I basically don’t know anybody who says that Trump is a fine upstanding man who deserves to be president of the United States. I hear that those people exist, but I’m a pointy-headed intellectual — I don’t live in the same town, or travel in the same social circles, as those people. I do know people who defend voting for Trump; I just don’t know anyone who affirmatively believes that, in a sane world, Trump would be the preferred Republican candidate.
My Trump-supporting friends say that they could never vote for a Democrat. They concede that Trump is an unhinged narcissist, and they sure wish the Republicans had chosen a different candidate, but America will be destroyed if a Democrat gets into the White House. These diehard Republican friends aren’t going to waste their vote on a third-party candidate who can never win, so they’ll hold their nose and vote for Trump.
I don’t agree with that point of view, but I can at least understand it.
I’m now asking those people to answer the following questions. (Well, I’m not really asking those people to answer these questions. If I did, I’d lose my old friends. Instead, I simply avoid talking politics with my Trump-supporting friends. But perhaps some of those Trump supporters will see this column and turn my questions over in their minds.)
Here’s question 1:
Am I correct that your thinking about January 6 has evolved from blaming Antifa, to blaming the FBI, to deciding that January 6 wasn’t so bad, to thinking that it was in fact the members of the January 6 Committee who should be imprisoned, to thinking that the rioters on January 6 were actually patriots who should be pardoned?
Whether or not that’s your thinking, do you concede that this is how Trump’s justifications have evolved?
Don’t those evolving explanations give you pause?
Here’s question 2:
Suppose some future one-term president commits felonies (for which he can appropriately be prosecuted). Because that guy — let’s call him President A — served only one term, President A is eligible to run for president again four years after he lost. What should the president who succeeded President A — call him President B — do about President A’s crimes?
Should President B do everything possible to suppress prosecutions of President A because any prosecution is too politically fraught?
If that’s your position, then you’re telling me that the felonies President A committed should go unpunished. Is that true for all felonies that President A committed? Suppose President A incited an insurrection? Or mishandled classified documents? Under what circumstances should those crimes be prosecuted?
(No, no, no! Don’t sputter that Trump didn’t do those things, and it’s all a Democratic witch hunt. I’m not talking about Trump. I’m asking an entirely hypothetical question about some hypothetical future president. And the future president in fact committed the crimes that I’m talking about. Should President B suppress those prosecutions?)
Let’s think about the other side of the coin. Perhaps President B should remain independent of the criminal justice system, letting prosecutors decide on their own whether to proceed. If a prosecution occurred, that would intensify partisanship in the country and might strengthen President A’s prospects for reelection. Should President B nonetheless let prosecutors proceed, if the prosecutors thought the evidence required it?
(No, no, no! Don’t sputter that Biden somehow influenced prosecutors and caused them to pursue Trump. I’m not talking about Trump, and I’m not talking about Biden. I’m asking an entirely hypothetical question about some future hypothetical president. Should President B stay out of the process and let prosecutors move forward?)
Here’s my third question for my Trump-supporting friends. (Yeah, yeah: I’ve posed only two questions so far. The follow-up issues were simply sub-questions. Ask anyone who’s ever drafted interrogatories to explain it to you.)
A grand jury indicts a defendant for multiple felonies. A petit jury convicts the defendant of those crimes. Under what circumstances are you convinced that the jury verdict was wrong?
Are you convinced the verdict was wrong if the defendant himself denies that he committed the crimes? (That is, of course, true of most convicted felons. Is every jury in every criminal case in America wrong?)
If the defendant’s own protestations don’t convince you that the jury verdict was wrong, how about commentators on television or social media? If some pundit said that the pundit thought the defendant wasn’t guilty, would you trust the pundit over the jury verdict?
If neither of those things convince you the jury verdict was wrong, how about your own common sense? Do you trust your own common sense — “I know deep in my gut that he didn’t do it!” — more than the verdict reached by 12 people who actually heard evidence over the course of a couple of weeks?
Question 4:
Suppose there were photographs of classified government documents that a former president had left in public locations in a country club. Suppose the Department of Justice filed sworn statement saying that the government had asked the former president to return those documents, and the former president had refused. Suppose the former president didn’t deny any of this, but instead insisted that he had declassified the documents in his own mind, or the documents were automatically converted into personal property because the president had retained the documents after he left the presidency. On those facts, should prosecutors move ahead with criminal charges, or do you find nothing suspicious (or worth prosecuting) about this?
Question 5:
Didn’t Joe Biden just (more or less) voluntarily yield power, when he didn’t have to, for the sake of his party and country? Didn’t Trump resist yielding power, even after he’d been voted out of office?
Question 6:
How can you be such a damned fool?
See? I told you I’d lose friends over this.
Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].
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