Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Thoughts on our two-tiered justice system and how a demagogue using dark free speech leverages it

There are compelling reasons why the special, kid-gloves treatment of DJT should never have been accorded to him by Bill Barr, Joe Biden or Merrick Garland. The reasons and why they are central are summarized here:

SNOWFLAKE comments:  More and more Americans feel that justice is not equal in the U.S. And is politically driven. I don't feel that way but I can't speak for those who DO feel that way. For those folks, the thinking is that if a former President can be persecuted and prosecuted this many times then no American citizen is safe for an overzealous FBI and DOJ. To them, this also reeks of "revenge". And there is no convincing them that it isn't revenge. NO ONE here is considering the psychological impact or the human factor in all of this.

Thoughts about America's two-tiered system of justice - personal opinion: All of that is true. It's definitely time to explain what psychology (cognitive biology and social behavior) is going on here and how it is being driven and to what ends.

In my opinion, the overriding common theme here is blind, emotional cult irrationality for roughly 40% of the American people, confusion for ~15%, and ~45% somewhat more rationality and somewhat less emotion.


So, considering how the human mind works there absolutely is something to this. You're freaking right, but there's two levels of messy here. Eventually, the two messes wind up contradicting themselves. The roots of this are in sophisticated authoritarian radical right propaganda (ARRP). Never, ever loose sight of the power of dark free speech.

Here's the first mess:
More and more Americans feel that justice is not equal in the U.S. They are right about that and that it is politically driven, but not for the reasons the cult and the confused believe. They have been bamboozled. Where the most of the cult and the confused get it catastrophically wrong is they fall for the ARRP. Yes justice is unequal, but in a way that is essentially the opposite of how the AARP posits it.

In actuality, we have a two-tiered justice system. It favors the rich, powerful and elite, especially for people on the radical right. Most of the rest of us get more or less 2nd tier justice which is generally less forgiving and less restrained, especially for out-groups that local justice discriminates against. The 2nd tier varies by location and local culture and politics.

Trump is the perfect example of a defendant who gets the luxury of 1st tier justice. He has been pampered and treated with far more deference than the average 2nd tier defendant. If Trump was one of those average traitors in the coup attempt, his ass would have been in jail long ago. But because he was an elite, I doubt that Garland and the DoJ would have ever indicted him but for all the freaking evidence of treason that gushed out of the 1/6 Committee.

Garland and Biden were both clear that they did not want to appear political. By acting that way and doling nothing, they heavily politicized justice in favor of Trump. The scales were and still are tipped heavily in his favor. Biden, Garland and the DoJ never even indicted Trump for the four or 5 obstruction of justice felonies that the Mueller Report laid out in great detail. Hundreds of former federal prosecutors publicly said that they would not hesitate to prosecute Trump for those felonies based on the evidence that Mueller laid out in his report.[1] All of those Trump felonies have gone unpunished and Trump never will be punished because the statute of limitations has run.

If it was you or me who committed the same acts of obstruction that Mueller documented, our sorry asses would be in the slammer by now. The law can't get much more political than that.

That's the 1st mess.

Here's the amazing 2nd mess, and this is where ARRP takes mass deceit to a deep cognitive biology and social behavior level:
ARRP tells people that if multiple politically corrupted prosecutions can happen to Trump, it can happen to them. The prosecutions of Trump have been political because they have been for a 1st tier criminal and traitor who has got and still gets vast advantages in the justice system. So yes, how the justice system treated Trump has been undeniably political, but just political in his favor.

With one major caveat, people worried about multiple politically corrupted prosecutions are exactly right, but for a reason that is the opposite of what ARRP has led them to falsely believe. The caveat is this: If and only if the radical right authoritarians take power and overthrow democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties, then everyone including the cult and the confused will bed subject to multiple politically corrupted prosecutions.

Almost the whole point of authoritarianism is to establish the rule of the thug, not the rule of law. Once the thug (plutocrat, theocrat, tyrant, kleptocrat) is in power, the thug rules as he/she/they want. If anyone, including anyone in the cult or among the confused, steps too far out of line, they will be subjected to as many politically corrupted prosecutions as the thug feels like inflicting on the miscreants.

I know, I know. This all sounds like crackpot QAnon-level conspiracy theory. The thing is however, essentially all the evidence points to exactly this narrative. Just listen to the special interests (including the GOP), dogmas (Christian nationalism, brass knuckles capitalism, single party GOP rule), rhetoric that are driving the radical right and ARRP. ARRP is intentionally designed to make power flow from the government and its commitment to the rule of law and civil liberties to radical elites and their interests.

Just look at the power flow. Ignore everything and everyone else. Strip it all away, and then ask yourself, where will power flow if the radical right authoritarians get their way? That is the core question here in my firm opinion.

 
SNOWFLAKE Comments: People lack focus. If you have ONE trial - people's minds will be focused on that ONE trial and all of the evidence that stems from that ONE trial. If you have multiple trials, especially "silly" ones like the hush money charge, people start to lose interest, become unfocused, start thinking this is all just too much and start thinking this really does look like a witch hunt. If you have too many trials it diffuses them all instead of focusing the public on the evidence of ONE trial. Human nature and all that.

Response to comments: All of that is true. Human nature and all that. One can call it psychology. I call it cognitive biology and social behavior.

Where does the concept of silly trial for hush money prosecution come from? ARRP. Why do people become unfocused and start thinking this is all just too much? ARRP.

I repeat, one cannot deny or understate the power of dark free speech in getting American politics and society to where it is now.

As far as the appearance of a witch hunt goes, what else can be done other than multiple prosecutions for multiple crimes that occur at different times? Trump is a serial criminal. In my opinion, because Trump is a 1st tier elite, his prosecutions were delayed and that is what makes this look like it is politicized. Hell yes, it is politicized because Trump is a 1st tier elite criminal defendant. Biden, Garland and the DoJ treated him like a 1st tier elite because that is what he is. How can that not be seen as political?

Where does the appearance of witch hunt come from? Not wanting to flog a dead horse unnecessarily, but it's ARRP again.



Footnote: 
We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system: as line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States Attorneys, and senior officials at the Department of Justice. The offices in which we served were small, medium, and large; urban, suburban, and rural; and located in all parts of our country.

Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming.
That is solid evidence of (i) a two-tiered system, and (ii) it has heavily favored Trump.  

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