I fear Erick Erickson is looking a little ragged this morning in his reaction to the indictment of the former President:
I will not waste my time convincing Democrats that indicting Trump is a bad idea. They are so convinced of the righteousness of the cause there is no point explaining to them that they’ve just opened their own candidates to future indictments.
I am an independent, not a Democrat, but I’ll take the liberty of answering for them: Good! If the Democrats nominate and even get elected a candidate who appears to have broken the law, then an indictment is appropriate and welcome.
Being a candidate, successfully or not, does not excuse criminal activities, and former lawyer Erick Erickson should know that in his bones. This is a red flag for me: He should know better than to spew such a hollow pronouncement, so either he’s following orders or he’s fighting for his job.
Republicans yesterday, before the indictment news broke, were busy laying out their case that Joe Biden had taken bribes. If he loses in 2024, he better lawyer up. So too should Hunter Biden.
My understanding of this is that notorious Trump operative Rudy Giuliani claimed to have talked to someone who made said claim, and the FBI, not-so-incidentally run by a Republican, Christopher Wray, nominated by the former President, and confirmed in a hugely bipartisan Senate vote of 92-5, rejected the claim as unsupported. That doesn’t seem to have stopped Republicans from making the accusation, who are frantic to achieve moral parity with the Democrats, and while the Democrats have some shady actions and characters on their account, I fear the former President is unchallenged. The man, after all, was impeached twice, condemned by Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), been indicted and subsequently lost a civil sexual assault case to E. Jean Carroll (found not guilty of rape, it should be mentioned), broken many norms and rules, claimed on tape that sexual assault is completely acceptable for a certain class of men, and, finally, been criminally indicted, reportedly for violations of the Espionage Act. That’s a tough, tough act to beat.
Are their acquisitions of bribe taking? Of course there are. The Republicans don’t care if they smell like skunks, just so long as do the Democrats as well. But who will bell the cat?
Donald Trump and his administration did not aggressively legally pursue Hillary Clinton. No Republican, in the future, will do anything other than aggressively pursue their Democrat rival upon taking office.
What, Trump was being nice? (Don’t let him hear that, Erickson, or he’ll humiliate you unmercifully, and take away your job.) Let’s not be too silly here: There’s a difference between a campaign accusation and standing in a courtroom, a judge eyeing you skeptically, making the same accusation. The first might result in some embarrassing questions, while the second might be far more costly.
Sure, they’ll pursue their ideological foes. Filing a sheaf of accusations in Court isn’t the same as putting them away, though. This is win-win for voters.
You can claim the cause is righteous. The other side does not see it that way. You can claim highmindedly that justice demands action, but even the Greeks knew justice at the cost of the world burning down was not worth pursuing.
In other words, if you can make yourself Too big to fail, you can go and do anything you like. Erickson hasn’t thought this through, or he thinks his readers won’t. But those who do will have one of those teeth-gritted laughs, because he’s obviously playing on emotion, not thoughtful rationality.
I don’t know the Grecian reference, but it sounds like they blew it.
The balance of his post is more or less adrift, since it depends on these unbalanced pronouncements, so I’ll just let it go. Just keep in mind, for being a pundit, Erickson’s often not just wrong, but badly wrong.
