One of the frustrating things about politics in this century is how, every time a Republican presidential candidate wins the presidency while losing the popular vote, conservatives loudly say that "That's the system we have, accept the result." But recently, after Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in a court of law by a jury of peers, as our judicial system dictates, virtually the entire Republican party has echoed his baseless assertion that the whole system was rigged. It's obviously hypocritical to say that a system only works when it benefits your side, but that's where America is politically in 2024. And that argument about a rigged legal system gets even weaker in light of President Joe Biden's son Hunter's recent conviction under that same legal system.
Hypocrisy aside, the question that now awaits is just what kind of penalty Trump should pay when he is sentenced by Judge Juan Merchan on July 11th. Penalties include fees, community service, probation and yes, even jail time (with a maximum of 4 years).
But should Trump go to jail? On the one hand, he's an old man, this is his first criminal offense, and it's a nonviolent crime. On the other hand, he's been found guilty on all 34 counts, he's clearly shown no remorse for the crime he's been legally found to have committed, and he violated the gag order put on him by the judge ten times during the trial. Plus, he would not be the first criminal convicted of falsifying business records in the state of New York to get jail time.
I'm not quite sure how I myself feel about this; Trump in an orange prison outfit is an amusing image to me, and I am sure that the man has committed criminal offenses in the past that he's gotten away with (it's not hard to believe those 26 women who have accused him of sexual assault or rape). So it is satisfying to think that man who has seemingly gotten away with so many terrible things over the years is finally facing jail time. But there is every reason to believe that it would push his already insanely loyal supporters over the edge into some kind of act of violence, perhaps something even on the level of what happened on January 6th.
But it's not just his fervent supporters I'm worried about; since we would be entering completely uncharted territory with a presidential candidate behind bars (and yes, he could still legally run while incarcerated), it's impossible to gauge exactly how the American public would react to such a thing. While there's a good chance that many swing voters might turn away from him in disgust, it's also possible that they might believe his lies about the system being rigged and see his incarceration as a political act master minded by Joe Biden, even if it's not true. It seems crazy, but since American politics has been completely changed since Trump took that escalator ride back in 2016, we have no way of knowing whether jail time would help or hurt his campaign.
Given that, I am leaning towards idea of Trump having to do community service instead of prison time: Trump with a pair of tongs picking up garbage off the highway would be such a humiliating thing for a man so obsessed with his own perceived strength that I think it would weaken his image and his campaign, while actual prison time could have the opposite effect. But, again, who knows? I remember thinking that Trump was going to be forced out of politics when he said that John McCain wasn't a real war hero, so what do I know?
No comments:
Post a Comment