No more Mr. Nice Guys
It’s clear from clips from Trump rally “The Daily Show” and “The Good Liars” that MAGAstan is a peculiar country with a history wildly divergent from our own and worthy of the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse. Those clips are selectively chosen for maximum comedic effect, of course. But what those clips drive home is that what many Americans think they know about recent events is not just bizarre but harmful to their futures. and their children’s.
With the Supreme Court this week aiding and abetting Donald “91 Counts” Trump’s effort to ensure that justice delayed is justice denied, Greg Sargent believes those of us committed to truth, justice and the American way must double down on ensuring that even MAGAstan residents know that it is their rights Trump means to trample.
Consider Liz Cheney’s response to the court’s decision to hear Trump’s presidential immunity appeal:
It is our right as citizens to know whether the man (some of us) will be voting for this fall is a felon indicted by and convicted by juries of his peers, everyday Americans like the residents of MAGAstan. It’s not “it would be nice if,” but a right.
Democrats (and the rest of us in the reality-based community) need to echo Cheney’s message until even MAGAstan can hear it, Sargent writes (The New Republic):
First, Democrats should stress that voters need to know before the election whether Trump committed crimes—and this is due to them as a matter of right. Second, Trump is seeking these delays to end all prosecutions of himself if he regains the White House—to corruptly place himself above the law by pardoning himself or having his handpicked lickspittle attorney general do it. Democrats must say clearly that if the court helps delay the trial until after the election, it will be enabling him to do that.
As many have noted, the Supreme Court didn’t have to agree to review an appeals court ruling against Trump, who is demanding immunity from prosecution for conspiring to obstruct the official electoral count and defraud the United States, among other charges. The high court could have simply let the lower court ruling stand, given that Republican-appointed and Democratic-appointed judges unanimously ruled that Trump’s efforts to overturn the election don’t constitute official acts—and thus don’t get immunity—a clear-cut legal case.
It’s not even a close call, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional law professor, tells Sargent. But you don’t need to be one to know that or to see what Trump is up to. He means to get himself back into the Oval Office by any means necessary — including rigging the post-election a second time if he loses — and to stay there until he dies. He has help in Congress, in the right-wing think tanks, and now in the Supreme Court.
We need to not let this message fall into the Trump normalization memory hole.
Note that Cheney stated unequivocally that voters deserve to know whether Trump committed crimes while trying to overthrow democracy—and deserve a full accounting of those actions—precisely because the sheer gravity of what he did threatens the democratic system itself. As Will Stancil points out, Democrats sometimes hesitate to talk this way, out of fear of being perceived as trying to politicize legal processes.
But in this case, Democrats have an obligation to level with voters about what’s really happening here.
At this point, the notion that Trump would use presidential power to end prosecutions of himself is so widely accepted that news accounts note it in passing. “He could use the powers of his office to seek to dismiss the election interference indictment altogether,” The New York Times observes, as detachedly as it might report on Trump’s plans to alter the decor in the Oval Office.
So ask yourself this: What percentage of voters is aware that Trump actually will have the power to cancel ongoing prosecutions of himself, if he’s elected president again?
Joe Biden winning by a landside would be great. Winning close elections is not about that or increasing Democratic turnout so much as shaving the opponents margins where he’s strongest.
Steal your vote? All voters need to know that Trump and his SCOTUS allies mean to steal something precious from them by denying them what they have a right to know. Trump wants to be a king, a dictator, a monarch in a country founded on rejecting the very idea.
But how many voters grasp that if the trial is delayed, the election itself will decide whether that process runs to completion? How many understand that the Supreme Court’s handling of this matter will determine whether Trump has the opportunity—should he win the election—to place himself beyond legal accountability in a way no other criminal defendant can?
Democrats need to seize this moment to make those stakes clear.
And for God’s sake, for once not be shy about saying what they stand for, and loud enough for them to hear it even on Fox News.
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