And the propaganists who deny them
Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) reflects on Judge Aileen Cannon effectively postponing Donald Trump’s documents trial until after the November election.
She responded to the tweet below by Kyle Cheney with “Trump appointee bows to Trump demands, delays acccountability for stealing nuclear documents.”
Marcy writes:
By 11 my time (plus-5 from ET), it had gone viral, with 200k views, 47 QTs, 4.4k likes, 1.6k RTs, and 300 responses.
The post is a good way to start thinking about the information economy that led us to a place where a Republican judge helps delay accountability for stealing nuclear documents and storing them in a closet normally storing campaign swag. This information economy creates an environment in which a former prosecutor like Aileen Cannon either believes, or claims to believe, outlandish claims of bias and ill-treatment solely because career national security officials — rebranded by Trump as the Deep State — did their job.
The RWers were pissed, as she notes.
This kind of viral response on Xitter is the point — right wingers have deliberately stoked such toxic viral responses for years. This is the kind of “engagement” Xitter’s billionaire owner has chosen to foster.
The point is not rational discussion, but instead the replacement of it with brainless mob-think, a mob-think designed to reinforce unquestioning partisan identity, a mob-think designed to drown out rational consideration of what it means that Judge Cannon has intervened in this way.
The RW propaganda network, she notes, has plowed the earth for growing conspiracies for decades now, conspiracies that provide cover for Cannon to entertain:
- That Walt Nauta, who doesn’t claim to have sorted through any documents, must have the ability to sort through classified documents
- That because the document investigation, which included crimes in DC, started in DC, and used DC SCIFs for the investigation, it’s proof that Jack Smith was deliberately attempting to bypass SDFL
- That because Mark Meadows and Pat Philbin got the White House involved in document response, it’s proof that Biden improperly intervened
- That even though multiple Trump-friendly witnesses testified that Trump didn’t even know Tom Fitton’s Clinton socks theory until 2022, he should be able to argue to jurors he applied it in 2021
- That because NARA informed DOJ about classified documents, the same way they did with Joe Biden, it’s proof that NARA are part of the prosecution team as opposed to the victim
- That because Trump’s surveillance system uses difficult software and one of the defense lawyers only uses an iPad, prosecutors have failed to meet discovery obligations
- That Trump has immunity to steal nuclear documents that he couldn’t even declassify on his own
These are all, individually and collectively, crazy. It’s unclear whether Cannon truly believes them or simply doesn’t care. She has chosen to treat Trump’s claims according to the reality his propaganda bubble has created rather than the actual facts before her.
A lot of the responses to my Tweet were lefties imagining that Jack Smith has some kind of button he can press to get Aileen Cannon replaced; he doesn’t.
But even if he did, it wouldn’t solve the problem. Because the problem before us is that Trump’s mob and his judges have been trained to believe that applying any law to him amounts to a two-tiered system of justice by a very comprehensive propaganda machine.
Trump’s propaganda machine has drowned out facts and replaced it with grievance.
And until something starts cutting through that grievance, mere trials aren’t going to fix this.
The MAGA king can do no wrong. No guardrails can stop him. No laws can bind him. No walls can hold him.
No one but Stormy can spank him.
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