Disaster when countries look to courts, not ballot box, for politics
Remember “Lock her up”? And the way in which people said that it was “incitement” against Hillary Clinton whenever Donald Trump’s supporters chanted that? Well it seems that for many people in this country, consistency is not a principle.
Back then Democrats claimed that salivating over the prosecution of a former Secretary of State was not only poor taste. It was said to be dangerous and violate an important constitutional principle.
So it’s odd that for the past week much of this country has been salivating over the idea of “Locking him up.” In anticipation of the arrest of Donald Trump barricades have gone up outside the Manhattan Criminal Court downtown. And a corner of 5th Avenue near Trump Tower seems to have been blocked off for the past week, with row upon row of secret service, police and even ambulance vehicles waiting outside a hotel in which some sort of legal negotiation seems to be ongoing.
What is happening?
The truth is that you don’t need to be a fan of Donald Trump’s to recognize that the charges that are alleged to be coming are cooked up. If it was anyone other than Donald Trump this fever for a prosecution would never be occurring.
Certainly the charge in question could damage Trump. Part of his base will not enjoy being reminded of his affair with Stormy Daniels or the apparent payment of hush money. But the idea that Trump would end up going to court and potentially even prison because over such a charge is very concerning. Because if such a thing were to happen two things would happen in quick succession.
The first, as Trump himself knows — and The Post reported yesterday — will be that he will be able to rally up his base. His political rivals for the Republican nomination for 2024 will have all their oxygen taken away and be forced to talk endlessly about Trump. And while that may be how Trump and the Democrats would like it, this would be a disaster for the GOP and the country.
The second thing that would happen would be that a precedent would be set which would be nothing short of catastrophic.
Back in 1974 when President Ford pardoned his predecessor he put down an important marker. Whatever the actual crimes that President Nixon had committed in office it was not in the interests of the United States to have a former President sitting in a courthouse, let alone a jail cell.
But the lesson was not learned. Since the 1990s every President has had to face a steady drum-beat of calls for their indictment, impeachment and imprisonment. And while plenty of people on both sides hate this when it is leveled against their guy they love it when it is against their opponents.
We already know where this will lead. In Israel it is almost 10 years since a former Prime Minister — Ehud Olmert — was convicted and imprisoned on bribery charges from decades earlier. It didn’t help that when he went to prison a former president of the country was already serving time in jail for totally different charges. But nor is it a surprise that the last decade of Israeli politics has been dominated by the prospect of another prime minister going to jail.
Despite being elected more times and for longer than any previous Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s political opponents keep dreaming of him following Olmert to a jail cell. They want to stop him being a political threat by wielding this legal threat.
It makes the business of democracy even harder than it should be. Because it means that while trying to govern a country, win re-election and much more the prime minister has to spend his time fighting off legal challenges. As in America, this judicial vengeance has other effects.
Not least is that it puts talented and successful people off going into politics. If Trump was to go to jail what would it do? It would satisfy some of the country for a time. But it would be the political equivalent of fast-food snacking: disastrous for the long-term health of the nation. Even Trump realized in office that “Lock her up” was a slogan, not a policy.
You already have to be wealthy to run for office in this country. But why would anyone do so when they know that the rewards of office have so diminished while the dangers have so increased?
If Trump goes to court first we can all guess who will go next. If it is not President Biden himself it will be a member of his immediate family. Because although this time it is politically ambitious leftists like Alvin Bragg and Tish James working away, next time it will be equally ambitious DAs and AGs from the right. And as surely as the left went after Trump, ambitious Republicans will find a way to get any future Democrat in office.
It’s not the future the Founders saw. And it’s not a future many of us would relish. But it´s the future that people high on revenge are stampeding us into. They´re not going to enjoy the world they’ll create.
Finally, a backlash to woke
Is the anti-woke backlash finally happening? There are a couple of hopeful signs.
Readers may have seen the appalling footage from Stanford Law School earlier this month when students insulted and walked out on a lecture given by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan. You might also have seen the presumptuous “diversity” dean Tirien Steinbach read out a set of prepared remarks that seemed to have been written by a five-year-old.
Now, in the wake of bad publicity — and perhaps some donor pressure — the heads of the law school have apologized to the judge and announced the “diversity” dean is on leave.
Meantime the Tennessee library director who verbally abused conservative author Kirk Cameron and disrupted an event last month has been fired. Woke Allan Morales didn’t obey the old librarians’ wish to “Ssshhhh” because he thought his politics trumped any other standards.
It’s a start, certainly. But there’s a long way to go.
