We all want Donald Trump to go to prison, preferably for the rest of his life, for various crimes he, his family and various organizations of his have perpetrated against the United States. Fact is, we all want to see him frog marched, put on trial and if found guilty, punished with jail time, fines and not being able to serve for political office again.
But I have been thinking, is it even possible to jail someone with as much power, prestige, notoriety and following? Just follow me here, I know the first reaction is to say “Of course! The laws of the United States apply to everyone”, but I have given this a bit of thought and even I (in my admittedly amateurish understanding of history, politics and the law) can come up with some reasons why at least jailing Trump will not be as easy as jailing any one of us, or hell, any other politician.
My thinking has lead me down some dark paths, so I will start with the lighter one I can think of — the problems with actually putting on a trial of a former president. My first question really begins with an impartial jury, how in the hell would we find 12 people in the United States that haven’t already formed at least some cursory opinion of Trump and his family? The man has been all over the news for a decade, I would wager that there probably isn’t an adult in the United States that hasn’t formed some opinion about the man. How can a jury be impartial with a person and family with so much media exposure? How would we find twelve people who could be impartial, given the various amounts of coverage about Donald Trump?
The second thing I have a question about is the media circus surrounding the trial. Here we would see two worlds collide — our obsession with partisan politics and our obsession with high profile criminal trials come into one big shit show media circus like the world has never seen. There will be protests at the courthouse everyday, which hopefully (and in an absolute best case scenario — more on that later) remain peaceful. Whether or not Trump is found guilty or innocent in this there is bound to be unrest all across the nation. What would that look like, and how would that be handled?
Those are the two least scary problems I can think of on a potential Trump trial. The other thoughts I have are darker than I would like. Starting with this — Trump got, what, approximately 73,000,000 votes? If just, what, five percent of those people are willing to travel to protest, commit acts of violence and other things for the trump family thats (checks calculator, math is not a strong suit) 3,650,000 people hardcore fighters just waiting on Trumps word to act. Given that a relatively recent poll suggested that upwards of 30% of republicans believe violence may be necessary to "save the country", is it that much of a stretch to believe that a mere 5% of his voters would be willing to commit violence to bust him out of jail? And lets just say that 5% is accurate, isn’t that like way more troops stationed at the border of Ukraine right now? I mean, these people aren’t trained generally, but the sheer numbers are enough to scare the shit out of anyone. How much protection would said jail need? The prosecutors in the case? The government officials overseeing the state where the trial is happening? I mean would we be looking at prison guards getting doxxed, having to need protection just to get home? And how many of those guards and prison officials were Trump supporters to begin with? Can we trust the people inside of the system to properly oversee Trump’s punishment should he receive one?
I mean, this is just a pandora’s box if you follow the logic from where we are now to a potential future where Trump is put on trial and potentially jailed for his crimes. I am certainly not advocating him once again escaping accountability through some backroom deal. The time has come to cut this cancer out once and for all (and that time might be coming sooner than later), and show the world that even the most powerful people are subject to the laws of the United States. But I fear the logistics and details of how Trump finally being held to account are woefully underthought here. I mean, maybe itll all be peachy keen, but I really think that this will be one of the hardest times in American history, and we should all be on high alert for right wing threats and violence, and really thinking about what accountability will actually look like, not just what we want it to look like.
So if anyone wants to chime in and either talk me down or come up with some other things I am not seeing that’ll make this easier, I am open.