Tainted Trump Indictments Will Put System on Trial

Another Reason To Thank Trump

President Bill Clinton. So much for “lies about sex.”

We begin with a brief story from a recent baseball game—and how it illustrates why people have lost faith in our institutions.

Last weekend, at the end of a college baseball game between Mississippi Valley State and New Orleans, a batter complained to the umpire about a called strike two.  When the batter returned to the batter’s box, the displeased umpire got even.

He didn’t chew out the hitter, or warn him—an umpire’s standard and acceptable response to a griping player.  Instead, when the pitcher threw the next pitch low and outside, almost hitting the dirt, the umpire called the obvious ball a strike.  It was strike three.  The batter was out, the final out of the game.  The umpire imperiously walked off the field.

The baseball world erupted at this outrage, film of which made the rounds on social media.  The college conference where this spectacle occurred immediately suspended the umpire.

Now consider a different scenario.  What if the conference had made excuses for the umpire?  Or simply ignored public complaints?  Worse still, what if the conference leadership secretly and collectively applauded the umpire’s decision to send the disliked batter and his team a message?  Even as baseball remains one of the few national institutions that still command public trust, that confidence would evaporate quickly if such calls became normal.

Popular faith in our institutions has plummeted in recent years.  This is not an arbitrary or inevitable trend.  This skepticism has grown in rational response to the leftist takeover of these same institutions, as well as the resulting injustices dished out by those institutions towards people who dissent from the dominant ideology.  Now, decades of leftist domination and abuses of the legal system have finally caught up with that institution as well, corroding faith in a cornerstone of our society. 

There are pockets of fairness across the legal landscape.  States where judges are elected instead of appointed through the insider-dominated “merit selection” system have fared better.  Also, the U.S. Supreme Court still is dominated by Republican-appointed justices, and the court has blocked some of the Left’s worse abuses.  Indeed, the Left routinely pauses from scolding critics of our “independent judiciary” whenever a new high court ruling draws their ire, their inconsistency buried beneath an avalanche of double-talking claptrap.  But the Supreme Court renders very few opinions every year.  The bulk of the court system—that which citizens encounter daily—is stacked against people of the Right.

Decades of leftist domination and abuses of the legal system have finally caught up with that institution, corroding faith in a cornerstone of our society. 

Conservatives have resisted the call to question the courts for decades, turning the other cheek to one outrage after another coming from institutions they were taught to respect.  But now the injustices have become too frequent and the misconduct too grave.  The day of reckoning has come, for the courts no longer can be counted on simply to call balls and strikes fairly when people or cases come before them. 

Injustice by Design

Leftist trends in the law have been acidic to public confidence.  One poll of over 1,000 Americans shows only one-third of Americans have confidence in the courts and judiciary.  Seventy percent believe “the courts favor the wealthy.”  Two-thirds say “the courts have become too political.” 

The people sense that the courts often try to reward people and punish others based on their political leanings.  Judges with the courage to defy the Left increasingly are harassed and professionally marginalized.  And, just like the disgruntled college umpire, judges too often retaliate—sometimes collectively—against their critics.

We’re used to hearing complaints about a biased criminal-justice system from the Left.  They use accusations of pervasive racial discrimination, for example, to advocate sentencing reforms designed to release inmates and dump more hardened convicts onto our streets.  Now, however, concerns about a biased court system come at least as often from the Right.  Prominent and serious conservative journals increasingly publish articles with such titles as “The Justice System Is Rigged against the Right.”

Nowhere has this politicization been plainer than in the system’s treatment of January 6 defendants.  They have been incarcerated and sentenced far out of proportion to their offenses and criminal histories (if they have any).  Politically correct groupthink among judges in the District of Columbia has allowed the accused to languish in deplorable jail conditions.  Exculpatory evidence has been withheld, as the Tucker Carlson footage has revealed, and nobody expects any professional discipline for the prosecutors or congressional counsel responsible for this brazen violation of civil rights.

Election litigation has further revealed the divide.  The courts’ cowardly, politically correct indifference to the 2020 election anomalies and the 2022 shenanigans in Arizona has been shameful.  Election attorneys are fearful of even entering an appearance in court and challenging these practices, as they risk sanctions and professional targeting for disputing the ruling-class narrative.

And now come the apparently pending criminal indictments of President Donald Trump.  To understand the crystal-clear double standard at work, consider how the ruling class treated two presidents accused of infidelity and subsequent cover-ups.

Democrat Bill Clinton was caught stone-cold lying under oath about a sexual relationship with a young intern.  He helped her career thereafter, lining up blue-chip job offers.  The RINO special prosecutor who finished up the Lewinsky investigation refused to prosecute Clinton for perjury, fraud or anything else.  The Fake News Media applauded, repeating their mantra that his offense was merely telling “lies about sex.”

Today, Trump is being investigated by a New York grand jury for doing essentially the same thing with porn star Stormy Daniels:  telling “lies about sex” and facilitating the cover-up with financial inducements.  Yet after reportedly turning down the case, then drawing heat from his Democratic base, the Manhattan District Attorney now is taking the requisite final acts before asking a grand jury to charge Trump.  With Trump, there is no more dismissive talk of “lies about sex,” just the cry of “Hang him high by any means necessary.”

I was the first writer to note how Trump can win post-indictment by pointing to indicted Democratic heroes from the recent past.  Trump also should note that by electing him, the people will tell the elites they don’t believe in the system anymore—and an overhaul is needed.

The other criminal investigations of Trump have a similarly cavalier ring to them:  Yes, this is unprecedented; we’re in uncharted territory and there are extenuating circumstances; but why are those indictments taking so long?  In Georgia, where Trump is accused of improperly pressuring the Secretary of State to affect the vote tallies, the case essentially boils down to taking out of context Trump’s use of the single word “finding” a certain number of votes.  In the January 6 “insurrection” investigation, prosecution of Trump requires ignoring his direct admonition to his followers to “peacefully” march to the U.S. Capitol, normally a case-closed defense.  Also on January 6, Trump’s decision to consult legal minds such as top scholar John Eastman to deal with unprecedented nationwide election artifices, and then ask the Senate for a timeout on election certification, likewise is being portrayed as merely an outrageous “scheme” that is surely criminal, too.  Shot through these different frenzied theories is one overriding imperative:  Pile it on!

How did we descend to such banana-republic madness?  Starting in the 1970s, left-wing law professors and legal scholars wrote and strategized that the law should be used systematically to favor members of interest groups they believed had been historically wronged (racial minorities, women, gays) by discriminating against historically advantaged groups (whites, men, Christians).  In a future post I’ll explain the history more fully, condensing the analysis from my book.  It took some time to pump out enough indoctrinated and intimidated new lawyers from law schools, and otherwise build sufficient critical mass in the system, for this vision of reverse discrimination and second-class citizenship to mature.  But here it is. 

What we’re witnessing and experiencing is not an illusion or a sudden thing.  It’s the result of a deliberate effort pushed for decades by the Left.  And now it has arrived, in full force and on full display in today’s presidential politics.

The Sky Is Falling!  The System Is on Trial!

Trump has said he’ll run for president even if indicted.  Bully for him.  In a previous article, I was the first writer to note how he can win post-indictment by citing prior Democratic heroes who were indicted (and incarcerated).  Trump should do one more thing.  He should argue that by electing him, the people will send the elites a vital message:  They don’t believe in the system anymore and an overhaul is needed.

The same Left that for years accused our judicial system of corruption, then actually corrupted it for their own purposes, will howl now that they control that machinery.  They’ll say:  We can’t let Trump turn this election into a referendum on the fairness of our court system. He’s threatening the very foundations of justice!  The rule of law is at stake!  The pillars of our civilization are at risk!  How reckless and disgraceful!

But the Left will be guilty of the very accusations they fling at Trump.  They are the ones who have ruined a glorious if imperfect system—extending back through Magna Carta, Rome, Athens and Jerusalem—and replaced it with a perverted one that aims to set up a new class of overlords:  themselves and their favored constituencies.

Conservatives have deferred to our rotten institutions for far too long.  Our Burkean sensibilities have been exploited quite enough.  Just as ordinary Americans once trusted Walter Cronkite and the evening news, then began questioning the media’s loyalties during the Vietnam War, then completely lost faith in these elites during the deranged Trump years, the verdict is due on our justice system.

As the opening pitch of a new baseball season beckons, let us metaphorically return to those environs and recall Billy Martin, former Manager of the New York Yankees, famously kicking dirt on the shoes of umpires in frustration at bad calls.  Trump is doing the same today to the ruling class.  They may throw him out of a game, or even try to suspend him.  But he’ll be back.  And thanks to their spiteful and unfair actions, the fans will know the score.