Show me the man, and I will show you the crime. So said the right-hand man to Joseph Stalin, architect of the infamous show trial, the centerpiece of the Soviet system of justice. Today, many Americans are wondering whether their own justice system is any less capricious or politically biased. In less than 12 hours of deliberation, 12 supposedly unbiased jurors – guided by a judge whom many have suggested has displayed a nakedly partisan stance throughout the trial – convicted a former president and leading candidate to reclaim the Oval Office on 34 felony counts. His crime? A long-expired bookkeeping misdemeanor rejected by three authorities but somehow sculpted into a still-undefined felony – based on the testimony of a convicted liar and concocted by a Manhattan district attorney who campaigned on a promise to get Trump by whatever means availed themselves.
So Alvin Bragg has now reached the promised land, and the left has finally achieved what it has thirsted for from the moment Donald Trump claimed the presidency: to label him a convicted felon, thought to be the one surefire way to drive him out of politics. Judge Juan Merchan – a donor to Democrats with an activist family who defied astronomical odds by miraculously landing not one, but all three Trump-related cases in what was supposed to be a random selection process, and as an acting judge no less – closed the deal with consistent rulings favoring the prosecution and silencing the defense. He then gave voluminous instructions which seemed to encourage jurors to conclude there was some amorphous stain of guilt on the defendant – which they could determine themselves. The actors out to take down Trump with their stacked deck played their hands effectively to a willing judge and jury.
But at what cost to the republic?
The Trump Verdict: The Undoing of Our Country?
The Rubicon has been crossed. The once-unthinkable has happened. The distance between the United States of America and any of the world’s many lawless banana republics has just significantly narrowed. Make no mistake, the magnitude of the jury’s swift and unanimous verdict has sent shockwaves around the world. The many who love or hate the 45th president are predictably giddy or outraged at the verdict, but how about the many everyday Americans without strong opinions either way who have always believed their nation is based on the rule of law and not subject to the political persecution of those who dare to threaten the established order? Have we not always believed that we were above the tactics of petty tyrants in a prototypical one-party state?
Ask yourself this simple question, the answer to which should remove any lingering doubts about the justice of the verdict and the trial itself: Would anyone else in the entire country have been indicted, not to mention convicted, on these novel, paper-thin charges? And remember, this was long thought by the left to be the weakest of the four cases brought against their archenemy. The beleaguered prosecutors targeting Trump in three other venues – long under pressure to advance their cases – will undoubtedly be energized by this verdict despite delays that threaten to deaden the desired political impact of their own prosecutions.
And now, with the twisted outcome in hand, and just to make sure the political impact of the verdict sticks, the notorious – or heroic, depending on your viewpoint – Judge Juan Merchan set sentencing for July 11, conveniently four days before the start of the Republican National Convention. Nothing is left to chance when Trump is in the crosshairs.
At the same time, not just Trump loyalists but, more importantly, almost every single Republican across the land will be more motivated than ever to bank their vote as early as possible. Non-Trump-deranged but skeptical or moderate Republicans will likely vote in record numbers on principle alone, perhaps offsetting any gains for Biden based on the convicted felon label. Poll watchers will work around the clock attempting to determine the political impact.
Only God knows the consequences for the loser of what has now officially become, unlike the many proclaimed as such before, the most important election of our lifetime. The one thing on which Americans have always counted, the rule of law, not to mention the very credibility of our elections in the wake of a lawfare campaign designed to disqualify a hated rival, is now undoubtedly on the line. The progressives who have been calling the shots in the Biden administration have won the battle – though not yet the war – and they will now be emboldened beyond measure to continue deconstructing the American way of life.
The 2024 presidential election, if it wasn’t already, has become boom or bust for both sides, the stakes and consequences now more consequential than ever. But for the American system of justice, the damage has already been done. Former Congressman Trey Gowdy said of the verdict on Fox News what so many have undoubtedly thought in the aftermath of the stunning verdict: “It may be the undoing of our country.” Indeed, it is impossible to calculate the cascading effects of the historic turn of events on May 30, 2024 – a day that, as Franklin D. Roosevelt once said of the attack on Pearl Harbor, will live in infamy.
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