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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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Since my post last week for which I was explicitly not warned at that time, I thought I would address the particulars of the criticism, mainly that,

your substantive position (that the primary impetus for targeting Trump is purely political, as evidenced by the ceaseless barrage of unusual, contorted, or even spurious charges raised against him) seems defensible, but the way you raise it as though it were obviously true (implicitly building consensus), without furnishing either evidence or argument, brooks no discussion on the matter. That is antithetical to the foundation of the Motte.

First, there is nothing stopping anyone from disagreeing, but I figure I should present and defend my thesis.

Donald Trump is guilty of winning the 2016 election, and for this crime he will be hounded by Democrats until the end of his days. The crime of winning in 2016 was the rationale for the Russia collusion hoax, it prompted the Mueller investigation (which produced nothing actionable), it was the reason for his first impeachment (not the appropriate anti-corruption measures he was taking against his likely 2020 opposition), and it is the reason he was indicted last week.

Plenty of people commit plenty of crimes, and I'm sure Trump is technically guilty of many things, but the same can be said of Obama, Bush, and Clinton, as well as she-Clinton and VP Biden, though not themselves Presidents. The same can be said of many, many people at all levels of the legislative and executive branches. Presidents are not prosecuted, and for good reason, until now, so the difference cannot be the scale of the crime, but must be some other factor. The obvious and clear factor, judging on the last seven years of evidence, is that Trump is unduly and irrationally hated by the powers that be, and that he is specifically marked for destruction in a way most others are shielded.

From Victor Davis Hansen:

#1) Bragg promised in advance that he would try to find a way to indict Trump. His prior boasts are reminiscent of Stalin’s secret police enforcer Lavrentiy Beria’s quip, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” Nancy Pelosi gave the game away, when in her dotage, she muttered that Trump had a right to prove his innocence as if he is presumed guilty.

#2) No former president has ever been indicted—and for good reason. Such prosecutions would be viewed as persecutions and render all former presidents veritable targets of every publicity-hungry and politically hostile local, state, or federal prosecutor. They would reduce the presidency to Third World norms. Gratuitously prosecuting former presidents would become a political tool to harm the opposing political party or to tarnish the legacy of a former president.

VDH goes on to list six problems with this prosecution, before 20 examples of crimes that have gone unprosecuted, from the people I've mentioned as well as various spooks and spies.

If we look at the indictment itself, and the person responsible for it, Alvin Bragg, you see more evidence of my thesis.

Here's the kind of thing he chooses to prosecute:

A Manhattan parking garage attendant who was shot twice while confronting an alleged thief at his business was charged with murder after wrestling away the weapon and using it to fire at the suspect.

This is the kind of anarcho-tyranny that one would expect when you view the world through a comprehensive lens that allows for understand my claim. That Alvin Bragg doesn't give a shit about the law, he's just there to settle scores and punish those he can find. The law is powerless to help, but boy can they punish when they get around to it. Alvin Bragg, for what's it worth, is another Soros-funded prosecutor. Soros at least gets his money's worth, as every single DA I've ever seen associated with him and his money is using their discretion is release violent criminals and prosecute normal citizens. The man has a type.

Everything about this perfectly fits the model that I've developed over the last seven years for understand what happens to people when confronted with Donald Trump. Trump engenders hatred and revulsion unmatched by anyone in my lifetime, the source of that hatred is his 2016 election win, and that people like Bragg can't help themselves but act on it.

Maybe one day events will not fit this model, but today is not that day.

For those of you who don't share this model, or don't share this view, how can you explain the lack of prosecutions of other executive branch employees in the past? How can you explain the two impeachments and long-lingering investigation? How can you explain the one-sided coverage by once-respectable media outlets? How can you explain anything that's happened since 2016? I didn't use to rely on this explanation, but after a certain amount of time, it becomes the simplest explanation, and I have stopped fighting it.

One thing we should have a discussion on is George Soros someday. I’ve read his books, he’s realistically seemed like an untenured professor type who got out of grad school but was not smart enough to get a job. He’s viewed as a financial market genius but to be honest the quality of market participants was far lower back then. There were guys who were plumbers one day and making $50 million the next year after showing up on stock exchange floor.

I have enough respect for Soros mental capabilities that I just don’t understand what he’s doing in politics. Things like bail reform and ending mass incarceration I was reading today that the Koch Brothers funded those activities too. George Mason and the other think tanks funded by the Koch always supported a lot of reforms. But some of the people he’s gotten in bed with like Chesa Boudin makes it feel like he’s literally bored and running social experiments. Perhaps to test his reflexivity theory on markets. That he could go too far and cause a counter and farther reaction the other direction. The Trump prosecution itself feels authoritarian to me and not Democratic and is reasonable justification for a lot on the gop to give up on the system. And yet Soros backed this guy.

The most notorious speculator in the world is a hack to you? Seriously?

He is one of the most respected figures among the best traders in the world. These are people who not only beat the markets, they beat the crap out of them. And I'm not talking about the average Goldman trader. I'm talking about the desks that don't even consider taking your money unless you put 10 million on the table, no questions asked.

Everythin was easier in the old days, yes. That's what a loser would say.