Now that Donald Trump has so convincingly won what may be the most important presidential debate in history, or rather now that Joe Biden has shown he’s manifestly incompetent to be president, will the New York court throw Trump in jail?
And will the Democrats actually be able to replace Biden?
The idea of sending Trump to jail on the utterly ridiculous charges he’s been convicted of is, on its face, absurd. But Biden suggested the debate with Trump because he was trailing Trump badly in the polls and needed to do something to change the dynamics of the campaign.
Unfortunately, like many older folks, the President seemingly can’t recognise the extent of his own decline.
He has good moments, sometimes good hours, he always makes sense to himself, his courtiers constantly reassure him of his brilliance. But the debate was an unmitigated disaster for Biden.
So now, with Trump moving further ahead in the polls, and with some Democrat donors reluctant to stump up for Biden, the President’s campaign is even more desperate to change the dynamic.
The Biden campaign doesn’t control the courts. But the prosecutions of Trump, carried out by Democrat prosecutors, are a shocking and politically motivated abuse of process. This column has always been alive to Trump’s many failings. But Democrats have come to see him as so much the very incarnation of evil they now seem to take the view that anything is justified that helps stop Trump.
How else to explain the psychotic mass delusion of so many Democrats, before the debate, that Biden was competent? The New York Times was so taken aback by Biden’s debate performance it quickly called for him to stand down as candidate.
But, while Biden’s performance was shocking, it wasn’t surprising. It was consistent with how he’s behaved in public for the past two years. But to say that publicly was previously regarded as giving comfort to Trump. Therefore right-thinking (or left-thinking, as the case may be) Dems didn’t say it.
What’s that got to do with the court in New York? Trump is due to be sentenced on July 11. The Republican convention is due on July 15. It’s worth remembering both how ludicrous the prosecution is, and how much it’s already tied to the election.
Trump’s crime was that hush money paid by Trump’s lawyer to porn star Stormy Daniels, to get her not to allege a consensual sexual tryst with Trump, was misrecorded in Trump’s corporate records as a legal rather than a campaign expense. At the very worst, this is a technical misdemeanour.
The matter was examined by federal and city authorities and not prosecuted because it was so marginal, and the alleged illegality so grey.
However, a misdemeanour can be reclassified as a felony if it’s undertaken in the service of another felony. In that case the statute of limitations doesn’t apply. So the prosecution alleged the misrecording of the expense was part of a felony that involved a conspiracy to win the presidential election by deception (even though the expense was not actually misrecorded until after the election).
The prosecution, amazingly, did not precisely specify, much less prosecute, the alleged major felony this misdemeanour was allegedly committed in the service of. A Manhattan jury then convicted Trump in such a farcical legal proceeding that it gravely undermines American courts.
It’s a sad fact that even in the best democratic societies public opinion can influence courts, even though courts are meant to be independent of public opinion. Justice, famously, is meant to be blind to outside factors.
In the twisted logic of this prosecution and conviction, the court could conceivably consider that because Trump looks likely to win a second presidential election, and this was only made possible by his conspiracy to win the first presidential election, the misdemeanour turned into felony on which he was convicted is now more serious in consequence, and therefore justifies a custodial sentence.
This would be a grotesque decision. And it would tear America apart. The normal sentence for such a trivial matter as Trump is charged with would be a fine or some such. Trump is going to appeal, and has overwhelming grounds for appeal. Therefore any sentence should be suspended in the normal way until the appeal is heard.
But a sizeable minority of Americans, certainly many residents of Manhattan, see Trump as the birth of US fascism, a threat to democracy as Biden calls him, a one-man crime wave. His election, as Biden argues, could destroy American democracy.
Therefore they feel justified in trampling all kinds of institutions and norms under foot in the battle to prevent Trump from trampling norms and institutions. New York Times columnists call the Supreme Court corrupt, when it is nothing of the kind, and they routinely lecture Trump and Republicans not to criticise courts when they disagree with specific decisions.
Similarly, 51 former intelligence chiefs, egged on by folks who became senior Biden administration officials, signed a letter saying the discovered laptop of Biden’s wayward son, Hunter Biden, was a Russian fake. Biden and his son both knew this to be false, that the laptop – and all its incriminating evidence – was genuine. But misusing the authority of intelligence agencies, authority accumulated over many decades, was apparently justified on the basis that anything that stopped Trump was morally good.
I have reluctantly come to the conclusion therefore that the Democrats are worse than Trump in trashing norms and institutions. Thus, although it would be a grave step towards genuine civil strife, you can’t put it past a court to try to throw Trump in prison as a way of trying to stop him becoming president. It would be in effect a conviction designed to energise the anti-Trump vote.
It may well have the reverse effect. But when you’re losing badly, desperation double-or-nothing bets always have their appeal.
On the Democrat side, Biden can only be replaced if he agrees to go. One reason Biden chose Kamala Harris as Vice-President was because she was so mediocre no one would ever think he could be replaced by his veep.
Richard Nixon chose both Spiro Agnew and Gerald Ford on the same basis, though Ford ended up a good president. Franklin Roosevelt chose absolute shockers as his vice-presidents until in 1945 he switched to Harry Truman, who turned out a magnificent president. But Harris is a feeble politician.
Biden is unlikely to go willingly. Trump will fight to the death whatever happens. This gripping, tragic circus has a long season ahead.
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