Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
Remember back in the day when Donald Trump tried to make hay by advocating that authorities lock up Hillary Clinton?
I do.
Now, Trump could face the same call because he has been convicted of 34 felons.
That’s right, 34. He is a felon. So, lock him up.
Of course, he doesn’t care.
And, believe this – he actually tries to capitalize on that status to raise money from the MAGA crowd who believe he is a victim.
Well, to me, he is not a victim.
All of us, instead, are victims, given his proclivity, even as president, to break the law and contend that such action is what makes him and America great.
Washington Post analyst, Jennifer Rubin, wrote in the Washington Post this week about Trump’s new status. This was the headline: “The best argument to lock up Trump: Merchan must protect the judiciary.”
“Seasoned legal minds differ on whether felon and former president Donald Trump should receive prison time for his conviction on 34 counts. However, considering the context of Trump’s crimes and his propensity to threaten judges, juries and witnesses, significant prison time is the only punishment that fits the crime and this convict.
“Trump’s crime of falsification of business records is considered a Class E felony — the lowest-level felony, punishable by up to four years in prison. Punishment for each count would run concurrently, so the maximum would be four years, not 136 years.
“In addition to the gravity of the offense, the factors weighing most heavily in favor of a significant prison sentence are Trump’s conduct and character. It is not ‘simply’ that Trump has multiple civil judgments against him (e.g., sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, inflating his property values and misusing charitable funds), or that he spearheaded a violent insurrection to overturn an election, or even that his conduct resulted in multiple contempt citations in Merchan’s and Justice Arthur Engoron’s courtrooms.
“In this case, character and conduct also encompass how Trump treats the criminal justice system.
“From that perspective, imprisonment may be the only effective penaltybecause of Trump’s defective character. Chump-change fines for contempt during the trial did not slow him down. So long as he remains at large, with unfettered access to social media, he poses a threat to the people he attacks and the judicial system he maligns. Incarceration is the only means of holding Trump accountable for his wholesale attacks on the rule of law that continue to this day.”
COMMENT: Rubin makes good points, though, I suspect, in the end, Trump will escape with a fine (he won’t care how much) and perhaps home confinement in a way that will allow him to continue campaigning.
I’ll give Ruth Marcus from the Post the last word here.
“Reasonable people can differ about the wisdom of prosecuting Donald Trump. Reasonable people can differ about the justice of the guilty verdict in the Manhattan hush money case against the former president.
“But we are not dealing with reasonable people in the Trump-fueled reaction to his conviction on 34 felony counts. We are dealing with dangerous people — and a dangerous assault on the rule of law in the call for state-level officials to launch revenge prosecutions and the threat of federally directed retribution against President Biden and other Democrats if Trump returns to power.
“This is so unhinged it is tempting to ignore it as overheated bloviating. That would be a mistake. The individuals inciting this prosecution-as-payback approach sit at Trump’s elbow. And they appear incapable of grasping the essential flaw in their reasoning: That, even assuming the basest partisan motives on the part of Trump’s pursuers, the proper response is to retaliate in kind.”
So, if Trump wins, the anti-democracy approach will continue. Round up anyone who disagrees, Trump says, and put them in jail. Sounds like a puppet regime, which is exactly what Trump wants.
Perspective from the 19th Hole 