Convicted… of Course 

I wasn’t surprised by the conviction of Trump. The cards were stacked before the trial began. A locus in NYC. A jury comprised entirely of people whose answers to the voir dire made it clear what they thought about Trump. A DA that was elected on his campaign promise to put Trump behind bars. A surrealistic strategy of turning a single misdemeanor into 34 felony counts. And on top of it all, a pro-Biden judge who not only accepted the tortured logic of the DA, but also invented a way for the jurors to vote that allowed them to come to a “unanimous” verdict that wasn’t unanimous but was the amalgamation of three separate decisions made by three separate groups of jurors. Not to mention that, to bolster Bragg’s chances for conviction, Biden sent his top DOJ official, Matthew Colangelo, to New York as Bragg’s top prosecutor to “get Trump.” And that’s to say nothing about the gag order and the reams of exculpatory evidence that Judge Merchan disallowed…

No, it was not surprising. But it did make me wonder if American politics has moved into another realm, where “lawfare” practices such as trying to convict and/or jail your principal political adversary will become the standard, as they are in a handful of the most corrupt third-world countries.

If Biden is elected in November, we must wonder how Bragg’s success with this trial might embolden DAs all over the country – on the left and on the right – to file similarly trumped-up charges, both locally and nationally, against political and business figures they don’t like. I mean, if they convict a former president on felony charges for a misdemeanor, what form of legal warfare can’t they carry out?

And if Trump wins in November, and the Republicans take control of the House and Senate, what Democratic politician, current or former, will be next? Hunter Biden is being charged now on the least of the possible charges against him. I see that trial as a dry run. After putting him behind bars, it’s very likely that Joe Biden will be next.

And remember, the Republicans don’t have to file federal charges. They can rely on “loyal” Republican DAs filing charges from every conservative stronghold in the US. And why stop at Biden? Given Judge Merchan’s waver of the statute of limitations on the Stormy Daniels deal, why not go after Hillary Clinton for her email “accident” next? Or Barrack Obama? Surely, they can find some ancient misdemeanor with which to charge him?

So, that’s one concern. But what bothers me most about this is the way so many Americans, on both sides of the political divide, are responding to it. They are acting exactly as they have been conditioned to act by 20 years of non-stop social media programming that identifies individual interests and then boosts views by feeding the consumers of those interests consecutively more extreme versions of what they showed an interest in at one point in time.

I fear we may have already but unconsciously crossed the Rubicon of common sense, or rather of reason itself, and are headed into a new America – a fragmented social landscape of warring tribes regulated by KGB-styled government agencies and a political system reminiscent of the worst of the world’s banana republics.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe, regardless of who is president in 2025, Americans will settle down and return to rebuilding all that we have lost in recent years. Maybe we fix the 33 trillion dollars of federal debt we’ve currently left to our children to pay by taxing the rich or by reviving America’s entrepreneurial engine through freer markets and less governmental regulation and by maximizing our natural resources and becoming the world’s leader in robotics and AI.

Maybe. Let’s check back and see how we feel about the future after the November election.

Well, This Was Surprising:
The Tribal Wall May Be Crumbling 

After writing the above piece, I watched a discussion between Chris Cuomo, American Liberal’s once favorite spokesperson, and Dave Smith, an influential conservative commentator. Their intended “debate” was about COVID, which was revealing in itself. But it veered for a while to Trump’s conviction… and what Cuomo said surprised and impressed me.

He agreed with Smith’s reaction to the verdict. “This was a misdemeanor that was trumped up to felonies,” he said. “To call it 34 counts is laughable, because the 34 counts are different checks that were signed to pay back Cohen.”

“I think it was a case that should not have been brought,” he added. “And it was brought for the wrong reasons.”

You can watch the whole thing here.

Apologies

In the May 28 issue, I provided a link to a video clip that my partner Sean Macintyre put together to test the market with a new promotion for a wealth building course I designed several years ago. But before that issue hit your inbox, realizing that the promo wasn’t ready to launch, we took it down. We will, of course, let you know when the promo goes live and the clip is back up.