Not Trump ... Unless You Oppose What Alvin Bragg Did?

A look at a strange voting rationale.

On this week’s No BS Zone (the video series Bernie Goldberg and I record for this website every other week), Bernie made a comment that genuinely surprised me. It came as we were talking about Trump’s recent felony convictions in the New York hush-money trial, the charges for which Bernie and I agree were politically motivated and rather dubious.

After reiterating his stance that he’ll be voting for neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump in November because he believes both men are unfit for office (a position I share), Bernie added this:

If I were voting this time around — I’m not, but if I were — I’d vote for Donald Trump. I’d vote for Donald Trump precisely because of the sham trial that he had to put up with … and I think I’m not the only one who’s thinking that way.

In other words, if Bernie where in a hypothetical situation in which he felt compelled or duty-bound to vote for one of these two individuals, as most participating U.S. voters (who subscribe to the “binary choice” voting philosophy) do, the actions of Alvin Bragg (the Democratic Manhattan D.A. who brought the charges against Trump) would swing Bernie’s vote to the former president.

Now, I don’t dismiss the notion that there are other people out there who are, as Bernie suggests, looking at the issue the same way. In fact, this fellow over at the Washington Examiner says he’s among them… and not in the hypothetical sense:

I don’t know anything about Conn Caroll, but I am pretty familiar with Fox News’s Guy Benson, who I typically think is levelheaded (albeit more partisan than I am).

Like Bernie and I, Benson, a fellow conservative, believes Donald Trump is unfit for office. He reiterated that position in a column he wrote for Townhall right after the verdict:

I have found Donald Trump to be a volatile, capricious, myopic, petty man for as long as I’ve been aware of his existence. I have voted against him in two presidential primaries (and would have a third time if my state’s Republican Party hadn’t canceled its nominating contest in 2020, in obsequious deference to the incumbent). I have voted against him (third party/write-in) in two general elections. My full intention has been to do so again this November, despite my deep opposition to the governance of the Biden administration. Biden has been a far worse president than I’d expected, and my expectations were low. The reason I’ve been planning to nevertheless vote for someone other than Donald Trump once again is that he has always been fundamentally unfit for high office, in my opinion.

But then, Benson added this:

I am now strongly entertaining the possibility of voting for Trump. I stand behind, and still believe, every single thing I wrote in the preceding paragraph. What I’m grappling with now is whether the appalling lawfare so brazenly employed against Trump in this case is more dangerous than anything Trump, and his worst excesses, represent.

Benson’s rationale would seem to represent Caroll’s, minus the certainty and enthusiasm. Benson is considering setting aside his belief that Trump is unfit for office, and voting for him for the very first time ever, because he thinks what happened to Trump in New York may be a greater threat to the country than anything Trump has done or conceivably will do.

If that is indeed Benson’s logic, which seems to at least partially represent Bernie’s sentiment (though not his intent), I am every bit as perplexed by the mindset as I voiced during this week’s No BS Zone.

Let me take this opportunity to explain, in greater detail, exactly why.

Let’s start with the scope of New York case. There’s little indication that the decision to prosecute Trump went any higher than Bragg himself. The D.A. ran for office on going after Trump, and after he won, he did just that. Trump and his allies claim Biden was the puppet-master behind the effort, but there’s no proof of that. I don’t even understand what the political logic of such a play would be. By all accounts, the New York case was the weakest and least consequential of the four criminal indictments against Trump. If anything, Bragg’s endeavor was a distraction from the more serious, more politically damaging charges related to classified documents, January 6, and election interference. It also ran the risk of delegitimizing the other cases in the eyes of the public. I can’t imagine the Biden campaign would want that, and again, there are no facts supporting that the Biden administration was involved.

In his piece, Benson falls short of implicating Biden (Bernie doesn’t buy a connection to Biden either). So, how on earth could the sleazy actions of a local D.A. possibly be “more dangerous than anything Trump, and his worst excesses, represent”?

The Dispatch’s Jonah Goldberg recently reminded readers of some of those “excesses” during Trump’s first term, and since leaving office:

He was impeached (the first time) for abusing his power in an attempt to intimidate a foreign leader to investigate Joe Biden for corruption. When he tried to steal the 2020 election, he pressured his own Justice Department to allege crimes to buttress his false claims that the election was illegitimate. This was also around the time he encouraged a mob that visited riotous violence upon the Capitol in an effort to intimidate Congress out of fulfilling its constitutional duties. He’s promised to pardon people who beat up cops on his behalf. He calls them “hostages” and plays their warbling rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before his rallies, like some weak-tea Americanized version of the “Horst-Wessel-Lied.” He defended the mob that chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” He’s argued—through lawyers in court—and in his own words that he should be immune to any criminal charges that stem from actions he took as president, and to a certain extent, as ex-president. He’s vowed that when he’s president again he reserves the right to do what he’s outraged is being done to him. I could go on, but you get the picture. 

There’s also that aforementioned criminal matter of Trump stealing boxes of highly classified material when he left office (including nuclear and foreign war plans), showing it off to random people at his country club, refusing to give the documents back when repeatedly asked, and ultimately obstructing legal efforts to retrieve the material.

Is there a serious argument to be made that a U.S. president doing all of these things (some for which he’s facing criminal charges that Benson acknowledges in his piece are legitimate) is less dangerous to the country, and less dangerous to our legal system, than a shady D.A. working within the bounds of local law to elevate crimes (that Trump did commit) to felonies, for which a jury found him guilty, and are now subject to appeal?

If so, let’s hear that argument. I don’t think it exists. I can’t even conceive how it can exist… not unless you deny that Trump actually did the things described above (which Benson doesn’t).

Trump, as Jonah Goldberg highlighted, has committed extraordinary abuses of power — abuses of national and international consequence. They make Alvin Bragg’s scuzzy legal maneuvering look like child’s play in comparison.

On the other hand, I do understand the power of spite. If one is so upset by how Trump was treated by a Democrat in New York, that they believe the guy they’ve deemed unfit for office should be awarded the U.S. presidency as a consolation prize, I can at least grasp that mindset. But it’s a pretty shallow mindset, likely spurred by partisan muscle-memory from simpler political times. I would argue that Trump (whose actions over the years have wrecked a lot of people’s lives and livelihoods) is profoundly unworthy of anything even approaching that level of restitution. We’re talking, after all, about the highest office in the land, the leadership of the free world, and command of our armed forces. Those who value the institution of the presidency should insist on a higher qualification to serve in it than getting screwed over on a regional legal matter.

Again, Bernie’s not going to vote for Trump. Frankly, I don’t think Guy Benson will either (I suspect he was caught up in the heat of the moment). But I believe the relatively few people who will vote for Trump, based purely on the New York trial, were always going to find a way to vote for him.

That’s entirely their decision to make, of course. I certainly don’t have to agree with it. I just think the willingness to make this particular issue their deciding factor is more of a tell than it is conviction.

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