We're going to have to meet with the volcanoes and negotiate. They are very angry and very powerful. And it seems that we have not done enough to calm them down.
In all seriousness, how should we understand the conviction? The maximum penalty is relatively small, so this isn't going to put the Trump Organization out of business or anything, nor does it convey personal liability to Trump. With that said, I think it's a big deal for two distinct reasons.
The less important reason is that it establishes once and for all, as a formal legal matter, that Trump's company, if not Trump himself, is a criminal tax cheat. Given that Trump's company is a privately-held entity that is a personal fiefdom of the man himself, this is no small thing in terms of damage to his reputation - or, it would be, if he were anything like a normal businessman. As he is nothing like a normal businessman, however, we should not overstate this matter. Trump's reputation already includes the Russia scandal, Stormy Daniels, numerous sexual assaults, two impeachments, an attempted coup, and lots of other stuff. And yet he persists. To be sure, none of these matters produced a criminal conviction for anything as close to him as the company that he alone owns.
The second, and more important reason, is that the conviction may embolden Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to consider charges against Trump personally. I have not followed the evidence presented in this case especially closely. That said, I have followed it closely enough to have the impression that much of the same evidence that produced the conviction against the company is highly damaging to Trump personally. If you've convicted a privately-held company's chief financial officer of tax fraud, and you've convicted the company itself as well, any semi-decent prosecutor would at least be thinking about the man at the top. Bragg has reportedly been looking anew at the Trump case, and has brought on a senior prosecutor to run the investigation—though Bragg appears oddly focused on the Stormy Daniels matter. However he's thinking about it, the fact that he now gets to crow about convicting the Trump Organization on all counts won't dis-incentivize further action on his part.
Everyone's talking about the Georgia Senate race outcome this morning, so I will go easy on Walker's sacrifice to the volcanoes. I have only two observations:
First, in today's America, a man can't be a spousal abuser, a hypocrite, a serial liar, a violent guy who plays Russian Roulette, a fabulist about his own career and history, a deadbeat dad, and - not to put too fine a point on it - a total moron and expect to win a high-profile Senate race. That makes me sad. Fortunately, in America today, he still can come close. And I join with Walker in urging you all not to stop dreaming.
Second, and on a serious note, there is a big difference between a 50-50 Senate and a 51-49 Senate, but it's what people think it is. It is not the relative importance of Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema on legislative matters. The Republican House means that party line voting in the Senate is going to be much less of a thing than it has been over the last few years, at least on votes that will actually produce legislation. The reason is that anything that's going to make it to Joe Biden's desk will have to pass a Republican House, and anything that can pass a Republican House can garner at least a few Republican senators too. Nor is the issue judicial nominations. Under the 50-50 Senate, after all, Democrats can already ram through judges, as they have been doing, thanks to the end of the judicial filibuster. The real difference lies in executive branch nominations. Republicans have held up a lot of nominees—some in committees, some on the Senate floor. Full Democratic control of the chamber will break that logjam and allow Biden finally to staff his administration.
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