I'm Ready for Some Precedented Times
How to talk about the Trump trial when it all seems overwhelming
Well, I’m ready for some precedented times, how about you? Seeing a former president in criminal court is not something I ever thought I’d experience in my lifetime, but Trump is no normal former president.
At the same time, Christian nationalists are gearing up for the ultimate government takeover, and they’ve spelled it all out in a manifesto called Project 2025. Ironically — it hinges on Trump becoming president again.
That’s right, the most unchristian man you can imagine, the guy who thinks it’s called Two Corinthians, the one who is on trial right now for paying hush money to a porn star is the Christian right’s key to the White House and ultimate governmental control.
Truly unprecedented.
If you’re having trouble finding a way to talk to your friends about Project 2025, Trump’s current hush-money trial is a great opportunity.
Remember Trump’s trial isn’t about whether or not he slept with Stormy Daniels while he was married to Melania (because, duh. Of course he did). That would be a case in divorce court. Trump’s criminal trial is happening because he illegally portrayed payments to Michael Cohen as business expenses when Cohen actually made the payments to Daniels to keep the American public from finding out about the affair ahead of the 2016 election.
Cohen wasn’t acting as Trump’s lawyer in the moment. He was acting as his fixer, his concealer, the magician who made all of Trump’s bad behavior disappear so he looked more appealing to the evangelical voters Trump desperately needed to win in 2016.
Cohen has already served time for his part in the crime.
This is, essentially, election interference. The purpose, according to Alvin Bragg: “bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects. Trump then went to great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity.”
So if you’re in the lunch room with a colleague who seems confused about why the trial matters, or having drinks with a friend who insists there’s no way Trump can be in the wrong, ask pointed questions about the implications of Trump paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep his actions quiet in order to make voters think he’s someone he’s not.
Start by asking them if they’ve been paying attention to Trump’s trial. If they have, they might make a joke about Daniels, Cohen, “alternative facts” KellyAnn Conway or any of the other cast of characters Trump surrounds himself with (remember Scaramucci? The Trump administration was like Shameless, minus the empathy).
Ask them if knowing that Trump slept with a porn star four months after his wife gave birth to their child would have swayed their opinion of him in 2016. If they answer ‘no,’ ask them how important honesty is when choosing an elected representative.
What Trump did to silence Stormy Daniels was dishonest. And it wasn’t his only lie.
Perhaps his most creative and hilarious lie, on the campaign trail in Michigan, Trump told audiences that he was named Michigan’s Man of the Year. He’s never lived in Michigan.
When it proved to be a wildly unpopular policy, Trump blamed family separation at the border on Obama, saying he was the one who ended it, when in fact, he was the one who started the practice of taking children from their parents.
Covfefe is a word. Bleach cures coronavirus. On and on and on.
In fact, the Washington Post (bless them) tracked more than 30,000 lies over the course of Trump’s presidency.
And we can’t forget about Trump’s other trials this year.
Remind your friend that Trump can also be convicted in Florida for hoarding classified documents in his home in Mara Lago.
In Georgia, his charges stem from knowingly lying about the 2016 election results.
He’s also facing charges for inciting an insurrection.
These conversations have the power to change voters minds.
It’s critical that we talk about this. 39 percent of people polled by Reuters said they have heard nothing about this case.
And yet this case in particular is capable of swaying voters — even those who have voted for Trump previously. 57 percent of respondents in a Yahoo News/YouGov poll say Trump’s crimes in this case are serious. According to Bloomberg, 53 percent of swing state voters say they won’t vote for Trump if he’s convicted of a crime.
What does this have to do with Project 2025? This trial and all of Trump’s other unethical/illegal actions show us that Trump will ‘flip the board’ of American politics in order to stay in power. And if he can’t win by his own merit, he will destroy.
If we let Trump get away with this, he will only get worse. In fact, Project 2025 is a harrowing plan to let Trump get away with whatever he wants, as long as he turns the United States into the “Christian nation” that the Heritage Foundation dreams of.
To amplify one of the many great points, "hoarding classified documents in his home" is an understatement. He deliberately stole many hundreds of them, denied having them, hid them, appears to have spirited away many that have not yet have been recovered, and shared information from them to others who are not cleared to know the information. Indeed, he is no longer cleared to retain that information. More importantly, some of these documents were Top Secret, defined as information that could cause exceptionally grave damage to the security of the United States if disclosed to an enemy. Additionally, some of the documents were designated as Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (SCI). These documents as so sensitive that even within the classification system (Top Secret, Secret, or Confidential), individuals who are allowed to view these must receive special briefings and instruction before they first access them, and again after the last time they access them. Unlike regular Top Secret, which can be stored in a file safe or guarded 24/7, SCI is stored in a vault whenever not being actively reviewed.
DISCLOSURE: I'm a retired USAF officer and a former security review officer for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. I would have gone to prison for many years had I committed what the former president is accused of in Florida.