Taxonomy of Bullshit Trumpsucker Defenses
Nice work if you can get it and you can get it if you cry
Ah shaddap
The Georgia indictments of Donald Trump, Rudolph Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and a bunch of other crooks have led to a flurry of ridiculous defenses, ranging in tone and manner from the truculent to the aggrieved and employing various modes of pseudo-logic, which I have taken the trouble to taxonomize here:
The Threat of Retaliation with a Whiff of Piety Defense
There will be many goons in the Trump orbit (including Tubby himself) who will, as these indictments heat up, threaten to retaliate with indictments of their own against Democrats for crimes left unnamed — because, the reasoning goes, since indictments of their hero are by definition unfair, it is only fair that they unfairly indict their enemies on whatever pretext is available (as is happening already with their fanciful Biden impeachment). Most of these will take the form of thuggish rants or citations of the “He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue!” line from The Untouchables or whatever equivalent is popular with incels at present.
But for fash with class like Half-Pint Shapiro, there will also be a little dollop of fake evenhandedness on top. “Whatever you think about the Trump indictments” is a pretense of acknowledgement that Trump has committed real crimes; it lasts just enough to diffuse a scent of sanctimony, but not long enough for the MAGA reader to go “WAIT IS MIDGET SAY TRUMP AM GUILTY” before Shapiro gets to the threat. It fools no one, but may serve as a template for the many imitators of his passive-aggressive style.
The Oh So Now It’s a Crime to Declare Victory Defense
This schmo is doing a variation on behalf of Tubby’s mouthpieces, whose bad-faith efforts to bullshit courts into throwing out legitimate election results he portrays as normal lawyering — sort of like when a gangland shyster tries to uncover a witness’ identity so his client can rub him out, only, in this case, the intended victim is democracy.
But the usual method is to defend Trump as merely having done his due diligence as a candidate for office, however late in the campaign cycle (i.e. after it) and unusual the tactics (i.e. blackmail, coercion, criminal conspiracy) and being unjustly prosecuted for it — or, as Littleface does here, for just doing something that we all do:
Why, you, Joe Sixpack, may be watching cable and tweeting right now, and Joe Biden’s jackbooted thugs may just break down your door and haul you off to prison! In fact they probably will! Similarly, an arrested bank robber could be portrayed as unjustly prosecuted for merely making a withdrawal without following the customary procedure — if that’s a crime, well, God help you if you incorrectly fill out your withdrawal slip! Now aren’t you sympathetic to Trump?
The It’s Your Means I Question Defense
In a way this one’s like the Threat of Retaliation with a Whiff of Piety Defense, minus the threat and double the piety. It’s meant for the tiny audience of NeverTrump and JustTheTip Trump Republicans to whom National Review writers like The Man They Call Baseball Crank pander, and who really go for an anti-anti-Trump angle. (Perhaps BBC also hopes MAGA choads will sufficiently appreciate his backhanded defense of Trump that, if he gets caught in a dark alley with a bunch of them someday, they won’t try to unstitch his seams. )
The idea is a Choose Your Own Bullshit Adventure: Yes, Trump committed crimes (BBC says in follow-up post that “Two of the 3 indictments so far are the latter [‘stretched’] type” so he apparently thinks at least one is legit), and crimes should be prosecuted, but not everybody gets prosecuted so why him OR impeachment is the Constitutional remedy so you shouldn’t use criminal law OR the prosecutors were “creative” in that BBC has never seen a president charged with trying to overturn an election before — and that can’t be explained by the unique mendacity of Tubby and his gang, because in the Never/JustTheTip mindset Trump is always just bad enough to be disowned and tsk-tsked over, but never bad enough to be held accountable for his actions. I mean, he’s no Hunter Biden!
The Fantasy Camp Defense
What if Jesus Christ comes back to earth and says, “Donald Trump is my Son in whom I am well pleased,” but by then you let him be carted off to prison, and meantime Donald Trump has died of a broken heart because America let him down. Won’t you feel terrible then?
The Racist Asshole Defense
You’re gonna see a lot of these and most of them won’t even go to the trouble of making an analogy.
The Prestige Media Defense
The Times’ Peter Baker, the Post’s Ruth Marcus, and fucking Axios all agree: BOTHSIDES! BOTHSIDES! PLEASE DON’T CALL US “BIAS”! This species of defense will be the one that reaches most Americans, which is unfortunate, though the silver lining is most of them already know these people are full of shit.
Brilliant roundup, Roy.
I think my favorite is the “impeachment was the appropriate remedy” defense by the same people who ardently opposed both impeachments.
And as far as the “now you’ve done it to us we’ll do it to you first chance we get” threat, the only response is “no shit, Sherlock.” I mean, what have they been doing all these years, playing patty-cake? Bill Clinton, anyone? We all remember the way they went after Obama, and they were threatening to impeach Hillary before she was elected.
I say: bring it, bitch. If any Democrat shows their entire ass the way Trump and his rogue’s gallery have, they deserve to be impeached.
At least BBC inversely agreed with the "creative prosecutors" – they have in fact applied "clear, pre-existing law" (and yes I know, would be hard to prosecute any other sort of law, partly because if it pre-exists not, then WTF?