away.

This is interesting, and I might be persuaded.

Scenario A:

Let's say I mistakenly think that some completely legal act is illegal, like buying paperclips. Every time I buy paperclips for my office, I intentionally misclassify these transactions as "legal services" because I don';t want the law to know that I bought paperclips.

In this scenario, I have committed a felony, because I was attempting to conceal a "crime," and therefore fool the state, regardless of the actuality of any crime being committed.

Scenario B

Let's say I think that buying paperclips is embarassing but not illegal. In this case, I would be committing only a misdemeanor by misclassifiying the purchases, as I was not trying to conceal what I thought was a "crime?"

Scenario C

I'm not sure if buying paperclips is a crime, so just to be safe, I'm never going to admit to buying paperclips on paper. I'm going to send my lawyer out to buy my paperclips for me with his own money, and since he's my lawyer, when I pay him back, I'm going to classify the expense as "legal services," because he's my lawyer. I think I have successfully avoided admitting to the actual act and insulated myself from any crime if any crime exists. What is this? I have created layers of insulation between my willful ignorance and reality. Can intent be proven here?

Intent can't be proven in any of the three scenarios you put forward because buying paperclips isn't illegal, and legal impossibility is almost always a complete defense. In any event, whether you think something is legal or not is irrelevant, because in most cases, mistake of law isn't a defense. Ignorantia juris non excusat. What's tripping people up here is that the crime Trump was allegedly concealing has very specific intent requirements that does require knowledge of the law, while the crimes he was actually charged with don't. The relevant analogy here is where buying paperclips actually is illegal. In that case, if you falsified records relating to their purchase you'd be guilty of the falsification whether you knew they were illegal or not.

More comments

Res ipsa is not appropriate here. If any time you falsify business records you per se are doing it for a reason to cover up another crime, then you’ve written the misdemeanor out of the statute since everything is a felony.

What is also black letter law is that texts should generally be read in a way that does not render any part surplusage.

The only way to give meaning to both the misdemeanor and felony is to treat the intent with respect to committing another crime as having to be proved without regard to the misdemeanor. This is especially true here because unlike burglary (ie why else did you break into someone’s home) there are many reasons why Trump might arguably falsify records (eg he didn’t realize it was false, he wanted to hide it from his wife, he thought it would be bad publicity unaware of the legal implications). The same inference is not reasonable.

So whilst I agree you don’t need to prove the actual other crime was committed you do need to prove the intent to commit a specific other crime was intended or else you render meaningless a large portion of the criminal statute at play and are making an unreasonable inference.

I'm not saying that res ipsa is sufficient on its own, just that there's a certain element involved when it comes to proving intent. If the falsification of the records happened in a vacuum and there was no obvious underlying motive, that would be the misdemeanor. But when you demonstrate that the concealed payments may have covered up a potential campaign finance violation, that's probably enough evidence that a jury can infer that the potential violation was behind the concealment. Like I said in the previous post, if a guy breaks into a store the prosecution doesn't have to demonstrate that the defendant was there specifically to steal a particular item for it to be anything more than trespass; the jury can infer that because there was a very obvious motive for the break-in that the defendant intended to commit a felony. The defendant can certainly argue that that wasn't his intent and present evidence supporting that, but that's a question of fact for the jury. We can argue all day about whether there was sufficient evidence of Trump's intent to commit a campaign finance violation for the purpose of the statute, but my overall point is that arguing about the specific elements of such a violation itself or the mens rea requirement to prove a campaign finance violation is irrelevant here because we're operating on two separate legal principles.

More comments

According to this logic, if the falsification of business records is inherently proof of a cover-up of an underlying crime, the falsification of any business record is proof of an underlying crime. The distinction between misdemeanor and felony charges for this crime may as well as not exist. (Why else would you "falsify" a business record?)

You say that reversing this standard would be too lenient for defenders. Upholding this standard is a recipe for jailing almost anyone at any time.

With respect to crimes like this, there's a certain res ipsa loquitur aspect where the mere commission of the act is evidence of intent in and of itself

Yes, and the intent is obviously "don't write down the embarrassing adultery he's trying to cover up", right? Is trying to keep his despicable personal life secret a crime? If not, then isn't looking for some additional redundant intention, much less assuming it, a basic violation of Occam's razor?

It's not a crime to try to conceal personal information, obviously. But whether or not that was Trump's intent in falsifying the records is a question for the jury. My point was simply that that the statute he was charged with violating has a lower standard of proof than the underlying act itself, and that the evidence was sufficient for the government to make a prima facia case; doing so doesn't require them to prove the underlying act, or even an attempt to commit the underlying act.

Agreed (I make the point below that intent here is different from inferring intent in say “murder”).

What’s also become more and more a democrat playbook is they take law X and try to shoehorn it into an area it clearly was not meant for but say “the words say.”

Here, the business record falsification with intent to commit other crime was clearly about something like cooking the books to hide embezzlement or a Ponzi scheme et al. This case clearly was not what the law was about in any way.

Did Trump really go to war with the establishment? His largest legislative accomplishment was a huge corporate tax cut. That strikes me as about as establishment as it comes.

I get that he says things like “drain the swamp”, but it’s very unclear to me that he was anti establishment at all aside from his personality.

His personality is enough to ruin him. The Establishment wants defense in depth. It’s easier to defend your way of doing things when the Schelling point is based on personalities, rather than policies.

If the Establishment didn’t do everything it could to destroy Trump and make an example out of him, then there could be a future Trump who goes a bit further. Someone with Trump’s appeal but who could also seriously change policy and the way things are done.

It’s the same reason why progressives have ratcheted up the social movement lunacy to defend pedophiles (as MAPs) and transgenders. When all of the oxygen in the room is being sucked on these topics, it means that people aren’t challenging gay marriage (which was a controversial topic only 12 years ago). Gay marriage is effectively off-limits until the pedo-question is settled, so progressives have an incentive to waste people’s time on pedophiles so that they aren’t having to defend gays. Even though it’s a harder assignment defending pedophiles rather than gays.

Different establishment. The establishment that cares about corporate tax cuts probably has some cultural and interpersonal overlap with the establishment that is involved in New York judicial system but it is not like that they are the same set of people with coherent agenda.

The establishment is like the Man -- fuzzy concept that sometimes have informative uses but still fuzzy, which makes it too imprecise and underdefined for other uses.

Well, he LARP'ed going to war with the establishment, and the establishment had reasons, both valid and more Machiavellian for taking his LARP seriously. The "lock her up chants" were unprecedented norm-breaking, even if he never followed through with it. In many ways, Trump did the worst possible thing by taunting the bear but then being actually very weak in power and letting the establishment run roughshod over him (eg the Russia-gate investigation leading to a crippling investigation and imprisonment of his men).

I think the thing that legitimately scared the establishment is that he would transgress certain taboos, and verbally come out against the bipartisan consensus on certain issues, and rather than groveling after such transgressions he would plow ahead. That meant he could not be controlled by establishment norms in the same way most high-profile Republicans in the past have been controlled.

The other crazy thing was that the books were internal. So you’d have to think “Trump was doing this because he thought NYS might ask for his books to check on…federal campaign laws? It just doesn’t make any sense.

I was curious how the prosecutor even came to get those private books. He convened a grand jury that subpoenaed Trump's accountants for tax and business records, Trump sought to quash the subpoena with assertions of Presidential immunity, and it was adjudicated by the Supreme Court and not squashed. Aside: the decision here has some interesting history I'd never heard of before, with President Jefferson apparently engaging in a bit of lawfare against Aaron Burr.

Not being a lawyer, I was surprised that apparently the bar is very low for what a grand jury can subpoena, just about anything short of a "fishing expedition" is allowed. Do they even need to call their shots like in billiards, or can they start with the idea that there's one specific crime, and end up charging something completely different? Or do they even need a specific crime to investigate?

I've tried to find the reason that this grand jury was convened and can't find anything official. I found one report on a Manhattan grand jury that said "It is unclear what assets Manhattan District Attorney’s office will be investigating specifically," but I don't know if that's even the same grand jury that led to the falsifying business records charge. The indictment itself doesn't have any identifier like date the grand jury was convened.

So, how is one to judge whether the subpoena was a fishing expedition or not?

The argument here would be targeted prosecution. But it reminds me of the speech about the awesome power of the prosecutor. A guy like Bragg should be a million miles away from such power.

I think Trump is probably guilty of worse crimes than this, and I find it hard to feel particularly sorry for him (lie down with the dogs and all that), but this happening so close to the election and my sense that he was facing a particularly hostile legal environment makes things around this conviction feel at least somewhat politically motivated. I haven't bothered keeping up with details though, so this is just vibes really.

For your flip around. Even though he’s said he could get away with it.

If he shot a person in Times Square (change to Mar-a-Lago for obvious reasons) I would hope he’s convicted.

  • high level Republicans - they are not in NYC. NRA had a bad time there. They are also not the big guy so less worth their time.

  • when have Dems gone after Dems for similar violations? Hillary is free. Hunter Biden is free.

  • they go after normal people for this. Who? I believe I’m guilty of what Trump did. I do think Trump is guilty.

Hunter Biden is being prosecuted. He's not currently behind bars, but neither is Trump.

New York apparently prosecutes falsifying business records something like a thousand times a year.

Hunter Biden is being prosecuted.

Only after a judge squashed the absurd plea deal that exempted him from all future prosecution.

It's a half-step removed, but isn't this guy paying Hunter Biden's back-taxes to benefit Joe Biden similar to Cohen paying Daniels to benefit Trump? Why isn't California coming down on this guy for FEC violations?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/s-kevin-morris-says-paid-hunter-bidens-back-taxes-rcna135277

I think that if you were able to secure Morris' testimony that he paid Hunter's liabilities as part of an agreement with Joe Biden to prevent bad press that would hurt Joe Biden's election chances, it would be a comparable situation. Currently Morris is claiming he made the payments out of the goodness of his heart and with no electoral motive. I don't believe that for a second, but in order to successfully bring a prosecution you'd need some way to prove that Morris is lying.

I think that if you were able to secure Morris' testimony that he paid Hunter's liabilities as part of an agreement with Joe Biden to prevent bad press that would hurt Joe Biden's election chances, it would be a comparable situation. Currently Morris is claiming he made the payments out of the goodness of his heart and with no electoral motive. I don't believe that for a second, but in order to successfully bring a prosecution you'd need some way to prove that Morris is lying.

I trust that the State of California is doing their best to trap Morris into a plea deal wherein he admits as much! As it is, he has nearly run out of money and can't afford to buy more than 11 of Hunter's paintings. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/15/hunter-biden-legal-defense-kevin-morris-money-00158237

Hunter Biden is certainly not being prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The government had an open-and-shut tax evasion case against him and deliberately allowed the statute of limitations to expire. The government is making a minimal show of prosecuting the other chargers.

I started reading your first article. The first two people are for bribery. Much different offense than mislabeling your personal business dealings. 700k and gold bars versus I wrote it down wrong on internal documents.

We can quibble over the specifics of how "similar" you want examples to be but the broader point is that dem DOJs go after dems when they do shady white collar activities too.

  • -18

Bribery is not 'shady white collar activities', it's 'high crime' on par with treason. The fact that you would try to conflate the two makes your reasoning suspect at best.

Probably the most recent one is Bob Menendez (D-NJ) being prosecuted for corruption and obstruction of justice.

Are you comparing writing down “legal expense” versus “paid mistress” to accepted gold and cash envelops?

I mean, the crimes are different. It is still the Biden administration prosecuting a Democratic Senator.

  • -12

Big difference between.

I prosecuted a Democrat for murder.

I prosecuted a Democrat for jaywalking.

This isn’t quite that far but I do think it falls under different.

I view this lawfare as both morally wrong and deeply destabilizing.

Why is this lawfare? And why is it wrong? I can see both sides of the issue but want to make sure I'm not missing something.

Camp: this is terrible

This is a tragedy for justice. Trump did stuff that, sure it was technically illegal, but it took prosecutors like 5 years to charge him for this. The fact that it took so long is sus. The fact that it's during an election year is sus. Also, there are tons of people committing actual horrific felonies in NY that aren't being prosecuted. Additionally, it really seems like the prosecutor had to squint to find something to bust him with. This seems very politically motivated and like it sets a terrible precedent. It simply shows that you can prosecute any business leader for something if they infuriate the establishment enough. Additionally, you can't really read too much into this. He was charged and convicted in NY, a place that's full-on Trump Derangement Syndrome. He probably would've been sentenced to death for a parking ticket if the court allowed it. America is in danger.

for contrast

Camp: this is fine

This is a victory for justice. Even former Presidents are not above the law. He did a crime and he was convicted of it. He very much had a guilty mind, surrounding generally bad behavior, and did bad things while campaigning to be a leader of the country, one of the most important positions in the world. In the process of these morally bad acts he crossed a legal line and he's being called to account for it. Sure, it took a long time and sure it might have some twinge of political motivation to the timing, and this is a crime few people can really relate to, but you also want leaders held to a high standard and you also want them to be accountable. Juries may hate Trump but it's just implausible to expect even 12 New Yorkers to find him guilty of something just because they hate him. America has demonstrated its commitment to rule of law and we should celebrate.

Consider also in Camp: this is terrible:

Trump did not do anything that was technically illegal. There is nothing illegal about paying someone to sign an NDA. A former chairman of the FEC is on the record as saying this expenditure does not count as a campaign expenditure. Smith also commented:

Suppose Trump had used campaign funds to pay off these women. Does anyone much doubt that many of the same people now after Trump for using corporate funds, and not reporting them as campaign expenditures, would then be claiming that Trump had illegally diverted campaign funds to “personal use”? Or that federal prosecutors would not have sought a guilty plea from Cohen on that count?

There is, at the least, reasonable doubt that this action was illegal, and the standard for convicting someone of a felony is beyond a reasonable doubt.

But the FEC did find AMI paying McDougal (the other woman alleged to have an affair with Trump) off was a campaign finance violation. So i am not sure how much we should Smith's words count here. Note this was even with the FEC committee being split 50-50 Republican and Democrat.

"The FEC ruling states that the Enquirer's publisher, American Media Inc, "knowingly and wilfully" violated election laws by paying for the rights to Ms McDougal's story and never publishing it in a practice known as "catch and kill"."

So the FEC itself does seem to feel that paying off alleged affair partners does itself count as a campaign expenditure.

Had they paid for the story and then published it would it have been a contribution for Trump's opponent?

Do you think a presidential candidate could use campaign funds to do it? Again at best the law is murky which seriously calls into question that there was an intent to violate the law AND would call into question whether it was void for vagueness.

He pleaded to it as part of a deal to avoid being prosecuted for other things. Read my link, it is directly related to that question.

Granting that this is what happened, it sounds a lot like a case of what people here like calling "leopards eating faces" when it happens to the other side. Republicans are the law-and-order party that spent decades architecting a legal system where prosecutors have free rein to use tactics like blackmailing (or, equivalently, bribing) people to incriminate their allies, so as to be able to secure convictions in cases like gangs where they feel they caught a bad guy but can't find a legally watertight way to prove his guilt directly; now that they found themselves at the business end of this machinery, they are crying foul.

If this was a Bush/Romney Republican, this wouldn't have happened. The Republicans haven't gone after Democrat politicians, so that is also something to consider. They also aren't the only ones part of designing it.

And of course under your scenario, the spirit of the law that isn't violated when persecuting gangs is violated when getting Trump over this.

Through loopholes you can create a dictatorship out of any democracy and can abuse any system. And so, when such loopholes are abused, you either blame those who abuse them and oppose it, or promote a theory of leopards eating face, if you support the process of abusing the law to get your opponents. Any justice system to work well, requires respecting the spirit of the law, because you can manage to get a lot of people with technicalities, and by abusing the system. No system is so designed as to be infallible to that. There is always something one can find as an excuse if they support a transformation of the system into that.

Ironically, in addition to tit for tat, ideally towards actual crimes done by dem politicians as a deescalating force, to the extend liberals have such attitudes, it is actually justifiable and not just going after ones opponent to consider if people with such ideology are going to abuse their position as judges, bureaucrats, etc, etc. And even people like journalists, academics, have their own enormous influence that is going to affect everything. For the right, protecting the integrity of the system, and not letting their political opponents dominate it and abuse it then become interchangeable. For liberals, the opposite claim is not actually justifiable. Precisely because the right not only haven't prosecuted liberals over BS, but also have failed to prosecute more clear misconduct. And it is precisely that appeasement and sense of no consequences that has encouraged the liberal side into escalating.

Did Republicans really create this legal system? It seems noteworthy to me that these systems operate most often the way you describe in areas dominated entirely by Democrats.

I would vastly prefer to be in Trump's shoes in New York than in Georgia. The bar for proving RICO is so low there and it comes with a 5 year minimum sentence.

That trial won’t occur. Fani is getting kicked off.

More comments

Steelmanning: the FBI prosecutor made up a crime, an SDNY prosecutor carried water for this made up crime and charged Cohen with it, and Cohen plea bargained it and a judge validated the plea bargain and thusly this made up crime is now a real crime in this court and they charge Trump with it in the future, too.

Skeptically: I understand you give up your right to defend yourself when you plea bargain but does this mean a judge will let you confess to things that aren't crimes? Are you completely surrendering to the prosecutor's legal determination?

He confessed to a crime in the sense that there is a law on the books that he confessed to break. That doesn't mean that he actually violated that crime. For example, let's say I wanted to murder a bank teller because of a personal beef. After my crime, I plead to attempted bank robbery and un-premeditated murder so that I can avoid being tried for pre-meditated murder. Bank robbery is a crime, but I never actually tried to commit it. I just plead to it because it keeps me from the electric chair.

Michael Cohen confessed to a crime he didn't commit given the facts at hand. People do this to avoid long sentences for possibly other crimes they committed. Michael Cohen is a convicted perjurer and was trying to avoid going to trial for tax fraud:

Cohen was facing multiple tax and fraud charges that could have landed him in jail for the rest of his life, even if he beat the campaign finance allegations. By pleading guilty, he limits his jail time to just a few years.

Michael Cohen confessed to a crime he didn't commit given the facts at hand. People do this to avoid long sentences for possibly other crimes they committed. Michael Cohen is a convicted perjurer and was trying to avoid going to trial for tax fraud:

What I'm saying is there wasn't a factual dispute re: the campaign finance violations. Those acts were either a crime or they were not. I'm surprised people are complaining that wasn't something he could have been charged with but the judge signed off on it anyway. The more intangible things like mens rea doesn't really enter into it, IMO.

I'm surprised at your surprise. That's just what a plea deal is. "I will plea to this lesser charge that does not accurately depict reality so that I don't risk jail for a greater charge and you don't have to go through the trouble of a jury trial."

Question:

In the 9th episode of series 15 of "Law and Order: SVU", a serial rapist offers to plead guilty to a rape which he did not commit, while refusing to plead guilty to a series of rapes which he actually did commit (the reasons for this are complex and irrelevant to the question). The prosecutor and police seriously consider accepting his offer, even though they know he didn't commit the crime he wants to confess to, because they don't think they can prove the crimes he actually did commit. This doesn't sound to me like something which would be legal. Could a prosecutor really agree to a plea bargain deal which would involve the defendant confessing to something which the prosecutor knows they didn't do?

Answer:

Such things are in fact legal in some US jurisdictions, as part of plea bargains. In fact such pleas are not uncommon. More usual is the case where a person pleads guilty to a lesser crime, so as to qualify for a lower sentence, when all involved know that the lesser crime was not committed by anyone. It is simply a device to get a compromise sentence and avoid a trial.

In some jurisdictions the Judge, in the course of accepting a guilty plea, requires that the accused admit specific facts that form a minimal legal basis for conviction of the crime pled to. In others no such admission is made. But even where such an admission is made, the truth of such an admission is not usually checked. The Judge will generally make sure that the accused understands the effect of a guilty plea, the rights given up by such a plea, and the possible range of sentences that will result. If the Judge believes that the plea constitutes a miscarriage of justice, for example that a totally innocent person is yielding to improper pressure from the prosecutor, the Judge can refuse the plea, but this is very rare in practice.

There aren't limits to plea bargaining than what each side accepts based on their risk tolerance.

Cohen plead guilty to a campaign finance violation. A campaign finance violation is indeed a crime it is possible to commit. No one in the process, however, had to double check that what Cohen did actually counted as a campaign finance violation.

More comments

Actually the Trump camp is he didn’t do anything illegal but due to venue shopping and a corrupt judge they were able to get a conviction on what is a minor crime.

Scroll further down to see explanations on why he didn’t break the law

Wasn't Michael Cohen charged and convicted for his part in this almost immediately, though? In 2018? The charge was referred by the special prosecutor's office, to a different NY DA, with the case allowed by a different judge?

Also, was it venue shopping? Wasn't Trump a resident of NY at the time, and didn't the crime happen in NY?

To steelman: actually, Trump didn't do anything illegal but due to multiple corrupt judges and multiple corrupt prosecutors they convicted Trump's attorney and Trump himself on what is a minor crime. All of this happening within one corrupt court, the SD of NY.

Cohen was in trouble for tax charges and taxi medallion scams. They were discussing plea deal and threw in FECA allowing him to plead to something “less bad” with an intent of getting Trump.

More particularly, the biggest lawfare aspect is the grasping to conjure a federal crime at the root of Trump's recordkeeping activities -- if NY had chosen to prosecute Trump for misdemeanor records fuckery it would have been still pretty clearly politically motivated, but probably not had much impact on the election.

The way they went about it seems pretty clearly designed to impede Trump's current national campaign, which is very bad -- maybe some Red State prosecutor can come at the NY DA for 'unauthorized campaign contributions' to the DNC or something?

Sorry, why wouldn't it be a federal crime if it is considered violating federal election law for his campaign for a federal elected office?

The federal authority in charge of prosecuting this kind of crime did not think it was a crime.

Could they have? According to LawyerGPT

Lack of Criminal Authority: The FEC does not have the authority to prosecute criminal violations. When potential criminal conduct is identified, the FEC refers such cases to the Department of Justice (DOJ) or relevant U.S. Attorney's Offices for criminal investigation and prosecution.

The DOJ also was referred this conduct and did not charge it. Saying this was an election law violation requires a tortured interpretation of the statute, and arguably would have put Trump in a catch-22 situation where classifying the expense as a campaign expense would be illegal, but also not classifying it as a campaign expense was illegal.

Ok? They didn't refer Trump's conduct to anyone either -- probably because they didn't think it was clear that paying Daniels was a campaign expense. Or maybe because paying her through an intermediary doesn't make it a donation by that person.

Ok? They didn't refer Trump's conduct to anyone either -- probably because they didn't think it was clear that paying Daniels was a campaign expense.

They did think paying McDougal off was a campaign expense though. Remember the FEC committee is equally split between Republicans and Democrats so what the FEC thinks is basically what a 6 person panel equally split between two opposing sides can hammer out as a compromise. They fined AMI for paying McDougal off on behalf of Trump.

More comments

The FEC looked at this very case and decided not to bring any action. The Judge in this trial prevented Trump from providing this fact to the jury.

There's a scenario I've seen postulated elsewhere, that I'm not sure how plausible it is as a possibility (not enough of an expert on the legal system). Specifically, judges can issue suspended sentences, where a defendant is spared jail time subject to abiding by certain conditions set by the judge. These conditions can include refraining from behaviors, contacts, etc. associated with the crime in question — such as giving someone convicted of a drug crime a jail sentence suspended on the condition they go to rehab, stay clean, stay away from known dealers/drug houses, etc.

Given that the 34 charges for which Trump is being sentenced are related to political campaign finance, the proposed scenario is that Judge Merchan gives Trump serious jail time, but suspends it on the condition that Trump refrain from running or campaigning for political office. That is, give Trump the choice of dropping out and letting the Republican convention four days later name someone else their candidate, or going to jail (where he dies — depending on your views and flavor of the scenario, either from old age after how ever many years, or from getting Epsteined before election day).

Is there some rule about sentencing that prevents this?

I hope he tries this. Trump will win elections from a jail cell.

Of course, he won’t try it. It’s a bridge too far, even for New York.

Trump will win elections from a jail cell.

Not if they Epstein him first — assuming it's even necessary, given his likely inability to overcome the "margin of fraud" after all the "Party of Law and Order" Republicans refuse to vote for "a convicted felon" just like they did with Stevens.

Murdering their political opponent in jail would be a bridge too far for many democrats.

Believing that their political opponent killed himself in prison wouldn't, though.

Who would believe this? No one believes Epstein killed himself. Few people even believe McAfee killed himself.

People will believe whatever they need to believe to justify themselves, so long as it's at least plausibly compatible with reality.

ETA: Would you really have such a hard time believing that Trump suffered a sudden and lethal heart attack while alone in his cell?

Any Democrat faced with the choice of believing "the guys on my side are so evil they murdered their rival to keep him out of office" and "The other side's crook couldn't handle prison so shot himself in the back of the head, twice" will pick the latter, every time. And call you a loon for believing otherwise.

I hope he does do that. It would lay bare for the world to see the motive with zero excuse. Get Trump to Florida and say Molon Labe

Florida is required to adhere to New York court decisions. Roberts would sign the order himself. And if DeSantis didn't play ball anyway, there's Federal Marshalls.

I’m not sure Roberts would. He can see what this is and the logic of the Colorado decision applies directly to this case.

It would lay bare for the world to see the motive with zero excuse.

So what? What does it matter if people see "the motive with zero excuse"? Let them see, and get mad, and stew impotently in their anger, doing nothing about it because there's nothing they can do about it.

Get Trump to Florida and say Molon Labe

And when they do indeed "come and take him," drag him back to NY and lock him up?

It's a cute trick, but probably one step too far even for the New York Democrats. After the earlier kerfuffle about States not being allowed to determine eligibility for the Presidency, even John Roberts won't let it go.

even John Roberts won't let it go.

Even after Rep Raskin and the Justice Department force Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves?

And besides, John Roberts can make his decision, and then let him try to enforce it.

Raskin and the Justice Department lack the power to force Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves. I can't see Thomas doing so. They could try to impeach and convict, but they don't have the votes.

The same can be said, at that point, for the state of New York.

The state of New York has armed men in their employ, paid specifically to enforce such decisions. The Supreme Court has literally no actual enforcement power whatsoever beyond the willingness of government officials to willingly heed its rulings.

There are plenty of red law enforcement under federal employ. For that matter the NYPD is fairly red.

There are plenty of red law enforcement under federal employ

None of whom answer (directly) to the Supreme Court. And most cops, regardless of political alignment, are likely to put keeping their jobs and pensions over their personal politics, and the latter means following orders from above. As one put it about why he'd go door-to-door confiscating guns if orders to do so came down "try telling your boss you're not going to do what he's directly told you to do, and see if you still have a job."

I find all the “this is an escalation that will lead to unrest” thoughts going around dangerously naive and fantastical. There is zero possibility of political unrest in America. Americans of both spectrums are increasingly isolated, sedentary, and addicted to their phones. White Americans are becoming poorer. Everyone is addicted to a device which spies on them continually, and all social activity now begins* online. The upper rung of intel communities are hyper-elite well-connected individuals with names like Robert Swan Mueller III who likely care more about maintaining intergenerational wealth and family influence than adhering to abstract principles of justice. If through some cosmic miracle you managed to create some organization intent on unrest, it will be Ruby Ridge but with drone strikes. It’s simply impossible. Any “unrest” would have to come from inside the upper rung of the intelligence agencies, not among the common squabble.

This fact needs to be accepted so that conservatives realize the whole moral burden of correcting the perceived injustice rests in their ability to propagandize, boycott, and culture-craft. There will be no cavalry or Calvary moment to save you. If you do nothing politically or culturally productive, nothing will happen. Ever. Ad infinitum. The new world does not allow for the smallest amount of unrest. They will drone strike you (you will once again complain it is an “escalation”) before they allow any unrest that could be utilized by foreign actors to reduce American influence.

White Americans are becoming poorer.

Is this true? I can see it being true in a relative sense as other groups catch up, but it seems totally fantastical given that basically everyone has become massively richer over the past 40, 30, 20, 10, 5 years.

If you do nothing politically or culturally productive, nothing will happen.

They are incapable of doing that because the right has no human capital

It's unclear what the Democrats will do if they win, because they can't promise anything as they have almost no more positive-sum, or even zero-sum, gains to make. Almost everything they do from here on out, unless someone in the Democratic coalition actually acts as a leader and e.g. shuts down the Left-NIMBYs and greenmailers, is negative-sum, and against a particular ethnic group and sexual identity.

If Trump goes to prison, but Democratic leadership shut that negative-sum behavior down and can manage to just be normal for 20 years, then I think there are few consequences to them for jailing Trump.

But they've put so much effort into avoiding necessary reforms and avoiding having tough conversations, that it's hard to believe that they'll suddenly act like mature leaders governing the nation in the broad national interest.

If they don't shape up, the question is just how much abuse bright young cis heterosexual males (of left-discriminated-against racial or ethnic categories) are willing to take before they decide to organize for their own advantage, just as Democrats tell every other group to organize for their own advantage.

A lot of paranoia within Social Justice seems rooted in the understanding that these men really aren't organizing for their own interests right now, but would be a powerful force if they did so in the future, and thus wants to weaken this category based on an implicit theory of inevitable identitarian conflict, rather than pursuing a more peaceful solution which avoids creating incentives for conflict.

It's unclear what the Democrats will do if they win, because they can't promise anything as they have almost no more positive-sum, or even zero-sum, gains to make.

They'll make negative-sum gains by taking from their enemies and giving to their friends and clients.

If they don't shape up, the question is just how much abuse bright young cis heterosexual males (of left-discriminated-against racial or ethnic categories) are willing to take before they decide to organize for their own advantage, just as Democrats tell every other group to organize for their own advantage.

It turns out the answer is "all of it". They've successfully convinced a majority of society -- including said cis-het makes -- that they deserve all the abuse that is handed out to them, and that it is unacceptable for oppressors like them to organize for their own advantage.

If they don't shape up, the question is just how much abuse bright young cis heterosexual males (of left-discriminated-against racial or ethnic categories) are willing to take before they decide to organize for their own advantage,

So what if "bright young cis heterosexual males" do decide to start organizing for their own advantage? Just cut them off off all avenues of converting such organizing into advantage if you can. And if you can't, then just punish them for organizing in that manner. One can always adjust incentives away from an undesired outcome by shifting the cost/benefit analysis through imposition of costs. If the "abuse" left-discriminated-against-categories are taking is incentivizing them to pursue "organizing for advantage," then you need only provide an offsetting disincentive. People will take any amount of abuse if the consequences for not taking it are even worse. If the punishment for "bright young cis heterosexual males" organizing isn't discouraging them from doing so, then escalate it, harsher and harsher, until it does.

Why "shape up" when you can instead simply destroy the lives of anyone who tries to oppose you?

The democrats have done a ton of positive sum things and there are a lot more positive sum things I expect them to be much better at executing than republicans. For example dems all lined up for the TikTok divestiture, which Trump supported until some random billionaire with a financial interest in TikTok donated and got him to oppose it.

The situation with support for nasty racial/ethnic coalition politics by the Democrats is so bad that it actually isn't clear that forcing TikTok to divest from China will be a net benefit in the medium to long term. If the general direction continues, it will be so out of control by mid-century that Xi Jinping Thought will look reasonable by comparison.

In theory, e.g. environmentalism can be positive sum, but they can't stop screwing up construction projects. Unions, administrators, or environmentalists - at least one group of the democratic coalition must take the loss.

I don't trust Republicans do e.g. properly run groups that monitor for radium in road salt. But at the same time, if those organizations divert resources from checking for radioactivity to the left-identitarian omni-cause, then we are not looking at an even a maintenance of the status quo, but a loss.

We have tried asking nicely for Democrats to stop supporting "corrective" racism, and they always refuse. I don't see how anything other than imposing consequences on them will work. The personnel and programs responsible must be defunded, and de facto legal liability must be increased.

The situation with support for nasty racial/ethnic coalition politics by the Democrats is so bad that it actually isn't clear that forcing TikTok to divest from China will be a net benefit in the medium to long term. If the general direction continues, it will be so out of control by mid-century that Xi Jinping Thought will look reasonable by comparison.

So what? It clearly benefits the people pushing it, and there's nobody remotely powerful enough to make them stop pushing it, so why should they stop?

then we are not looking at an even a maintenance of the status quo, but a loss.

Again, so what? This is a bad thing, sure, but it's an inevitable badness — there's nothing that can be done to stop it.

We have tried asking nicely for Democrats to stop supporting "corrective" racism, and they always refuse.

Because they know there's no possible consequences for said refusal, since there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop them.

I don't see how anything other than imposing consequences on them will work.

Yes, nothing else will work… which means nothing will work because there is simply no way whatsoever to impose consequences on them. They're too powerful.

The personnel and programs responsible must be defunded, and de facto legal liability must be increased.

Except there is no means available, at all, to do any of those. It's never going to happen.

Unless this is wrong, it has decreased since 2018. Something else I’m interested in knowing (but haven’t found yet) is a really solid income x cost of living estimate which accounts for the higher paid jobs increasingly being in high cost areas, eg white American well-paid professionals moving into Silicon Valley or city centers — “average cost of living” tells us nothing about specific cohorts. Have white American wages since 2010 actually accounted for white Americans moving to higher cost areas? Idk. Also curious if it accounts for delayed age of retirement and delaying work because in grad school? Maybe someone smarter than me can inform on that.

the right has no human capital

I don’t disagree but I do think they can develop this, over time