Why is it taking so much time to bring Trump to court?

[pbrower2a]

(10-15-2022, 07:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(10-14-2022, 11:59 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(10-13-2022, 07:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I would never endorse a trial of an ex-President for specious or trivial offenses. Everybody does something wrong on occasion. I expect every politician to lie and cheat if necessary to get re-elected, and those who do the least of that are veritable saints. By some standards the killings of Qusay and Uday Hussein, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden, or Ayman al-Zawahiri are extrajudicial killings. I excuse all five killings and I would accept any other country doing exactly the same under the same circumstances without fault of the national entity.

Perhaps the title of the OP was meant to be rhetorical, but I responding directly to "why is it taking so much" rather than focusing on Trump. Put simply, a lot of people are apprehensive about this because where to draw that line between trivial vs non-trivial is hard to determine and subject to partisan slant. Even if he deserves it...we're setting a dangerous precedent, and we've all seen how quickly snowballs slide down a slippery slope during a 4T.

And yet the progressive faction generally comes out ahead in a crisis, the crisis problems have to be solved for the crisis to end, and during the crisis end 'never again' phase the solution found is added to the American values.  Trump and to an extent Nixon represent a crisis problem.  The culture, as a result of crisis, is modified to accept the standards and values of whatever was necessary to solve the crisis problems. Often the standards of previous crises are refined.  Principles like equality (BLM), freedom (choice) and rule of law (Trump) are expanded.

So, yes, I would expect a careful line to be drawn somewhere between establishing no one being above the law and partisan retaliation.  The drawing of this line is already in progress, with the extreme ends already being identified.  Perhaps more is needed, but it is perhaps best to leave it somewhat open.

Ultimately, the progressive usually wins because it can satisfy more people. It is clever enough to make its new agenda fit traditions not theirs. The political and cultural avant-garde rarely succeeds at that, and in view of Jacobins and Bolsheviks, that might be best.  I look at America's Model Minorities (Asian-Americans, middle-class blacks and Hispanics, Arab-Americans, Jews, and LGBT people, and they have generally been on the liberal side. These people will be more effective in appealing to rational people who differ in some way from all of them than will MAGA, Qu Qlux Qlanon, the John Birch Society, fundamentalist-evangelical extremists, the militia cliques, and the usual fascists.   Should such a group as Mormons start going against the Hard Right (and they have nothing to gain from the Hard Right), then the Hard Right is cooked to a crisp politically. 

Irrationality, bigotry, and malign intent have never served Humanity well. I see no cause for any difference in that pattern this time even if it pretends to high ideals. Jacobins and Bolsheviks also claimed to possess the highest ideals of their time. See also ISIS.  

I am satisfied that Donald Trump will not go on trial, and neither will such people as Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Rudy Giuliani so intimately connected to him until after the 2022 election is decided. Vindictive partisanship does not look good, but if it all looks as the rule of law overpowers all else, then we are in good shape to deal with the serious crimes that Donald Trump seems to have done. It is necessary that we hold fast to the principle of the presumption of innocence. 

The militia cliques are on trial and so is the last defendant of the horrid Michigan plot. Don't trivialize its importance. Civil wars have started when such plots succeed. Just think of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859. Had Governor Whitmer been kidnapped and been lynched (and likely killed), then we would have some horrible repercussions.    

We need major, pervasive reforms of our political life, mass media, educational system, law enforcement, and legal system as the result of both not-so-benign neglect and some perverse innovations. We need to become more just, more honest, more rational, and probably more learned -- and none of that will be easy for those who need such the most. Some of us are already close enough to make a go of it.  We need to all adopt something that characterizes our Model Minorities if we haven't done so yet: a respect for enterprise and formal learning. One of the ironies of history is that disdain for business is often illiberal. Just think of Southern agrarian racists who at once shared a disdain for plutocrats and financiers with Northern organized labor -- for very different reasons. I suggested in one thread that commerce and industry would have solved most of the economic distress of freed slaves in the post-Civil War South. The problem for the big landowners was that such would have denied them the super-cheap necessary for them to make a go of their plantations. 

America in the forthcoming 1T could be a community that respects education and has no soft spot for crime. Nobody is going to defund the police; if anything we are going to see them become more effective while Americans become increasingly hostile to overt crime.  If the Capitol Putsch gets treated harshly, then so will street crime and white collar crime alike.  Liberals have learned well that criminals are not so much the romantic rogues as they are exploiters, abusers, and destroyers. Extremist ideologies will be out of vogue. What now seems liberal will become convention and in turn even conservative. There will be something to preserve and maintain, and that is how viable conservatism begins. 

So we accepted LGBT rights. We also repressed rape, homophobic violence, child sexual abuse, child pornography, and spouse abuse at the same time. On the whole I see less sexual freedom even if we reinstate Roe v. Wade. OK, I support LGBT rights and have no use for rape, child abuse, domestic violence, child porn, and homophobic violence, so I must be on the side of sexual repression.  Abortion is mostly a medical choice, so it is not sex.