A TALE OF TWO DEFENDANTS
Donald Trump, on the heels of his indictment for conspiring to nullify the 2020 election, has been engaged in his customary orgy of self-pity.
Everyone is against him. He has done nothing wrong. His constitutional rights are being violated. He was only listening to the lawyers he hired to tell him very specific lies about voter fraud. No way he can get a fair trial in the District of Columbia. They took too long to indict him because it’s messing up his presidential campaign. (And guess what he would have said if the indictment had come quickly.)
Trump has been unabashed in his admiration for Vladimir Putin
Today, Putin’s chief political opponent, Aleksei Navalny, was tried and sentenced in a closed-door trial, held in a supermax prison where he was already being jailed on supposed fraud charges. On top of the nine-year sentence he was already serving, the court today added another 19 years on charges of supporting “extremism” and ordered him imprisoned under the harshest conditions.
Navalny, 47, was sentenced for creating an extremist organization and other crimes, and was ordered imprisoned in one of Russia’s “special regime” colonies, known for their harsh treatment of inmates. His supporters have warned that confinement in that environment for such a long sentence represents a significant threat to his life. * * *
“The number doesn’t matter,” Mr. Navalny said in a statement after the sentence was handed down. “I understand very well that, like many political prisoners, I am serving a life sentence. Where life is measured by the duration of my life or the life span of this regime.”
In his statement, Mr. Navalny urged his followers not to give up, warning that Russian authorities were taking these draconian actions to frighten them and deprive them of the will to resist. The liberal Russian opposition has been fractured, sent into exile and challenged by infighting as a result of Mr. Putin’s increased repression. (NY Times, August 4, 2023)
History has a way of aligning events so that the irony is unavoidable: Putin’s anti-dissent kangaroo court is exactly the end result that Donald Trump is planning for his political enemies. He will exact revenge and he will purge the government of those who fail to worship him.
Trump would have no problem seeing Jack Smith, various Bidens and Clintons sent to jail. If the MAGA House of Representatives can censure Adam Schiff for opposing Trump, why would Trump’s new DOJ not send him to prison?
Donald Trump was indicted by three grand juries comprised of his fellow citizens. He is being accorded the presumption of innocence. He will have public trials and will be permitted to mount a full defense with the right to appeal any adverse decisions.
His claim that he is somehow being railroaded by a politicized DOJ is pathological.
Perhaps the most horrific aspect of watching Trump’s cult followers is their inability to see where totalitarianism leads. They think that they’re in with Trump’s “in-crowd.” They will find that they’re on a very slippery slope if this self-pitying thug ever regains power.
But the greatest shame must fall on the members of Trump’s party who, at much less risk than Mr. Navalny, cannot summon the courage to speak out against a tyrant.