Update: 5/30/2024 This is the rule of law at work that allows juries of a defendant's peers to make that decision in every criminal case. The hush money trial could have gone either way. Today, Trump's fellow New Yorkers found him guilty of felonies.
This is why the rule of law is important and the key to American democracy. In an autocracy, the rule of law depends on the self-interest and judgment of one, and when the chips are down and the ruler has his appointees in place, the ruling and penalty are nearly always in favor of the ruler. The ruler depends on his power to stay controlled by a judicial system he controls. For how that works, Putin's Russia and how he has treated Navalny and Americans like Brittany Griner being held as hostages hoping to make deals in prisoner exchanges. The form of the rule of law is in Russia, but the use/abuse of it favors the autocrat.
Trump is already behaving like the autocrat he wants to be, refusing to accept any results of elections unless they show him winning, calling all judges and court decisions corrupt and the process rigged if they rule against him; and attempting to get "his" Supreme Court to rule he was immune from criminal protection when and if again he is in office and commits a crime. He has taken over his political party in total in preparation for 2024, requiring all those who think they have a political future to endorse him and to repeat the mantra: the 2020 election was stolen, or to resign or not run for re-election. . The question becomes, will he get away with it?
The warning to everyone else: If you think he was kidding about being a dictator on day one, he is already acting like one and making preparations to turn the entire executive branch into "his," replacing civil servants with loyalists per Project 2025, including the Department of Justice and the Defense Department brass, to use force or the threat of force to put down demonstrations who object to him.
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