The American people of today can’t handle the President and DOJ of one party throwing the top brass of the opposition party in prison, no matter how well deserved. By "can't handle" I take it you mean that the reaction would be so consequential as to endanger the entire constitutional system. If you meant otherwise, that the reaction would be only to cost Trump his reelection, I would reject that rationalization of political expediency out of hand. But I credit you with the former assertion, again a well formulated opinion but one which I consider misplaced.
Our exchanges have brought us to this place, I believe that a resort to political expediency in this circumstance threatens the very existence of the rule of law and, in turn, our constitutional governance. You on the other hand believe that to fail to account for public sentiment by pursuing justice would gravely endanger our constitutional system and "our very livelihoods."
Neither one of us is a credentialed soothsayer therefore we cannot know who better sees the future. We can only balance risks against probabilities and probabilities against costs and then, like Yogi Berra, make our predictions about the future. In doing that we ought to look at what facts are available to us.
I have pointed to the ongoing miscarriages of justice that have occurred in the wake of the decision not to prosecute Hillary. I aver that the overwhelming majority of the country has lost confidence in our institutions. We on the right have lost confidence in the Department of Justice and the FBI and virtually every other department of government which we damn as "the deep state." The left has equally lost confidence in government but in different parts of it. Anything to do with Donald Trump is so anathema to the left and his government is so illegitimate that he must be impeached even on transparently bogus grounds. Anything that Donald Trump supports or advances, must be opposed.
As you quite rightly point out, this cleft in our society is exaggerated by the media who, at least that part which we label "the establishment," supports the left at every turn even to the point of fatuity. A point for your side of this argument, at least to the degree that the media can attach to an unlikely verdict a charge of malfeasance to Donald Trump after a jury trial conducted by the Department of Justice. I contend that a verdict of guilty is unlikely in the venues in which Hillary Clinton would likely have been tried. Either way, would Trump be held accountable to the point of serious political consequences?
About 25 years ago I talked to a federal attorney who told me that they were having problems obtaining guilty verdicts because of jury nullification where inner-city juries were impaneled. The trend could only have worsened in a quarter-century, indeed we have seen a notorious example in the wayward jury that convicted Roger Stone.
But let us assume a guilty verdict, let us further assume that the media incessantly contends that Donald Trump has abused his authority by sending the matter to a jury and, finally, let us further assume that that jury, against all expectations, convicts Hillary Clinton. Will the masses rise up and overturn the government? Will they impeach Donald Trump in their anger? Will Republicans lose the house, or the Senate or even the next presidential election as a result?
Before we assume these catastrophes would ensue we must ask, what in history leads us to that conclusion? The acquittal of Donald Trump in impeachment has not raised a hint of such baleful consequences. Why this?
Let us consider the effects on the country of the hearings concerning Brett Cavanaugh. By the logic that says that we dare not prosecute Hillary Clinton, we must, to be consistent, have refrained from defending Brett Cavanaugh. But we did defend him, why? Because the rule of law was at stake. If we permit the Democrats to stack the court we are conceding the end of the Constitution and the end of the Republic. We defended Cavanaugh without fear that the country would burn down if his appointment were consented to.
Of course there is a difference between prosecuting a presidential candidate even after she lost the election and defending a prospective Supreme Court Justice but I suspect Hillary had lost most of her value to the left while she remained perhaps the most hated woman in America. Despised even by many on the left.
Yes, the media would try to pin the prosecution on Donald Trump just as they impeached him and deputized Muller to investigate him but Pres. Trump has withstood it all. It is not a stretch to believe that he would withstand this.
When I weigh the risks against the costs, I still conclude that, “This whole thing went south when Trump said publicly that Hillary ought not to be prosecuted.”
Your posts are always so full of interesting and agreeable thoughts that I (almost) don’t want to reply, lest my answer contain too much retort’, and not enough appreciation.
But having said that, here is my ‘retort’ :-)
“By the logic that says that we dare not prosecute Hillary Clinton, we must, to be consistent, have refrained from defending Brett Cavanaugh.”
I think this is a false dichotomy. Defending someone and prosecuting someone have completely different (opposite) burdens of proof. Our justice system regards individual freedom so highly, that whenever there is a shadow of a doubt, we must judge in favor of not restricting that freedom. That is what “innocent until proven guilty” is based on.
And here’s the kicker: in politics there is always a shadow of a doubt (and far, far beyond) and it’s not one juror quietly disagreeing with the other eleven. It is approximately 60 million “jurors” disagreeing with the other 60 million.
So, what I meant by “The American people can’t handle...” was not that voters would sacrifice justice for the political expediency of getting Trump re-elected. But neither did I mean that voters would sacrifice justice to protect our constitutional system. I didn’t mean voters would sacrifice justice at all for any reason.
What I really meant was that, apart from the obvious role of determining who is elected President, and the slightly less obvious role of protecting our constitutional system through a peaceful transition of power every four years, nation-wide presidential elections also serve a third role:
They offer an opportunity for the people to voice opinions on various issues of importance to them. We sometimes call them “mandates”. We often disagree on what the mandate was, how clear it was, or whether there even was one, but candidates run on issues, ideas, promises, platforms, etc... so the voters aren’t voting just for the person - but also for ideas and promises they campaign on.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that Hillary Clinton had been prosecuted, convicted and locked up in 2017 by Donald Trump’s DOJ, and that, being a convicted felon, she was ineligible to run for POTUS in 2020.
Now, let’s assume that most of the 60 million plus Americans who had voted for her in 2016 loudly disapproved, and believed it was political retribution by a Republican administration, not justice.
Let’s say that amidst this outcry, there arose a Democrat nominee who campaigned on the promises of fully pardoning Hillary Clinton, ordering his incoming DOJ to overturn her guilty verdict, and putting her back on track for the Presidency, by appointing her as VP.
Finally, let’s say the outcome of that election was that the Democrat challenger lost, say 48% to Trump’s 52%. 58 million votes to 62 million votes.
So, the fear of Trump losing his re-election bid proves unfounded. And the fear of endangering the peaceful transition of power and our constitutional system also proves unfounded. (Those weren’t my fears anyway, but just to eliminate them from the equation, let’s say they were proven unfounded).
But I am still uneasy about the whole outcome. Why? Because I know that those 58 million pro Hillary Clinton voters were not only voting to choose a President, and to facilitate a peaceful transition of power, but they were also loudly and clearly rendering their verdict regarding Hillary Clinton’s guilt or innocence.
Now, I understand that voters in a Presidential election are not jurors in a criminal trial. But it is hard to ignore 58 million voters insisting she is innocent, and claim that her guilt was established “beyond a shadow of doubt”.
Especially when the DOJ that convicted her was serving at the pleasure of a Republican President (her opponent in the previous election) and when all 62 million voters saying she is guilty happen to belong to the opposing political party!
Look, I don’t doubt that she’s guilty - she and most of Obama’s top brass grossly abused their power, weaponized their offices and agencies, and attempted to subvert the will of the people. They deserve to rot in prison (or in Hell) and I would have no problem casting my vote that way - whether I was one of 12 jurors, or one of 120 million voters.
Either way, our justice system doesn’t allow us to lock her up when there is a shadow of a doubt - and I’d say 58 million voters disagreeing would qualify as a shadow of a doubt.
A simpler way of stating the whole conundrum is this:
If Hillary Clinton was locked up, the Democrats would claim “This verdict was not about justice, this verdict was about politics”. How could we dispute that claim, when they would be so obviously right?
If 99% of Democrats would vote “not guilty”, and 99% of Republicans would vote “guilty”, can we deny the possibility that it was a politically driven verdict? And if it possible that it was politically driven, does that not cast a shadow of doubt? And if there is doubt, can there be true justice?