To an extent, sure, yeah, I get it. As we're told on tiresome repeat, this prosecution is "unprecedented" and needs to be handled with utmost respect for the Justice Department and for the justice system of the United States in order to preclude any accusations of politicization. I mean, you don't want people thinking that this is Biden and the Democrats jailing Trump because he's the leading candidate and almost inevitable presidential nominee for the Republican party. You don't want them to think that the Justice Department, the Attorney General, or the Special Counsel aren't acting independently. You wouldn't ever want that narrative to get out there. You wouldn't want to help that narrative.
Oh, wait. Except for the fact that it's the narrative that's now congealed on the right and the silence is feeding it to bloating and crowding out other narratives. In fact, here's what Trump said last night at his shitpile country club in New Jersey: "Today we witnessed the most evil and heinous abusive power in the history of our country, a very sad thing to watch. A corrupt sitting president had his top political opponent arrested on fake and fabricated charges." And then, later in his pissy, tired little speech (which was interrupted, no shit, by the pathetic sycophants present singing "Happy Birthday" like they were shrieking a funeral dirge), Trump promised that, if he's reelected, "I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president of the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family." The yowling savages in the crowd chanted, "Lock him up!" in response because everyone loves the hits.
You got that? Trump said that it's wrong if he's prosecuted but he will make sure that Biden and his family are prosecuted. In other words, the open politicization of the Justice Department that Trump wanted in his first administration would occur in a presumed second. That orange, dough-faced shitmonger has no problem laying it all out there (although you'd probably wanna ask his voters how it went locking up Hillary Clinton last time around).
By the way, for the record, Merrick Garland, not Joe Biden, appointed Jack Smith.
Republicans have been all over the airwaves, with most of them denouncing the indictment in varying ways. There have been a couple of outliers, especially in the Republicans running against Trump, who condemn him for, you know, criming so blatantly. And a couple of those have promised to pardon Trump if they're elected because reasons.
But the near-silence from elected Democrats has been ridiculous. Here and there, some have spoken out forcefully about the severity of the indictment, like Rep. Daniel Goldman of New York, who was the lead counsel in Trump's first impeachment, on CNN on Sunday. But most responses have been like Rep. Don Davis of North Carolina, who addressed things in the most milquetoast, weak tea, pedantic way possible: "What I believe is important is to allow the facts to continue to come forth through a process here and let's allow the Department of Justice to continue to do its work." On the floor of the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, "This case must be allowed to play out through the legal process, without outside political or ideological interference." Nice, inoffensive, and completely fucking useless.
Even Adam Schiff was on CNN last night and he was muted, talking mainly about how sad it is that Trump still has support. About the whole situation, he told Anderson Cooper, "It's a sad day when a president is again indicted, and what so many Republicans are doing to defend him by attacking the Justice Department, by sowing -- you know, an effort to sow disbelief and discredit the FBI, this is another way they're damaging the country, damaging our national security besides the risk it was already taken by having these documents in an unsecure place."
That last remark there is what should be the thing that elected Democrats are hammering constantly with at least the same intensity that Republicans are insisting it's all a witch hunt or that it's no big deal or that others did it or whatever random bullshit they pull out of the giant bag of bullshit they always carry with them. It's mind-boggling that Democrats are once again unilaterally disarming here (and, yeah, if Biden is making them do it, he's fucking wrong).
This isn't that hard: Talk about the fucking crimes. That's it. Talk about the crimes. Talk about how fucked this all was when it comes to national security. Ask if people feel okay about nuclear secrets laying around the bathroom of a country club that was infiltrated by spies. Ask if they feel safe with that happening. Keep shoving this up the fucking asses of any Republicans who defend it. We're not talking about a love letter from Kim Jong Un. We're talking about documents that say, "Oh, hey, here's where the US is weak, enemies, so you can probably blow shit up here." And ask what kind of fucking asshole does this shit and what kind of assholes say it's all fine. Get angry about it, Democratic leaders. Let the public know that Trump's accused of doing something really shitty and harmful and he's pretty much admitted that he did it.
Right now, according to one poll, 63% of independents think the indictment is a serious matter. As the narratives develop around the case and around Trump, if the main one those voters hear is from the GOP crime-enablers, it could have an effect on the pudding-brained independents whose whims seem to shift from election to election. Democrats can get them on board by making clear that you can ally with the criminals or you can ally with the ones who believe that you shouldn't put the nation at risk. There's a window of time to accomplish this, and Democrats have gotta jump on the messaging train.
We keep pretending that all this shit is normal because Trump and his spokeworms get away with saying it. No, it's not normal for a president to just take whatever the fuck they want when they leave. Trump keeps lying about it. Last night, he told the Bedminster zombies and plague rats, "Hillary Clinton took hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of furniture, china, flatware, rugs, and more from the White House and she wasn’t prosecuted. How about that one? She took the furniture and the china." The Clintons weren't prosecuted for the $190,000 in gifts and other things they took because they either returned them or they paid for them in a settlement of the issue. In other words, it's the complete opposite of Trump and the documents.
But these stories and Trump's telling of them become accepted as fact, no matter how many fact checks there are. That often happens because Democrats try to be decent or upstanding or what the fuck ever when they should be laying it on the line and creating the narrative instead of responding to it and certainly instead of being silent.
