The presidential election this week marks a first in the history of the United States when Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris while awaiting sentencing on 34 criminal charges. The president-elect has faced criminal indictments in three other cases as well.
Justice Juan Merchan is scheduled to sentence Trump on those 34 charges on Nov. 26.
In an op-ed published by the Kansas City Star on Friday, journalist Bill Dalton argued that Judge Merchan can honor “the rule of law.”
Dalton writes, “The American people did the unthinkable — they elected a convicted felon president. Judge Juan Merchan should now do what was once unthinkable — force a president-elect to take the oath of office in a jail cell.”
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Dalton continues, “That message needs to be sent because, after Inauguration Day, the rule of law will cease to exist for sitting presidents thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. Trump proved Tuesday, aided and abetted by 72 million voters, that crime does indeed pay. He thumbed his nose at America’s once respected system of justice. He made a laughingstock of prosecutors and the judicial process. He turned what used to be a political liability for candidates into a political asset for fundraising.”
Dalton argued that Merchan “should sentence and jail Trump while he is still a private citizen, no better nor more privileged than any of the millions of people who voted for or against him.”
“Merchan should show the same courage that Vice President Mike Pence showed on January 6 when he stood for the rule of law, risking his life and destroying his political career in the process,” writes Dalton.
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I suspect that even if this did happen, it would mostly just energize his base. It’d help him make a faux martyr of himself and rile up all of his worst supporters. It’s not like he’d stay in that cell, after all.
Do you not arrest the Beer Hall Putsch perpetrator because it will rile up his supporters?
Trump is in a position where the rule of law scarcely affects him, regardless of what a judge sentences him to, because of the sheer quantity of political capital backing him. If this happened, he would spend a couple months in a cell and nothing else, at best. So if you think he should be arrested based exclusively on the law itself and no other reasons, sure, that’s justified. But I’m talking impact, here.
I think the overall impact would be negative for the reasons given above. He’d face scarcely any truly proportionate punishment, would learn nothing, would lose nothing, and his supporters would become even more rabid. And all that would mean the political calculus for “is it worth it to commit fraud” either doesn’t change or goes even further in favor of “yes.” What’s the point, then, besides to make us feel a bit better until he inevitably gets released?
Well, I don’t know what his right-wing base would think, but whatever it is, would it be a reason to not put him in jail? Is the judicial system different if a convicted felon’s base is energized?
[Edit: fixed typo.]
Technically yes, since the convicted felon is the president-elect and has literally changed the power balance of the judicial system already.
Really though, it all comes down to risk. The more frenzied his base becomes, the more they let him get away with, and thus the more he will take advantage of that. Normally, I wouldn’t care about this, because if Republicans aren’t given this “feral consent” they’ll manufacture it themselves. But I pause because the actual benefits of this are so slim as to measure up poorly against even this low-level con. I mean, he’s in jail for a couple months — so what? Does that stop him from doing much of anything? Will he even care, when he knows he’ll leave it with just as much power as he had when he entered?
Were it that he’d lost the election, I’d feel differently. But we don’t live in a sane world. What do we actually get out of this?
If anything, him being jailed would just make it easier for his cabinet to push through their policies. With Trump around he might be incompetent enough to slow it down. With him out of the way? No shot.
And I say this as someone who really wants him to be imprisoned.