A Legal Terrorist

January 23, 2024 1:20 PM

Michael Kruse, writing in Politico, ‘This to Him Is the Grand Finale’: Donald Trump’s 50-Year Mission to Discredit the Justice System, is a VERY long read that begins with the Trumps being sued for racist rental properties in the early Seventies and being defended by Roy Cohn, and moves forward decade by decade and provides a LOT of really interesting and necessary context for what we will be seeing happen this year in various courts around the country.

If you'd rather, here is Michael Kruse talking to Charlie Sykes for 50 minutes about the article.

posted by hippybear (26 comments total)

"When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:59 PM on January 23 [10 favorites]

Also from Kruse, a (shorter) profile of a New Hampshire Trump voter: "'I have no trust,' he said."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 2:21 PM on January 23 [2 favorites]

This fucking guy realized (correctly) that the law was set up to keep regular people in their place, and if you are within the highest echelons of wealth and power, and you have the will to ignore the law, you can just fucking do that. Apparently.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:45 PM on January 23 [19 favorites]

jesus christ

I'm coming to the conclusion that this man simply had to become president

if you can be the kind of man described in the article, and win an election as dog catcher let alone president, then it's not the person who is the problem
posted by elkevelvet at 2:46 PM on January 23 [34 favorites]

It's worth reading. A lot of the information's fairly familiar to anyone who's kept themselves informed on Trump, but pulling it all together in this way makes the case undeniable.

The problem is, of course, that the only people who ever read articles like this are precisely the ones who don't need to. How you get these points through to Trump's followers I have no idea.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:04 PM on January 23 [17 favorites]

Mod note: Several deleted related to folks trying to sort out a comment with the wrong link. Link has been changed.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 3:07 PM on January 23 [5 favorites]

It's too late for those people. Probably for the United States, too.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:22 PM on January 23 [10 favorites]

The worst part of this is that Mr. Trump could achieve and obtain everything he has ever wanted, and it still won't be enough for him. He is little more than a gaping maw of unsatisfiable need, and his unchecked quest may end up destroying the planet.

I have come to believe that humanity's/science's #1 goal should be a cure for medically-defined "malignant narcissism" (#2 being a cure for sociopathy/psychopathy on their own). From there, all other cures/altruisms wiil follow.

Or at least we could invent The Matrix and stick him in it. ;->
posted by zaixfeep at 4:22 PM on January 23 [16 favorites]

Secret Immunity from prosecution for finking on his old casino mob buddies, whose influence had waned, while allying with Russian mafia money launderers.
posted by ovvl at 4:33 PM on January 23 [5 favorites]

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by MtDewd at 4:40 PM on January 23 [12 favorites]

Very good article, great post! However as happens every time I read something like this I will need to sit down and watch the parts in Angels Of America where Roy Cohn meets his end; with Ethel Rosenberg watching over him.

I’m sure she will come back for Donald, along with Stormy and Jean Carroll.
posted by cybrcamper at 4:45 PM on January 23 [8 favorites]

So I've been listening to the Bulwark every night (speaking of Charlie Sykes - WI represent(?))
If there's anything I hate about this election it's me having to listen to former neocon/conservatives in alliance against Trump. Nodding my head and then they make a comment reminding me they're conservatives. Which is fine, politics makes strange bedfellows and these are people who are walking the walk.

Honestly I feel like they're reporting style is much better than 90% because it doesn't feel like I'm being shouted at (maybe that's just Charlies endearing soft spoken midwest style, IDK) Look forward to the longread and hearing the interview.
posted by symbioid at 5:07 PM on January 23 [2 favorites]

There’s a line from Jonathan Swift, although the idea goes back millennia: “Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:50 PM on January 23 [18 favorites]

every time I read something like this I will need to sit down and watch the parts in Angels Of America where Roy Cohn meets his end

I will to my dying day continue to claim that Pachino was doing the Lord's work taking on that role for that filming. I'm not sure anyone else could have held the weighty reputation along with the acting chops to make that role land the way that it does in that particular filming.

Honestly, I feel like that filming of that piece is a miracle of timing that couldn't be replicated. Waver 3-5 years in either direction and you don't get the cast or crew or the strength of the final product.
posted by hippybear at 7:13 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]

I hate everything about this, and I think while we have to acknowledge that Trump has his base and his base is a big part of the Republican party, the more we talk about him like he's some kind of ____ genius (in this case legal genius) the more it becomes true. J'refuse.
posted by subdee at 7:29 PM on January 23 [4 favorites]

You know, with Hitler, the more I learn about that guy, the more I don’t care for him.
posted by logicpunk at 8:10 PM on January 23 [9 favorites]

Been reading @TheShallowState (successor to @DutyToWarn on X/Nitter):

He's reactive, transactional, and impulsive. He's pure self. Pure id. That's all that he is and there ain't no more.

So I've decided to call him Donal-"Id" or maybe "Id"-onald from now on. 'Cos that's literally all he is.
posted by zaixfeep at 9:31 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]

the more we talk about him like he's some kind of ____ genius (in this case legal genius) the more it becomes true

Yeah, I had a similar thought. Every time someone on our side blithely announces that Trump's going to win the Presidency again for sure, the more of a self-fulfilling prophecy that becomes. It's a kind of apocalypse porn, I think, with people on the left getting a secret thrill from assuming the worst possible outcome about everything.

There's a very real danger that Trump will get back into power, yes, but let's not all surrender to the idea that it's a foregone conclusion just yet. Doing that can only help him.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:00 AM on January 24 [19 favorites]

Secret thrill, or worried about our lives, livelihood, friends and family, health care, and draconian policing? Cuz, uh, there's a lot of hate laws being proposed and sometimes passed, and a lot of it is due to Trump moving the window even further towards blatant bigotry
posted by Jacen at 1:48 AM on January 24 [9 favorites]

So he uses the legal system as a cudgel and his celebrity status (and media savvy) to control the narrative to project a win regardless of actual outcome. And he's been doing that for 50 years to create a cult of personality.

I wish the article further explored the systems around him that enable the behaviour and why it's been allowed to continue. They've technically had 50 years to make Trump's playbook ineffective, so it's clearly in someone's interest (beyond Trump) to not change the system.

The pervasive thought I have in my mind is that "there's a worse version of him out there taking notes right now". Trump is the immediate threat but the system needs to correct itself to prevent future Trumps.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:48 AM on January 24 [12 favorites]

Secret thrill, or worried about our lives, livelihood, friends and family, health care, and draconian policing?

I'm worried too. But it's not a certainty that Trump will get into power again and I think it's a mistake to pretend it is. If we fall into the trap of assuming he's got November's election won already, then why bother going out to vote against him?
posted by Paul Slade at 3:08 AM on January 24 [6 favorites]

I don't think it is a "secret thrill" per se. I think it is relief. Anxiety about the future can be agony. Despair, like denial, offers an escape. If there is no hope, their is no need to worry. It isn't accurate or healthy, but it makes life more bearable for a lot of people.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 3:56 AM on January 24 [6 favorites]

There’s a line from Jonathan Swift, although the idea goes back millennia: “Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.”

more recently, William Gaddis: “Justice? --You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.”
posted by chavenet at 9:47 AM on January 24 [2 favorites]

We don't have to be too imaginative to figure out who benefits from making it too much of a hassle to challenge them in court... it's rich people and organizations who can afford to make it too much of a hassle to challenge them in court.

So what if we kept a lifetime balance of court shenanigans? For example: if you file for a postponement and it's granted, great. If it's denied, you lose one Lawcoin™ (if that denial is overturned on appeal, you gain one coin for your trouble, but if it's affirmed then the appellate court can deduct an extra coin if they decide the appeal itself was frivolous).

For organizations (e.g. corporations) that are party to a court proceeding, they default to the lowest individual balance among the members of their executive team or a majority shareholder, and any penalties the organization receives in court are applied simultaneously to each of those people.

If your balance goes to zero, any further coin deductions are an automatic contempt charge with mandatory jail time and compensation for your opponents' legal costs.

You can't otherwise increase your balance until you get a check from your grandma for five coins on your birthday.
posted by Riki tiki at 10:35 AM on January 24 [3 favorites]

If the Lawcoins are transferable, Trump gets away with everything because his base just sends him their coins.
posted by joannemerriam at 10:39 AM on January 24

There's an interesting parallel between Trump's "DARVO" legal /publicity strategy and the traditional Republican "working the refs" technique of complaining about liberal bias in the media to score preferential treatment. It's just sick, depressing and frightening how public perceptions of reality have been so thoroughly warped by Trump and the Republican party.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 5:31 PM on January 24 [2 favorites]