The American justice system continues to treat Donald Trump like any other defendant, and so continues to play into his rhetoric.
I wrote two blog posts last August arguing that the American government was wrong to raid former president Trump’s Florida home. Not because I don’t think they had good reason to, or because I think that Trump was the target for a witch hunt. I made the case that Trump’s narrative of being targeted by the dreaded ’Establishment’ was legitimised when the FBI raided Trump’s mansion looking for classified documents. The fact that president Biden was quick to lecture Trump on the evils of taking classified documents home after leaving office unaware that he himself had classified documents from the Obama administration in his garage made the whole affaire farcical. The law is supposed to be neutral, but given how partisan the supreme court is, and how intensely political any legal proceedings against a former president would is, prosecutors should be aware that any case against Trump is as much politics as it is justice. As I argued in a 2022 blog post, if a case against Trump is to succeed, it has to be a sufficiently understandable and sufficiently egregious crime. The problem with the current case against Trump is twofold, firstly it is not entirely clear how he broke the law, and secondly and most importantly it looks like Trump’s crime is primarily a technicality.
America is deeply divided. Every case against a currently active politician is fraught with partisan bias and no person is as liable for being considered partisan as Trump. In that environment the only case which has a good chance of appearing to be legitimate to Americans from both sides of the aisle is one where the crime is obvious. Trump famously said in 2016 that he could shoot someone on fifth avenue in New York and still be popular, and I think that if the crime he is accused of is less serious then he’d have a good shot at being considered innocent in the eyes of his supporters. In a sense I think Trump’s argument that he is being unfairly targeted by the law is strong. No previous American president have had to face a court over any of their actions, even Richard Nixon walked away from the Watergate scandal without a criminal record. So Trump has a point in being upset that he is forced to come to court over some dodgy accounting which happened seven years ago. No one should be above the law, but it’s frustrating to see how the American judicial system continue to treat Trump like any random person and not an influential politician. Being equal before the law does not mean that every defendant should be treated exactly the same. It is only by acknowledging how different it is to deal with Trump as compared to a more typical defendant the American courts can appear neutral.
As I’ve been saying before, while true judicial neutrality is practically impossible it is still a venerable ideal which should be strived for, and in practical terms perceived neutrality is more important than neutrality in terms of outcomes. By clumsily dealing with Trump as though he’s some sort of median defendant the justice system’s reputation and perceived neutrality gets undermined by playing into Trump’s rhetoric. In theory the judicial process is separate from politics but in reality things are not so clear cut, especially given that the district attorney, the office which has indicted Trump in New York, is an elected position currently held by the Democrat Alvin Bragg.
Trump’s term in office was defined by spectacle, pageantry, and optics and to defeat Trump his political rivals have to play his game. A more traditional politician would not have survived a single one of Trump’s many scandals during his campaign alone, let alone his actual presidency. Trump is not a normal politician and his presence forces those around him to adapt to his rhetoric to stand a chance. Lady Justice may wear a blindfold, but that will not work for prosecutors.
If you liked this post you can read my last post about the new monetary policy paradigm, or the rest of my writings here. It'd mean a lot to me if you recommended the blog to a friend or coworker. Come back next Monday for a new post!
I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
Cover photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson
Comments