If political donations and media coverage are any indication, former President Donald Trump has not been too badly damaged by the 34 felony convictions handed down by a Manhattan jury. In fact, a number of high-profile independent and Libertarian voters have determined that the only suitable response to what they see as a corruption of the justice system is to send Trump back to the Oval Office. And this leaves a question hanging in the air: Do all the people who intend to vote for Donald J. Trump in November now see the nation as a place where laws are unequally and discriminatorily applied?
A Paradox Problem for Justice
The system of justice is only held in respect and regard if its offices and decisions are accepted as sacrosanct. When one starts pulling at stray threads – or, indeed, calling the balls and strikes differently – it demeans its value and builds distrust.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) made just such a point, posting shortly after the Trump verdict that “America is a nation built upon the rule of law. The jury has spoken and carefully rendered a decision. Responsible leadership requires the verdict to be respected.”
Sober words, certainly. But how does such a position mesh with the near-constant refrain that the rulings against the Biden administration in courts across the land are at best spurious and, at worst, the efforts of out-of-control judges? Consider President Biden’s recent comments posted across social media when the Supreme Court ruled that South Carolina’s redistricting policy was not unconstitutional. “The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy. And key to that right is ensuring voters pick their elected officials – not the other way around,” he wrote. “Today’s Supreme Court decision undermines the basic principle that voting practices shouldn’t discriminate on account of race.”
And then there is the president’s reaction to the highest court determining his efforts at student loan forgiveness were not in line with the law of the land. He responded: “The Supreme Court tried to block me from relieving student debt. But they didn’t stop me. I’ve relieved student debt for over 5 million Americans. I’m going to keep going.”
So, which is it? Either we respect the rulings and accept them as just and valid, or we don’t. Picking and choosing which decisions are correct undermines the whole system on which the country relies.
A Narrative Problem
One cannot simply deride the rulings of a court one day and then hold the system up as a paragon of perfection the next. Asking the electorate to engage in cognitive dissonance to better bolster a party’s narrative is a surefire way to breed mistrust in the institutions being lauded.
On the one hand, Democrat leadership tells the nation that the courts have it right, and that questioning rulings breeds chaos. On the other, there is a decades-long trend of saying courts are biased against black Americans. Bias either exists or it doesn’t.
Fortunately for Donald Trump, his ultimate fate may not be reduced to a court decision he has declared corrupt, but rather by a result at the ballot box in November. His final judgement will come from a jury pool much wider than just 12 Manhattanites. Instead, he will be judged by a nation of his peers, and they will be the ultimate arbiters of whether the justice system can survive its current incarnation.
