DJT's enraged, dictator response to not being punished

After his non-sentencing yesterday is his New York business fraud trial, DJT and MAGA flew into a massive rage, attacking the courts and everyone involved. DJT's post on his Lies Antisocial website was a true horror the likes of which one rarely sees. He denounced his sentencing as a "despicable charade", emphasizing that the "real jury," the American people, had spoken by re-electing him. He claimed, "This case has no crime, no damages, no proof, no facts, no law, only a highly conflicted judge. It’s been a political witch hunt, it was done to damage my reputation." He is seething with rage and hate. 

DJT's enraged screed

One source writes:

“Today’s event was a despicable charade,” he said, “and now that it is over, we will appeal this Hoax, which has no merit, and restore the trust of Americans in our once great System of Justice. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

The call for revenge was echoed, even more emphatically, by MAGA pundit Charlie Kirk, who took to X soon after the hearing.

“The people who went after Trump should be investigated and charged,” he wrote. “All of them. Justice is coming.”

The mantle was also taken up by another prominent MAGA influencer, Trump’s lawyer and adviser Mike Davis. In an appearance on a far-right livestream show on Friday, Davis issued an ominous warning.

“Right now, the Democrats think they’re the hunters,” he said. “But guess what, on Jan. 20, at noon, they’re going to become the hunted. And I’m going to make damn sure of that.”

Another source writes, echoing my reaction:

A Tale of Two Justice Systems: Only Trump Gets Convicted of 

34 Felonies and Receives No Punishment

Public defenders and legal professionals said they never see the leniency offered to Trump given to other defendants

Each of the felony counts of falsifying business records was punishable by up to 4 years in prison and fines of up to $5,000. Yet U.S. District Judge Juan Merchan took a remarkably light approach in sentencing Friday, issuing Trump an “unconditional discharge” — meaning no jail time, no fines, and effectively no punishment except that he retains his felony conviction.

For many in the criminal justice reform and abolitionist space, his feather-light sentence further highlights the widespread inequities and failures of a criminal legal system where hundreds of thousands of Americans remain behind bars without ever even being convicted, let alone of a felony.  

This type of special treatment is nothing new for the former president, who has routinely been treated by the justice system as if he was above the law — most notably in the Supreme Court decision in July granting him immunity from prosecution for “official acts.”

Other comments:

Trump can still vote after sentencing, but can’t own a gun and will have to turn over DNA sample

We’ve Never Been Here Before: The Zero-Accountability Presidency -- The only institutions that will try to hold Trump accountable are powerless, while the only ones with the power to punish him will never do it.

Trump being sentenced is a small but important win for the rule of law -- (that is a good point to keep in mind)

The traitor John Fetterman

 Yeah, ok, we know there will be those who will think exactly that - John Fetterman is a traitor. The next Joe Manchin. 

BUT............. what is YOUR take on Fetterman agreeing to go to Mar-A-Lago to meet with the big guy?

Apparently, some Leftist publications don't think much of it..............

John Fetterman Pathetically Brags About Planned Trump Mar-a-Lago Visit

Fetterman would be the first sitting Democratic senator to visit Donald Trump at his estate—and for some reason, he’s proud of it.https://newrepublic.com/post/190062/john-fetterman-plan-trump-mar-a-lago-visit

Other publications are taking a more nuanced look at Fetterman's plans...............

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) has become a voice of bipartisanship, making moves that he tells Axios are "responsible and completely appropriate" — but that are putting him on an island, apart from other Democrats.

• As the vast majority of Democrats on Capitol Hill fume over many of Donald Trump's Cabinet picks and his plans for a second term, Fetterman is showing a rare willingness to engage with parts of MAGA world.

Why it matters: It's easy to think Fetterman could be a new version of Democrat-turned-independent Joe Manchin, a West Virginian who occasionally has frustrated Democrats and the Biden administration with his legislative demands.

• That would be wrong. Fetterman — the casually attired challenger of the Senate's suit-and-tie tradition — is a reliable Democratic vote who's emerging as an independent voice within his party simply by emphasizing the need to talk more with the other side.

https://www.axios.com/2024/12/15/fetterman-democrats-senate-2024-trump

WHAT YOU ALL SAY?
Traitor? Smart guy? Sell out? Maybe trying in his own humble way to influence Trump? 

The law hangs by a thread

CNN reports that the USSC has just barely decided that the New York state court can sentence DJT for his 34 felonies:

Donald Trump can be sentenced Friday in hush money case, 

Supreme Court says in 5-4 ruling

The high court on Thursday rejected Trump’s emergency request to delay the proceeding, setting the stage for him to be sentenced just days before he is inaugurated on January 20 for a second term.

Four conservative justices – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – said they would have granted Trump’s request. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberals to side against Trump.  

In a brief, one-paragraph statement, the court said that some of Trump’s concerns could be handled “in the ordinary course on appeal.” The court also reasoned that the burden sentencing would impose on Trump’s responsibilities is “relatively insubstantial” in light of the trial court’s stated intent to impose no penalty. Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Kavanaugh would grant the application.

After his sentencing today, DJT has 30 days to appeal in New York. He can argue the convictions should be reversed because, e.g., there was political bias, DJT's fraud caused no harm, the law he was charged under was misinterpreted or unconstitutionally too ambiguous, the statute of limitations had run on some of the instances of DJT's fraud, etc. He has plenty of grounds for an appeal in NY state courts. 

In my opinion however, this USSC decision should have been a no-brainer, 9-0 vote against DJT. The NY lawsuit was about DJT's crimes committed in NY before he was in office. It had nothing to do with his immunity for crimes committed while in office. But with six radical right authoritarian Republican judges sitting on the bench, all bets are off when it comes to elites and especially DJT breaking laws and getting away with it. 

Four of the six authoritarians would have subverted the rule of law and simply let DJT off with no sentencing for whatever reason(s), or no reason if they could not make one up. My guess is the four wanted to toss out the NY lawsuit in its entirety. As it is, the judge in NY will impose no penalty, but even that non-slap on the wrist was too much for the tyrant gonnabe, or at least wannabe. 

This is how close to legal Armageddon our democracy and rule of law are.

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A NYT opinion (not paywalled) poses an interesting question about the rule of law:

Will Americans Care if Trump Brings a Wrecking Ball to the Rule of Law?

During Trump's first term, the Justice Department became a focal point of his efforts to transform the federal government into a personal plaything. It was a tempting target for an aspiring autocrat. As the agency responsible for enforcing federal law, it is the arm of the state that most directly wields control over the freedom of those within its jurisdiction.

But the post-Watergate structures developed to shield the department from presidential influence operate largely on the level of norms, not legal restrictions. That leaves the president with a great deal of power to abuse his authority if he wants. And Mr. Trump did, directing the Justice Department to harass his enemies.

Early in the Jan. 6 investigation, Mr. Garland announced the department’s commitment to the principle that “there cannot be different rules for the powerful and the powerless.” How well does that claim hold up today, with Mr. Trump having slipped free of the charges against him precisely because of his wealth and power?

It is worth considering why voters seem to care so little about these values, such that Mr. Trump’s commitment to destroying the independence and integrity of law enforcement — or at least downgrading it — was not a deal-breaker for much of the electorate.

For the average person not steeped in Justice Department traditions, the first Trump administration’s model of law enforcement as a system of patronage — with preferential treatment apparently given to allies of the president — might seem appealing when compared with a plodding, opaque, rule-bound bureaucracy that nevertheless reliably manages to advantage those in power.

Plodding, opaque and reliably serving those in power is spot on. Justice delayed for DJT has turned out to be justice completely denied. This outcome is no surprise at all to some of us. None at all. That is just what predictably happens when the rule law fails. We really do have a two-tiered justice system, one for the rich or powerful elites and one for the rest of us. So should anyone care if DJT and MAGA trash the rule of law and they go with the rule of the tyrant-kleptocrat and his cronies?

A logjam seems to have broken up, the poison in social media is becoming clear

Something new seems to be going on. For years I've been howling about the powerful, anti-democracy poison that social media (SM) has become. But as far as I can tell, that idea hadn't gained much traction with the public. However, in recent days something seems to have caused a wave of recognition that SM is a ruthless for-profit business and whose side it is on. SM is a mind manipulation business that maximized ad revenues. It is on the side of SM owners, executives and investors. It is not on the side of facts, truth, transparency, democracy or civil liberties. Money talks and everything else walks, just like in most other big for-profit businesses.

 

A couple of examples of recent backlash:

A reddit post about Facebook censoring 404 Media: Facebook Is Censoring 404 Media Stories About Facebook's Censorship 

Peanuts in the gallery comment: 

1. Make sure you delete every bit of information you keep on their servers. Pics, vital stats etc.

2. Lol cute, you think they actually delete anything. Best case scenario you just become a shadow profile like everyone else without an account.

3. I actually noticed a porn ad on my Facebook! For a male gay porn site. I’m not, like, offended, but I was shocked to see content I was both uninterested in and not prepared for the shock of while I was scrolling through Facebook at my OBGYN appointment. There was quite literally a whole penis on my screen lol. It had never happened before and I was so confused. This makes sense now.

4. lol. "No censorship allowed, unless it paints us in a bad picture, if it does fuck you, and we will do what we want."

Meta's new hate speech guidelines permit users to say LGBTQ people are mentally ill -- Meta will allow its billions of social media users to accuse people of being mentally ill based on their sexuality or gender identity, among broader changes it made to its moderation policies and practices Tuesday. The company’s new guidelines prohibit insults about someone’s intellect or mental illness on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, as have previous iterations. However, the latest guidelines now include a caveat for accusing LGBTQ people of being mentally ill because they are gay or transgender. 

Comment: Notice how deeply MAGA and deeply poisonous that is? 

De-influencing is a thing now: 'Maybe you'll realize what you have is good enough': Why influencers are facing a pushback -- Fast forward to 2025 [from 2019], and Diana Wiebe, who lives in Ohio, is now an influencer herself, but there is a difference between her and many others. She is trying to "de-influence" her followers from buying things they don't need. In her daily TikTok videos, the content creator – who has more than 200,000 followers on the app – asks questions like "did you want that product before it was marketed to you?", and reminds her followers that weekly and monthly clothing "hauls" are not normal. "Haul" culture is a specific kind of social-media content that originated on YouTube in which creators reveal a haul of purchases – usually clothing – to their followers.

The de-influencers share key messages, such as 'fast fashion won't make you stylish' and 'underconsumption is normal consumption' 

Wiebe is part of a movement – growing since 2023 – that rejects traditional influencer culture, one that has exploded on TikTok, with the hashtag #deinfluencing racking up more than a billion views.

Apparently, the trend of SM killing truth and censoring what is inconvenient is becoming more apparent to more people. As far as I can recall, this is the most direct, comprehensive statement of the critical, heavy reliance that MAGA has on dark free speech or demagoguery. It sounds exactly like what I have been arguing for years:

Which Party Benefits From Zuckerberg’s Move? 

The One That Lies a Lot.

Meta’s decision to drop fact-checking is obviously designed to curry favor with Trump. But it goes well beyond that.

Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg (wearing a $900,000 watch) announced yesterday morning that across their over-seven-billion-user-strong social media empire—Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp—they’ll be dialing back on fact-checking. They’re also preparing to promote more “political” content (among other changes that support those two moves, like no longer filtering out trash-talking queer people or immigrants and moving what’s left of their Trust & Safety team from liberal California to conservative Texas).

Here’s the problem: Republican politicians rely on lies, distortions, and falsehoods to sell most of their policies and candidates.

They must do this because the reality of their actual goals (cut billionaires’ taxes, increase pollution, gut worker and consumer protections, defund schools and medical care, privatize and cut Social Security and Medicare, subsidize oil companies, outlaw abortion, etc.) are so repellent to most Americans. (emphasis added)

I do not recall seeing of this kind of sharp criticism of SM or MAGA's heavy reliance on dark free speech, but it must exist out there somewhere. Between the WaPo caving in to DJT and MAGA bullshit a few days before the election and now Zuckerberg caving in, it seems that a new awareness of the reality of both SM and DFS is starting to sink in to a wider audience. 

The question is, too little, and/or too late? I don't know.

Or, maybe I overstate what seems to be going on here. I do tend to be an early critic when I see nascent threats.