My latest: charging Trump legally stupid, possibly politically smart

— 04.04.2023 03:39 PM

Charging Donald J. Trump with crimes — as he was, Tuesday, with nearly three dozen offences — was a really, really bad idea.

The prosecutor is a card-carrying Democrat — so the charges look like political payback. And the unprecedented decision to criminally charge a former Republican president, whose career and fortunes were decidedly on the wane until he was indicted, has unified Republicans like never before.

The State of New York vs. Donald J. Trump may well guarantee Trump the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, in fact.

And that’s why — in a dark, dastardly and Machiavellian kind of way — it may be a stroke of political genius. Legally doomed to failure, yes.

But politically brilliant. Here’s why.

Last year, in the lead up to the midterm elections, Democrats were trailing everywhere. President Joe Biden was extremely unpopular, Democrats were fighting amongst themselves in the Senate and the House of Representatives, and the party did not seem to have a clear message on the economy.

And the U.S. economy was not doing well, thanks to surging inflation.

The only group that seem to be more unpopular than the Democrats, in fact, were Trump-affiliated MAGA Republicans.

So, Democrats got to work doing something that had never really been done before out in the open: supporting Republicans who were seen as close to Donald Trump. The ones who denied the 2020 election results, the ones who said the most outrageous things, the ones who embraced the most extreme policies.

As political strategies go, it did not seem very ethical or moral. After all, how can you claim to object to Donald Trump when you are helping out Donald Trump’s closest allies?

But help them they did. In New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Illinois, Arizona, Democrats quietly schemed to fundraise for MAGA Republicans, run ads promoting them, and get their names on the ballot. They spent millions doing so.

Incredibly, the dirty-tricky strategy worked. NPR analyze the results following the midterm elections and concluded: “In high-profile races where Democratic candidates or groups successfully used the strategy during the primaries, all of the Republicans they helped have either lost or are trailing, two days after Election Day.”

Added NPR: “The strategy seems to have paid off.”

Many Dems didn’t care. “It’s dishonorable, and it’s dangerous, and it’s just damn wrong,” said Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips. But the results told a different story: boosting Trump-linked MAGA types in Senate, House and gubernatorial races worked, big time.

And, quietly, Democrats may well be doing it again, with the biggest MAGA Trump Republican of all: Donald Trump himself.

They know that Biden isn’t nearly as popular as they’d like. They know he’s seen as too old by too many voters. They know Biden could lose, badly, to Florida’s Ron DeSantis.

So, they’re putting their Democratic fingers on the scale, and quietly scheming to get their biggest asset back on the presidential ballot.

That is, Donald J. Trump — the guy who will likely win in a court of law.

But who will almost certainly lose in the court of public opinion as a result.


Comments (32)

My latest: prosecution, forgone conclusion

— 03.30.2023 07:57 PM

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best.

“When you strike at a King, you must kill him.”

The parentage of the American essayist’s words have been claimed by many, but one thing can’t be denied: if you indict a former president of the United States, you’d better not lose.

And this writer – who worked, full disclosure, for Hillary Clinton in three states in 2016, including at her Brooklyn headquarters – thinks Manhattan’s District Attorney is going to lose. Badly.

As everyone is noting, this has never happened before: a president – or a former president – being indicted for a crime. In the 247 years that the American republic has existed, no president had ever been charged with a crime. Ever.

Impeached, yes – Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton, once, and the aforementioned Donald J. Trump, twice. But arraigned, fingerprinted and photographed like a common criminal? That’s a first.

It also won’t succeed. As much as this writer detests Trump, the fact remains: successfully prosecuting a president – any president – is doomed to failure.

Forget about the “no one is above the law” piffle. If O. J. Simpson showed us anything, it’s that celebrities in the United States are judged by a different standard. And Donald Trump isn’t just a celebrity – he’s arguably the biggest celebrity of this era.

I also think he’ll walk. Five reasons.

One, if you read any of the news stories about Trump’s indictment, you will repeatedly see two words:  “legal theory.” The “legal theory” relates to whether it was inappropriate to mix Trump Organization funds – and presidential campaign funds – in some Byzantine way to pay off a porn star.

If you are ever going to try out a “legal theory,” best not do it with a former president in front of an international audience. Experiment at home first, sure. Not on the front pages of the world’s newspapers.

Two, the principal source of the allegations against Trump come from one man: his former lawyer, a convicted criminal. Michael D. Cohen was the one who allegedly arranged for the hush money to be paid to porn star Stormy Daniels. Problem: Cohen is a crook, a convicted fraudster and perjurer. He’s been jailed for those crimes. Why would he be believed now? For the prosecution, it’ll be a big hill to climb.

Three: the other star witness is one Stormy Daniels, a porn star. The pneumatic Daniels is no dummy – she showed a rapier wit on social media – but she is also a bit of a loon. Among other things, Daniels bills herself as a “paranormal investigator” – and stars in the “Spooky Babes Show.” She has testified previously that her house is haunted by “a non-human thing with tentacles.”

While those of us who have gone through divorce can empathize with that description, it isn’t going to do much for Stormy’s credibility on the stand. Spooky, indeed.

Four: the Manhattan prosecutor in the case, Alvin J. Bragg, is a registered Democrat. He went to  Harvard, he’s a good Dad, he taught Sunday school. No matter. The Right Wing Death Machine is about to pluck Bragg from obscurity, and pop him into a political Cuisinart. Every mistake, every misstep that he has made in his 49 years is about to get the proctologist’s treatment. He is going to become a human piñata, and fodder for every Republican presidential candidate.

Five: and that is the biggest reason why indicting Donald J Trump is a mistake. It will unite all of the GOP presidential aspirants like nothing else. A black, Harvard-educated Democrat prosecuting a Republican former President who still tops most polls?

That’s not all. A line has been crossed on Thursday in Manhattan.  When the GOP retake the White House – and they will – they will return the favor, with extreme prejudice. They will indict Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton – and the Kennedy brothers, if they can.

The criminal prosecution of Donald Trump will unleash a Civil War in American politics like has never been seen before. It’ll be ugly.

Trump is a crook. Everyone knows that.

We didn’t need a doomed-to-failure prosecution to remind us.

 


Comments (23)

My latest: what if they gave a budget, and no one cared?

— 03.29.2023 01:44 PM

Budgets? Who cares.

These days, voters mostly don’t. 

Polls consistently show distrust about everything government does and says – including budgets like the one released by the Trudeau government earlier this week. It’s the boy-cries-wolf effect on a grand, fiscal scale: citizens have been lied to so many times, they increasingly tune budgets out.

It’ll be noteworthy, in fact, if details about Chrystia Freeland’s 2023 budget are remembered by most folks by this time next week. If a majority of voters can recall a single salient factoid about this week’s federal budget – Freeland making some cuts, Freeland raising taxes (she actually did both) – it’ll be a political miracle.

Why? Because citizens simply don’t believe budgetary statements anymore. And not just in Canada. In Western democracies, everywhere, budgets are falling victims to what experts call the “fiscal illusion.” 

Keynesian types say “fiscal illusion” is created by some governments, and how they deal with ballooning debt. The creation of too much debt – and the Trudeau regime are recognized experts at that – can, sometimes, stimulate the economy. Yes. But that’s all short-term.  

The Trudeau approach creates a momentary illusion of prosperity, and thereby boosts consumer spending. But, sooner or later, the debt has to be paid – and that’s why Trudeau-style budgets are a fiscal illusion.

There are other reasons why Freeland’s budget won’t instill confidence. Here’s five.

  1. What’s in a billion? A pollster once told this writer 40 per cent of Canadians don’t know how many million are in a billion. Even if that’s an exaggeration – and it may not be, by much – one thing is true: most of us have never held a billion of anything. Which tells you that governments (and corporations) are literally expressing debts, deficits and dollars in a way that most folks don’t comprehend. So they tune it out.
  2. It’s never right. Going back to the Jean Chrétien/Paul Martin era – which was the last time, notably, that Ottawa actually made the cuts that needed to be made – the numbers that seep out of the Department of Finance, pre-budget, are often wrong. Martin turned this strategy into an art form – ensuring his budget day numbers would look better than the pre-budget leaks. After a few years of this sleight-of-hand, however, media and citizens tended not to believe any of the figures coming out of Finance.
  3. Too much, too often. For years, federal budgets have tried to reach too many different audiences too often. And when you have 1,000 different messages, you don’t have any messages at all. It’s simply too much for the average voter to comprehend. So, voters regard all of it as data smog and carry on with their day.  Simplicity, repetition and volume work (ask Donald Trump). But too many federal budgets are too complex and convoluted.
  4. Consensus is gone.  During the pandemic, many bad things happened.One of them was the collapse of consensus about certain basic truths – ie., public health is good, vaccines work, etc. The same phenomenon is at work with budgets: there too many opinions being offered, too often, by too many “experts” that are completely contradictory. Post-budget media coverage accordingly becomes a communications traffic jam. So, citizens choose not to believe any of it.  
  5. It’s all B.S. As noted above – that Trudeaupian economics is based on a fiscal illusion – the one unassailable truth about budgets is this: there is no truth in budgets. Voters have been spun, or flat-out lied to, so many times that the budgetary credibility gap is bigger than Canada’s debt – by the time you read this, about $1,215,000,000,000 according to the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation. It doesn’t matter which party is in power anymore: an estimated 75 per cent of Canadian voters say they don’t believe in what governments say or do.

And that is the biggest problem of all: truth. For most of us, we don’t think budgets contain much. Debt and deficits, yes. Truth? Not so much.

Sorry, Chrystia Freeland. But it’s the truth.

Kinsella was Special Assistant to Jean Chretien

 


Comments (52)

Toronto politics invades County politics

— 03.29.2023 01:39 PM

Here’s a letter I wrote to the local paper.  Remember, politicos: everyone has a past.

As a resident of Hillier, I was frankly astounded by the Times’ willingness to publish the letter from Chris Bolton about Councillor Chris Braney’s effort to review the structure of Council, and how it governs itself.

Braney – who I know, and who I voted for – is simply fulfilling a promise he made: to see if having a smaller Council is worthwhile.  That’s all.When that has happened in other jurisdictions, like Toronto, it has worked.

In his letter, Bolton refers repeatedly to Braney’s time on Council: “only effectively two months,” others have “much more experience,” other councillors are “veterans,” and so on.  His comments were condescending and unfair.  Braney was elected in a virtual landslide precisely because he was a new voice – and not a “veteran” politician.

Bolton’s references to “experience” was revealing, however, although perhaps not in the way he intended.  Bolton’s own “experience” includes his resignation as chair of Toronto’s public school board in 2014.

At the time, the Toronto Star stated that there had been “a never-ending stream of scandals” under his watch.  They stated, as fact, that “the timing of his resignation is questionable given recent controversies concerning a charity he and his partner are involved with.”

Wrote the Star: “Bolton has been chair as controversies have rocked trustees, including audits criticizing spending and processes and helping staff who accused other trustees of bullying and bad behaviour… questions have also been raised about him and his role with Friends of Community Schools — a charity both Bolton and his partner have been heavily involved with.”

If that is the sort of “experience” that Bolton is referring to, I’d hazard a guess that most County residents don’t want or need it.

 Warren Kinsella, J.D.

 

 

 

 


Comments (3)