Well, I Was Wrong

Published at 17:40 on 30 March 2023

Trump was indicted today.

And I am very happy to be wrong. It means the disgusting precedent that the president is above the law is looking more and more like a has-been of a precedent. It means the danger of a transition to fascism is distinctly less than it was just this morning.

Nobody won USD $100 out of it, by the way, because nobody took me up on my offer. Which, of course, is now void now that the outcome is no longer in doubt.

Now we get to see a number of other questions be answered:

  1. Now that the precedent has been broken, will there be other indictments?
  2. Will the indictment get rescinded somehow? (I am not a legal expert, and I do not even know if this is possible, but if it is, it would not be a surprise if it happens. American Führerprincip may not go quietly into that good night.)
  3. Will he be convicted? If he is acquitted, will it happen because anyone in his situation would have been acquitted, or will it happen because he’s an ex-president and is therefore getting special treatment?

This is a precedent-setting moment, but there were really two options here:

  1. Set the precedent that presidents and ex-presidents are not, in fact, above the law, and that what Trump did was wrong and deserves to be punished, or
  2. Set the precedent that nothing Trump did (up to and including his coup attempt) was, in fact, wrong. In this case, it all becomes just standard political tactics, to be applied as needed from now on.

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