The Witness Chronicles, June 12, 2024
I tackle the Hunter thing and the GOP’s response
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The Republican Party vs The Law: Law-Abiding Conservatives No More
Watching the Party fumble the Hunter Biden convictions
The facts are simple. The President’s son, an admitted addict who has gone through rehab and is now clean, broke the law by denying drug use in order to buy a handgun, while he was still a user.
He was tried by a Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutor representing the federal government. The same DOJ the Republican Party claims has weaponized the department against their presumed candidate, Donald Trump, ex-President and now 34 time convicted felon.
Not a federal felon, a New York State felon, convicted by a jury of his peers in his hometown, New York City, in a state court by a state prosecutor. No weaponized DOJ in sight. Yes, he faces federal charges in two more cases but they have not even been scheduled for trial.
Somehow, for Republicans, these two trials both have some sort of equivalence, I guess because they are both related in some way to the presidency. But it’s a stretch to compare the two and the GOP is tying itself in knots trying to both make a connection and somehow make one case ok and the other a vast conspiracy by what they call The Biden Crime Family (note the capital letters. It makes it even more evil sounding).
There is a new rule for Republicans these days. It says you can never reference the rule of law or its core tenet that no one is above it. Unless of course the defendant is a Democrat or the wayward grown son of a political opponent. It’s the new definition of a double standard and it’s a doozy.
Most of us who have paid attention prior to the Trump political years remember when the label ‘conservative’ meant certain things. A primary one was respect for the law. But this new flavor of Republican only respects the law when it applies to their opponents.
Otherwise it is a witch-hunt, because their leader says so, but offers no proof. Now, when Hunter Biden gets convicted of a crime, completely unrelated to politics, they are caught in a bind. The bind is they have to publicly embrace and defend the idea that their guy is above the law, while somehow tying Hunter’s offenses to their enemy, Joe Biden, The Godfather.
The result is some pretty strange statements about the law, the judges, the juries, and the entire system, statements that seem to contradict each other because they are literally trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Add in a couple of realities. The majority of Americans, around 68%, depending on party, believe in the sanctity of the law. Probably because they recognize that if we don’t have a standard that applies equally to everyone, we will descend into chaos.
Maybe I should say, descend even further into chaos, because chaos is seemingly what the right wants, even if most of us simply want a fair system.
The other reality is that the Hunter Biden trial and conviction is meaningless in the context of politics. If there’s one thing most Americans know, it is that a lot of families have a black sheep, a member who has mental or moral issues often related to things like addiction.
And most Americans don’t brand entire families as screwed up because of that one bad apple. As they say in Texas, that dog won’t hunt. And even the most rabid MAGA people are twisting themselves in knots trying to sell us on kookie ideas like The Biden Crime Family.
If you read me you probably know I am continually amazed at the general craziness of this election year, and that the source of all that craziness is the cultlike grip that Trumpism has on once relatively sane Republicans.
But if you read me, you also know I hang onto my core optimism that voters have not lost their marbles and will do the right thing when faced with a ballot in November.
The Republican Party has gone all in on the opposite concept, the idea that they can whip public sentiment into a storm of confusion, fear, and anger that will bring them votes. But there is a fundamental flaw in that theory.
The reality is that a lot of Americans have given up on following any of it, at least for now. It’s hard to rise up and go ballistic when you simply are not paying attention. Voter apathy is not the Republicans’ friend and they seem to think they can counter it by taking more and more extreme positions, even when every poll tells them it’s not working.
But this double standard applies equally to that polling. When it tells them what they want to hear, they tout it. When it doesn’t, they ignore it, dancing around with their ears plugged singing la-la-la-la. The primary example of this is abortion rights where it is extremely clear that a majority of voters and a super majority of women voters favor them.
The la-la-la response? Not only make everything related to abortion illegal, but throw in contraception and arresting doctors, among other draconian actions.
Savvy old school politicians on all sides knew not to double down on a losing position because…you’ll lose. They also knew that offending an entire huge voting block, like women, on an issue that transcends party is nuts.
Those savvy politicos on the conservative right have been shut out of the dialog by those who follow the Trump Doctrine of ‘make things up, repeat them ad nauseum, and they will eventually seem true and change minds’.
In other words, treat voters like the rubes we are, suckers made to be fleeced. But unless those crazy made up realities are consistent they won’t hold up and the entire house of cards will collapse.
Right now, it looks like the right’s stance on the rule of law is perilously close to collapse and they are still doubling down.
Fun stuff, right?
~ I write The Grasshopper, an occasional letter on the creative life and it’s sister, mostly daily publication The Witness Chronicles, a place for my articles on politics and climate. They share a free and paid subscription. I also write The Remarkable, a recovery letter, about my addiction and reentry experience. I don’t paywall any content in these, however this is how I live and I strongly believe all writers and creatives should get paid, if we provide value. Your support with a paid subscription helps make that happen.
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