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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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His crime was winning the 2016 election. It was the crime that prompted two impeachments, and now an indictment. Trump cannot be allowed to get away with it, and so Democrats have overreached at every opportunity, grasping at straws, to get something, anything, to stick to him.

That strikes me as a perverse sort of applause light. It belongs in the same category as "They hated Him because He told the truth": a zinger designed specifically for people who already buy into the premise. I'm sure plenty of readers saw it, immediately thought of examples like you've provided here, upvoted and moved on. Please clap. For those who disagreed with your premise, there wasn't a lot to work with. This version of your argument is way better.


With my whinging out of the way, I want to riff off of @ActuallyATleilaxuGhola. Well, I want to go further than 20%. The vast majority of Trump Derangement Syndrome, political prosecution, Congressional mummery--it can be explained with the phrase "he can't keep getting away with it!"

People don't like to admit that. They'll prevaricate about eroding norms or unpresidential conduct or reduced credibility abroad. But those are symptoms. Hatred and revulsion are reflexes to the perception that justice was not served. It's not that he won, it's that he won after doing something that was supposed to disqualify him. Something that theoretically would have sunk a less charismatic campaign. There were a lot of "somethings," each an opportunity for political opponents to board that train, and once they were on board, they had a direct route to becoming personal opponents. Trump offends people more than Ted Cruz or Jeb! ever could, because he hits their sense of fairness.

It's important to note that this is near orthogonal to any actual, you know, guilt. People who play the game surely "get away with it" more often than those who don't. I could believe they commit more crime, given their greater means, than normal citizens. How might real estate moguls stack up?

That's all you need to explain the constant baying for Trump's head.