Monday Musings: Why everyone should be concerned about Trump's treatment in the legal system.

Especially those not on the MAGA bandwagon.

This month marks the two-year anniversary of Howlin’ at the Moon in ii-V-I on Substack. The very first essay here, No, math isn’t racist, was published on March 7, 2022. A lot has happened since then. Most of it good, though not all. That’s just life.

Despite recent travails, I am still the luckiest person that I know. No small part of that luck involves the wonderful community that has sprung up around Howlin’. Many of you are uber-talented Substack writers whose work I admire. Others are courageous professionals in science, medicine, law, and academia, fighting the good fight while allowing the rest of us to follow along.

I want to particularly acknowledge those who recommend Howlin’. There are few favors you could ask of me that I would refuse. Thank you.

As I have gotten to know some of you, I thank my lucky stars that I can count among my acquaintances here so many who have not imbibed the Kool Aid served up across the social and political spectrum these days. Many of you are completely independent thinkers, adept at calling out bullshit no matter where it comes from.

It’s not difficult to call BS on people you are not particularly fond of. It’s when you are willing to do the same to those you generally count as like-minded that push comes to shove. That’s when you figure out who’s good in the pocket. My friend Mark Balzer (a notable former player in Idaho Republican Party politics) has a saying that addresses this quite succinctly: “Never grant your friends political grace you would deny your opponents.” Many of you understand this concept well, and none of that is lost on me. Massive respect.

To mark the first 24 months of Howlin’, I’m offering a temporary 24% discount to anyone who wishes to upgrade their free subscription to paid. Before you do, the only things here behind a paywall are Science Friday (and other coming video features) and user commenting. All of the essays and columns are free to read.

If you don’t care about Science Friday, the only reason to upgrade is to support my work. I understand that there are a bazillion writers on Substack, and I know that you can’t support them all, so I’m happy for every new paid subscription but won’t twist anyone’s arm.

On to Monday Musings. Cheers!

-M

Bear with me for a paragraph. Donald Trump is, IMO, a lazy fool whose best characteristics are being a charlatan, a serial liar, an immodest braggart, a buffoon, and not particularly effective at either running a business or governing. It goes downhill from there. If Trump had ever referred to my daughter (or any other woman I liked) the way he profaned women in the infamous “Access Hollywood” video, he’d be running around with my foot sticking out of his fanny. I’d do the six months in the hole. Though I agree with many of his ideas and policies, I pretty much loathe Trump himself.

Yet, having said all of that, the only thing that I find more upsetting than Trump are the tactics of many of his enemies to take him down. Despite what you hear across much of the mainstream media, I think that Trump isn’t nearly as much of a “threat to our democracy” as is the mainstreaming of some of the legal and political tactics used against him by his enemies. If they succeed, we are all in way more trouble than if Trump wins in 2024.

Say what you will about Trump, but he’s got enough money to afford great legal counsel and is a former POTUS. He has resources that most of us can only dream of. Yet he’s still under the gun for a bunch of bogus claims. If Trump can be subjected to dirty, and in some cases, illegal, tactics carried out by federal and state law enforcement and spread by a willing media at the direction of his political opponents, as has clearly happened, what chance do you and I have when it’s us in the barrel?

I am somewhat heartened by today’s 9-0 SCOTUS ruling that restored Trump to the presidential ballot after a move by several states to remove him under the 14th Amendment. Though no reasonable legal scholar thought much of this patently unconstitutional gambit, it slowed down Trump’s opponents not one bit.

The idea, when it comes to Trump’s opponents, is that the process, if nothing else, is the punishment. Enemies want to bleed Trump to death under a mountain of dubious legal proceedings, like convicting him for inflating property values to obtain loans that were fully paid and retired, then goading him by trolling on X.

Incredibly, when real estate-heavy businesses threatened to pull out of New York State over this, Governor Kathy Hochul told them that the Trump verdict was just for Trump. That ought to make everyone feel better about the blindfold over Lady Justice’s eyes.

Besides the aforementioned dubious prosecution by NYAG Letitia James over common real estate transactions, the prosecution of Trump in an election interference case in Georgia is rife with issues concerning the prosecution. My guess is that regardless of the actual merits of the case, it eventually goes nowhere because of the actions of the Fulton County DA, Fani Willis.

Back in the days when the ACLU actually stood for civil liberties, they might have been near the head of the line to defend an unpopular figure against unconstitutional attacks on their rights. But no more. These days, beyond MAGA world, there are remarkably few others who value the rule of law over getting what they want by defending Trump. And that’s the scariest thing that I can think of about our current political state.

There is, for instance, simply no evidence, not even a scintilla, that Trump ever assaulted E. Jean Carroll. That’s why no criminal charges were ever brought. What Carroll and her supporters were counting on was that a jury in NYC, where Trump is not popular, would see things her way anyway. It worked. That does not mean that it’s just.

I don’t know what happened between Trump and Carroll. And neither, really, does anyone else besides them. Snark all you want, but when evidence-free judgements become the norm, everyone is potentially screwed. Ask Brett Kavanaugh how this works.

Again, the process is the punishment. Trump will have a difficult time recovering anything from this clownish legal debacle, even if it indeed goes nowhere.

Trump has two legal cases out on the horizon that appear to have some merit: one in DC and one in Florida. We’ll see how those go. But so far, I’m not at all impressed along these lines with anything other than the lengths to which Trump’s opponents are willing to bend the law in order to prevent him from running for president again.

In case I’ve been less than clear, I despise Donald Trump. I will never vote for him for anything. But I respect the roughly half of the country that did. This is America, where we all get a chance to participate in the political process but must, in turn, abide by the outcome. I’m almost never happy with the outcome of a presidential election because I think that the candidates are nearly all nimrods. You know what? That’s just too bad for me.

Again, if enemies can bury Trump, a former POTUS with considerable resources, under mountains of dubious legal actions in order just to punish someone they don’t like, what chance do folks like you and me have if we ever find ourselves behind the 8-ball?

If you are happy about what’s happening to Trump because you think he’s got it coming, guilty or not, I’ll just leave you with the immortal words of Bill Munny: “We all got it coming, kid.”

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, and arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth, on Facebook at facebook.com/martin.hackworth, and on Substack at martinhackworthsubstack.com.