Donald Trump, convicted criminal.

If you want to get detailed and in-depth coverage and commentary about this historic criminal case, there’s lots and lots that has been written by some smart Americans this morning.

But if you want the perspective of a Canadian who worked as a volunteer for Joe Biden in his last couple campaigns, you’ve come to the right place.

Ten observations.

1. The people who are said to me that Trump would never ever be convicted are the same people now saying the conviction will help him win. Why don’t I listen to these super smart people? I know nothing about politics or the law.

2. He won’t get jail time. White collar crime, first offense (that we know about anyway), no prior criminal record. Jail time seems impossible. My question is, will Canadian border agents let the Mango Mussolini into the country now that he’s a convicted criminal?

3. A related point on that: in Florida, where Trump resides, convicted felons are not allowed to vote. Among other things, this presents the delicious possibility the Trump will be unable to vote for himself at the Republican convention where he is the presumptive presidential nominee.

4. Related to that related point: his sentencing is happening four days before the GOP convention kicks off in Milwaukee. Whatever the Trumpkins may think, it’s going to be interesting to see how sane, law-and-order Republicans applaud a convicted crook. Expect lots of close-ups of Nikki Haley’s hands.

5. The 2024 Democratic convention in Chicago was always going to be a circus, just like the Democratic convention in Chicago was in 1968. The reason: anti-Semitic Gen Z types descending on the Windy City to violently protest Joe Biden’s longtime support of Israel. Now, the GOP will have a deep, dark pall over the proceedings: their candidate is a convicted criminal. Ouch.

6. And, sure, lots of MAGA Republicans won’t care about the fact that their messiah is a crook. They’d vote for him if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue, as Trump himself has bragged in the past. Democrats, meanwhile, were never going to vote for him. Neither matter. The most important constituency in American politics isn’t committed partisans (who should be committed, most days). It’s registered Independents. Those people decide presidential elections. And they are the ones who don’t, and won’t, shrug that twelve of Don the Con’s peers unanimously decided he broke the law 34 times.

7. Which is why it’s so hard for MAGA nutbars to spin this one away as a Biden-led conspiracy: Agent Orange was convicted, unanimously, by twelve regular citizens – include some who admitted they use Trump’s Truth Social platform to get their news. Saying there’s a judge-led conspiracy is always easy. Saying twelve regular folks conspired against you is a lot harder.

8. His sentence may not include jail time. But it ain’t gonna be nothing. Why? Because Cadet Bone Spur repeatedly (and insanely) attacked the judge, the lawyers, and the entire legal system, every single day for weeks. That’s what judges call “showing no remorse.” A lack of remorse is a major, major factor in sentencing. It’ll be a factor when the judge brings his gavel down on July 11.

9. Biden and the Democrats now have a smoother ride to re-election. Sorry, MAGA knuckle-draggers, but they do. You can write the attack ads yourself: just show average Americans saying, straight to camera: “I don’t want a convicted criminal to be my president.” It’ll work. Trust me.

10. I’ve worked for Jean Chretien. I’ve worked for Joe Biden. Their political opponents always, always make the same mistake: they underestimate them. Biden was being underestimated by American pundits and politicos. Now, it’s impossible to do that. One candidate is a convicted felon. The other isn’t. Some days, that’s all you need to know.

But again, what do I know about politics? I’m just a dumb Canadian lawyer and former advisor to a Canadian Prime Minister.

Pay me no mind. Keep doing what you’re doing, Republicans.

Please.

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Woooot!

Trump will be sentenced four days before the Republican convention.

I wonder if they will permit a convicted felon to vote? US law says they shouldn’t: Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24 (1974).

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Universities, we used to think, were places where the smarter kids went, and where the smarter teachers taught.

We used to think that.

Now, not so much. Now, universities – including the most-admired ones, like Harvard and Columbia and McGill and U of T – are where profoundly-stupid things are happening. And where hate is running rampant.

The Times of Israel published a story about all of this a couple days ago. A study found that the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel madness has gripped elite universities – but not the less-exclusive colleges, where kids from lower-income families go.

The study was conducted by the Washington Monthly. “Have pro-Palestinian protests taken place disproportionately at elite colleges, where few students come from lower-income families?” the study’s authors asked, then answered their own question: “The answer is a resounding yes.”

The survey focused only on U.S. universities and colleges, but is applicable in Canada, too. Because we’re not seeing so many kids screaming “from the river to the sea,” or hanging Jews in effigy at Red Deer Polytechnic or Durham College, are we?

The survey looked at 1,421 colleges, some public and some private. Only 123 had some kind of an encampment. At private colleges, they were practically non-existent.

But at the big-shot universities? At the fanciest universities, like Harvard – where, full disclosure, I attended classes at the business and law schools – the protests and rallies and encampments have been positively widespread. Said the study’s authors: “In the vast majority of cases, campuses that educate students mostly from working-class backgrounds have not had any protest activity. For example, at the 78 historically Black colleges and universities, 64 per cent of the students, on average, receive [grants for coming from lower incomes]. Yet according to our data, none of those institutions have had encampments and only nine have had protests.”

Their conclusion: “Protests are overwhelmingly an elite college phenomenon.”

Thus, what we witnessed at the University of Manitoba in recent days. A Dr. Gem Newman was asked to give the valedictory speech at U of M on May 16. The people who asked him should’ve checked out his social media first.

In his speech, Newman said that the Jewish state deliberately targets hospitals and healthcare workers. He said Israel was committing “genocide.” He said graduates should oppose “settler colonialism both at home and abroad,” “injustice” and “violence.”

Not surprisingly, a controversy immediately erupted, with U of M alumni, and others, expressing outrage about Newman’s attacks and false statements.

If anyone had bothered to review Newman’s social media, as noted, they wouldn’t have been shocked by his speech. For example, last year he expressed approval when someone posted on X that “if my kid respected Israel, I would have him tested for rabies.”

He liked another one calling Israeli “a genocidal apartheid state,” that was “engaged in ethnic cleansing.” Also one saying that Israel was not “a real country,” much in the way the Hamas Charter says it isn’t. In his own words, he has said “Israel is an apartheid state.” He has posted about the IDF being a “mass assassination factory.” And so on.

It would be comfort, small as it may be, to say that Gem Newman is the exception at our best places of learning. But he isn’t. Just this week, someone at the University of Toronto made Nazi salutes on-camera, approvingly called Hitler “a gangster” and said he should have finished exterminating Jews. At McGill, a Jewish leader was hanged in effigy at the universities main gates. Nobody did anything.

Everywhere you look, these days, our supposedly-elite places of learning have degenerated into festering pits of hate and division. Their presidents may appear before House of Commons committees, and they may agree anti-Semitism is a problem on their campuses, but then they do precisely nothing about it.

Higher education? It is neither. It is very very low, these days, and there is nothing educational about it.

Do your kid, and yourself, a favour. Send him or her to a community college. They’re less likely to end up praising terrorists, and more likely to get a better life.

 

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