Our legal system should work without prejudice or favor, and yesterday demonstrated that sometimes that ideal is achieved.\u00a0In the early evening of May 30, 2024, Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony charges of causing or creating fraudulent business records by a New York City jury.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no point in recounting the last six weeks of on this blog. There are plenty of online spaces providing excellent overviews of the legal case<\/a>. Instead, I need to vent a bit (again) about the loss of the Republican Party to Donald Trump.<\/p>\n The party leaders and voters rallying to defend Donald Trump are nothing more than a horrifying echo of the late nineteenth-century Southern Democrats. Trump embodies white Evangelical grievances. Anything he does or says must be forgiven because he is the mighty defender of \u201cproud traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump, the ultimate New York insider, has become the simulacrum for Southern Pride. Statues of Trump would be erected next to those of Robert E. Lee if his followers had their wishes granted.<\/p>\n Trump vs. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was viewed by Trump supporters through a racial, regional, and religious prism. How dare that elite Yankee Alvin Bragg believe he could hold Donald Trump accountable for anything? Doesn\u2019t Bragg know his place?<\/p>\n I have been following a mix of media covering the Trump Trials (or lack of trials). Yes, I even endured a bit of Fox News along the way.<\/p>\n And none of the media I consume features a strong, consistent Republican voice speaking in defense of our legal system. No national Republican has stated that our jury system works better than the alternatives. No national Republican has dared to suggest juries can hear cases against Donald Trump and render fair judgments.<\/p>\n Instead, it is \u201cformer Republicans\u201d and \u201cformer Libertarians\u201d speaking out to defend the 12 men and women of New York who delivered a verdict against Trump.<\/p>\n Tangent: Understanding Former Republicans<\/strong><\/p>\n Why are there so many\u00a0former\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Republicans and Libertarians? Some of us used to believe that all parties are flawed, but there was hope the GOP and LP could be modernized and reformed. Surely those of us advocating for \u201clive and let live\u201d policies would prevail. After all, wasn\u2019t it Ronald Reagan who said that government was the problem?<\/p>\n No, today\u2019s Republicans\u00a0and Libertarians <\/strong><\/em>have no qualms about using government to enforce their values. The Republican governors cannot tolerate urban areas led by Democratic politicians. Instead, they dictate to local governments from statehouses, imposing the will of social conservatives on everyone. Trump promises to do this on a national scale. There are indisputably racist and xenophobic messages from these Republicans, especially in Texas and Florida.<\/p>\n Forming a coalition with social conservatives doomed the Republican moderates. The Libertarian idealists made a similar mistake, assuming everyone supporting \u201cstates\u2019 rights\u201d meant letting state and local governments experiment to solve problems. The \u201cstates\u2019 rights\u201d advocates turned out to be racists just like the original \u201cstates\u2019 rights\u201d segregationists.<\/p>\n I enjoy reading and listening to content from The Bulwark<\/a> and The Dispatch<\/a>, which often look and sound a lot alike. As someone on the libertarian-left, meaning there\u2019s absolutely no political home for me in the United States, I still find myself closer to what remains of the former \u201cEisenhower Republicans\u201d than the Democratic Party.\u00a0The story of The Bulwark<\/a> fascinates me, and I encourage others to learn a bit about Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller. These two voices are what the GOP might have been \u2014 before the rise of Trump.<\/p>\n