The Rude Pundit: Why I Was Serious When I Said Jailing Donald Trump ...Would Be Good, Pt. 2

[babylonsister]

https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2022/02/why-i-was-serious-when-i-said-jailing.html


The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
2/04/2022
Why I Was Serious When I Said Jailing Donald Trump Until Trial Would Be Good for the Country (Part 2)


Earlier this week, I said that former president and current terrorist Donald Trump should receive the same treatment as the leader of the terrorist Oath Keepers. That is, he should be held in jail without bail, unable to rally his supporters until he's faced trial. Not only that, but it would be good for the country to see an ex-president face justice and treated like other alleged criminals are. Let me list the ways:

1. It would prove to a fickle public that the Justice Department and law enforcement are absolutely serious about this shit. Right now, with very little actual news coming from the DOJ or the January 6 committee in the House, and with this investigation taking so very much longer than it ought to have, the attitude on the right is that all of that shit is just one more thing they'll eliminate should Republicans win one or both houses of Congress. The narrative conservative media and politicians are creating about the Trump investigations is one of boredom, bias, vengeance, and incompetence. I know that doesn't matter should indictment come from any of it, but it sure as fuck is damaging the public image among the majority of the nation that doesn't anally-probe every tweet or statement from Liz Cheney or Letitia James.

2. I'm not worried that arresting Trump on suspicion of seditious conspiracy will make his armed lunatics go apeshit. In fact, I think quite the opposite for most of them (there will always be a stray lunatic). It would make a whole lot of people fucking realize that they better back the fuck down and/or give up what they know. The delay tactics by potential witnesses is working, forcing the 1/6 committee to postpone public hearings for at least a month, from April to May. If all of a sudden real consequences were in the mix, those who participated in or helped plan the insurrection would be shitting themselves in fear, wondering, "If law enforcement is willing to arrest a former president, what the fuck else might they do to me?" Democrats don't understand the power of fear in the same way Republicans do. So while there are totally legitimate reasons to lock up Trump, the intimidation factor would be a huge benefit to the investigations. I'd bet that at least one Trumpling turns on dear ol' grabby, abusive dad.

snip//

Look, I'm not a fucking idiot nor a childish naif. I'm in an area of speculation, if not outright fantasy, that this would actually happen. But I'll stand by the idea that Trump should have been arrested on January 6 or even earlier. To me, it's absurd that he hasn't been.

Because, sure, we can say that arresting a former president would never happen. Except if we're a country that really does want to live up to the ideas of our founding, as so many people on all sides of the political spectrum like to pretend, then no person is above the law. Arresting Trump would prove we are, occasionally, who we say we are.