The Felon

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, a two-handed consideration

Umm, do you have any other choices available? Credit: AP

Editors Note: Have a question about how to deal with the convicted felon in your family?  Maybe ask Eric and Don Jr. to start a support group with you, but don’t ask Matt. His family mostly commits unprosecuted misdemeanors. For all other questions, ask Matt at askmattlabash@gmail.com.

Dear Matt,
I’ve had to listen to you whine incessantly about Trump for the last eight years. Well, they finally got him. Are you happy? And will you shut up now?
Best,
Mom

Well, since we’re related, I’ll level with you. As is the case with so many other things Trump has ruined for me — from golden sneakers to YMCAs to the Grand Old Party to the Bible — I can no longer even enjoy my own schadenfreude. It’s usually good clean fun to watch a serially dishonest con man buck up against something he’s never encountered before. Namely, consequences. Less so, when you’re on-the-fence about whether the punishment fits the crime, and you spent the next two days after the verdict watching the country tear itself apart over Trump, even if he’ll likely never serve a day in jail.

But that’s mostly what I’ve done since the jury rendered their decision: sat back and watched stupid, reckless people say stupid, reckless things.

People like American Majority CEO Ned Ryun  — a Trump knob-polisher by trade —  who all but advocated doxxing jurors when Rush Limbaugh’s even oilier and less-talented little brother, David, blamed them for their moral failure. (I.E., for not coming up with the verdict he desired.)

Or take The Federalist’s man-baby Sean Davis (someone please take him…..to a doctor, to get some mood stabilizers), who showcased his stalwart commitment to the rule of law and to the guy who spent 2016 leading arenas full of MAGAbots in “Lock Her Up” chants, by demanding the upcoming election be decided on promises of future revenge imprisonments:

Or take the newly converted Washington Examiner editor (h/t Mediaite), who proclaimed this:

Which at first glance, doesn’t make much sense. But upon closer inspection, makes even less. It’s like saying you really hate beets, but after somebody has served you up Brussels sprouts, which you also dislike, now you’re gonna lustily eat the living s&*% out of that bowl of beets, and love it!  Because that’ll show Brussels sprouts who’s boss! You go, girl.

But why heap scorn on my fellow countrymen, with their MAGAtrophied judgment, when I could just go about quietly resenting them, as usual.  Oh sure, I took an impulsive early shot on Substack Notes:

But I’d rather accentuate the positive. So switching gears, one of the things I’ve always admired about myself  — aside from my strong-yet-nimble typing fingers and my abs of steel (humbly camouflaged beneath layers of middle-aged gut) — is my ability to say “on the other hand” even when my passions have been aroused.  Some consider this speaking out of both sides of your mouth. To which I say, “get bent,” out of whichever side they’d prefer.  Are we pro free-thinking, or aren’t we?  Should we give our minds room to roam? Can we admit contradictions to ourselves and others because life is almost always more complicated than pundit fights in the Octagon let on? Or do we have to pick a party line at all times, and toe it?

I think you know my answer.  That’s why you’re here. Or should be if you’re not.

So while I regard Trump as a lowlife demagogue with a narcissism disorder who cheats on everything from his wives to business to golf to elections that he lost, and while I think his reckless disregard for the truth and his addiction to pushing lies cynically appeals to the rage, fear, and cheap emotions of his cult followers, and while I think he is guilty of many things, including but not limited to: sexual assault, a coup attempt, and involuntary manslaughter (five people died on January 6 — a party he was responsible for throwing)…………(deep intermission breath)…….. on the other hand, I’m not sure the crime(s) he was just convicted of, while technically a violation of the law, didn’t involve some creative indicting on the prosecution’s side, and might not have been prosecuted at all if his name weren’t “Donald Trump.”

Yet on the other, other hand, Trump’s defense team made a great to-do of what a liar Michael Cohen is, and Michael Cohen was indeed a habitual liar. Problem is, he did most of his lying on behalf of Trump, and went to jail for, among other things, violating campaign-finance laws at Trump's direction "for the principal purpose of influencing" the election. I don’t recall MAGA outrage when Cohen was locked up, including for roughly 50 days in solitary confinement.

I understand that Trump critics (of which, I am a committed one) are eager to plant the flag of victory here, largely out of frustration over all the other more serious crimes he’s at least temporarily gotten away with. Trump’s other three felony prosecutions seem indefinitely stalled, one of them due to a judge (Aileen Canon) that he appointed, who seems to be slow-rolling to the point of going backwards. The other, due to a Supreme Court on which Trump personally appointed three of the justices, and two of the other conservative justices whom he didn’t (Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito), seem to have wives who function as part-time insurrectionists. At the very least, this casts a shadow on their judicial impartiality in a presidential immunity case they didn’t have to take up (Trump’s immunity had already been rejected by both a District Court judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals). Though The Supremes seem in no great hurry to decide it, thus likely stalling both pending federal  trials— if there’s to be any — beyond the November election. And if Trump wins (which swing-state polls currently suggest he very well might), he’ll pardon himself even if he’s not granted immunity.

On the other hand, an iffy case, even decided unanimously against Trump by a jury, might very well feed the fire of paranoia (already in abundant supply) that The System uniquely has it in for Trump. Which might end up damaging The System, politically, more than it does Trump. (Trump reportedly raised $35 million in small donations in the hours after the verdict. Who says crime doesn’t pay?)  That is not an excuse to not hold Trump accountable for laws he might have violated, which a jury decided he did. In our system, which we’ve been living by even in the long-ago days before Trump became a reality-show star,  a jury’s  final word matters, pending appeal, and tough nuts if you don’t like it. Though tougher to defend is Trump being held accountable for a hodgepodge of laws, spackled together, that gave Alvin Bragg and company the excuse to bump a paperwork deception into 34 felonies. A prosecution that no legal eagles I’m aware of seem to be able to find quite the equivalent of in past cases.

Just because you have the right to exert the law’s full authority, doesn’t always mean it’s wise to. The same way 99 percent of police departments, who are often greedy revenue-grabbers, won’t ticket you if you’re going one mile over the speed limit, even though they theoretically could.

On the other hand (I realize I ran out of hands several hands ago), many have questioned the impartiality of the process in this particular case —  even some who aren’t Trumpsters — largely due to the trial’s Manhattan location (considered Indian country for Cowboy Trump). But it’s dishonest  to impugn a jury for inherent bias without us knowing much about them.  (Granted, we’ll probably know much more after MAGAbots dox them, revealing all their personal details, as often happens. Since nearly every prosecutor or judge that’s bucked up against Trump has come in for vicious harassment. Which is part of the reason Trump was cited and fined for contempt of court by Judge Juan Merchan numerous times. And while some viewed that as an abridgment of Trump’s First Amendment rights, on the other hand, if Trump were just a regular-Joe defendant, he’d have already spent several nights in jail for his aggressive disregard of the judge’s orders.)

But back to the jury. What little we do know about them from pieces such as this, tell us that eleven of them weren't native New Yorkers. Five of them said they don't follow the news closely. (One who did follow the news was a regular reader of Trump's Truth Social posts). Three of them didn't go to college. (Supposedly Trump's people.) One was an investment banker and another a retired wealth manager —neither field is typically the backwater of screamin' libs. But there were 12 jurors. The defense didn’t need to win all of them, or even a majority of them. They only needed to win one over. And not only did they not win one over, all 12 were unanimous on all 34 counts. And oh yeah, Trump’s own lawyers say he assisted in picking the jury.  An echo of how many of his own cabinet members and staffers – so many of whom eventually denounced him — he was responsible for employing in the first place.  If you’re a committed Trumpster, and don’t consider the latter a referendum on his morality or ethics, you should consider it one on his bad judgment, at the very least.

On the other hand, his character, or lack of, isn’t a side-question. It ought to be the main question, as conservatives once obsessed over it in the era of Bill Clinton. Hypocritical gasbags even wrote entire books on virtue.  So that even if you think Alvin Bragg overreached, and a judge submitted jury instructions that all but guaranteed a conviction, every single facet of this case would’ve been a disqualifier to any other candidate who didn’t have the cult following that Trump has. The facts, never really under dispute since Trump refused to testify in his own defense for fear of perjuring himself,  is that he bonked a porn actress shortly after his wife gave birth to their son, paid her hush money to cover it up in the middle of an election, and then commenced lying from there. Trump says plenty of untrue things, but often tells the truth about his followers, whose number he had all the way back in 2016 when predicting that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight, and he still wouldn’t lose them.  A prediction that’s been proven correct over and over again, even if your only exposure to his manservants’ fealty is say, reading J.D. Vance’s Twitter feed.  Not only do his believers defend him to the death, but even his faux believers do the same (Vance, like so many of Trump’s other  towel-boys-and-girls, was once a committed detractor).

While Trumpsters might have an arguable case that this is prosecutorial overreach, on the other hand, is there any doubt in the world that they’d say the same about every other serious crime he (seemingly) committed? Such as stealing state secrets and attempting to steal elections that he lost? That’s not a hypothetical. They already have acquitted him. In their eyes, Donald Trump cannot commit a crime that is ever as egregious as the crime of those who dare try to hold him accountable for the criminal acts he regularly commits. The attitude of those who otherwise pretend to love law’n’order is: How dare Johnny Law not look the other way for our Fifth Avenue shooter?

It’s an attitude that has already permeated and  destroyed our politics, and might still put a serious dent in our judicial system, now that formerly tough-on-crime Republicans, who used to be just fine with rule of law after otherwise unpopular decisions (the George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse acquittals), are now posing off as Antifa in red hats and khakis — ready to burn the system down on behalf of the Arsonist-in-chief.

My point isn’t to re-litigate Zimmerman or Rittenhouse. But to say you don’t get to pick and choose. I’ve hated plenty of jury decisions in my lifetime. O.J. Simpson walked, after pretty clearly murdering two people in cold blood. But on the other hand, I wasn’t ready to throw the entire justice system over and declare America a “third-world shithole” as Don Jr. just did, because I didn’t like a verdict.

Trumpsters  possibly have some legitimate grievances against this prosecution, if not the jury decision. (I guarantee you the jury weighed a lot more evidence than your average Truth Social warrior did.) That remains to be seen on appeal. But on the other hand, even if you don’t subscribe to the crimes Trump’s been convicted of, think of all the crimes Trump’s committed for which he hasn’t been. That ought to alleviate some karmic discomfort.  

In the seventies, one of my favorite TV-theme songs was Baretta’s, a thing of beauty from the Robert Blake-as-crusty street-detective vehicle.  (Blake, in real life, was later acquitted of murdering his wife, even if his wife’s three children civilly sued him for her wrongful death, which a jury found him liable for to the tune of $30 million.) The Baretta theme (aka, “Keep Your Eye On The Sparrow”) was a song composed by Dave Grusin and Morgan Ames, and performed by the great Sammy Davis Jr., working his way out of ‘60s Rat Packery into ‘70s grooviness. There were lots of congas and shakers and macaw calls and carnival whistles.  It was maybe my most sublime seventies theme song experience next to John Sebastian’s Welcome Back Kotter theme, in which they teased Kotter a lot but they had him on the spot.

The lyric I liked best from the Baretta theme came right at the top. They didn’t bury the lede in ‘70s theme songs:

Don't go to bed with no price on your head, no, no (Don't do it), no, no
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time (Don't do it)

Call me a simplistic ‘70s kid, but that seemed like pretty good advice then, and pretty good advice now. For both Trump, and Trump followers. If you don’t wish for your candidate to keep getting treated like a criminal, then quit supporting a guy who keeps committing crimes. That oughta fix it.

Bonus Tracks: Sammy Davis Jr. and the Baretta theme:

While we’re discussing Fifth Avenue shooters, here’s a tune from one block over. The Wallflowers’ “Sixth Avenue Heartache” — the band headed by Bob’s kid, Jakob Dylan.