Roger Kimball

Yesterday, reviewing last week’s Supreme Court decisions, I noted that the court would probably issue its final opinion of the season, on the question of presidential immunity. So it turned out to be. Yesterday, ‘Trump v. United States’ dropped. For the first time, the Court pondered the question, ‘Does a president have immunity from prosecution?’ or, to use the language of the opinion, ‘Whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.’ The answer was more or less what I predicted.

"What happens now?” The question flooded my inbox and what used to be called the Twittersphere. Why? Because shortly after 5 p.m. on May 30 came the verdict in America’s first-ever Stalinist trial: Donald J. Trump was guilty on all counts in the so-called “hush-money trial” in New York.So now the proximate legal fate of Trump, former and very possibly future president of the United States, is settled. What happens next? Trump appeals, but that case is not heard until after the election. What happens then? As many instantly observed, Trump wins in a landslide.

My favorite line in Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard comes midway through the first chapter. The times are unsettled. The Risorgimento is sweeping Sicily. Prince Tancredi, the idealistic young nephew of the book’s protagonist Prince Fabrizo, is bantering about the political situation with his uncle. He suddenly waxes serious: “If we want things to stay as they are, everything will have to change” (Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga come è, bisogna che tutto cambi). Most readers will understand that the whiff of paradox points not to a contradiction but to a profound truth. There are plenty of historical situations in which fundamental assumptions about society are disrupted and can be restored only by something like revolution.

“What happens now?” That was the question flooding my inbox and what used to be called the Twittersphere. Why? Because shortly after 5 p.m. on May 30, Anno Domini 2024, the verdict in America’s first-ever Stalinist trial came down: Trump was guilty on all counts in the so-called “hush money trial” in New York. I always say “so-called” hush money trial because it was really designed to be a "hush Trump" trial. Rather, a “hush Trump” inquisition. So now the proximate legal fate of Donald Trump, former and very possibly future president of the United States, is settled. What happens next? Trump appeals, but that case is not heard until after the election. What happens next?

It saddens me to admit it, but the evidence is too overwhelming to dismiss: Democrats are significantly more cunning than Republicans. I say “Democrats,” but that is an imprecise, even a misleading, designation. Party affiliation is not now, if it ever was, a really accurate predictor of ideological coloration. What I mean are those people, most of whom happen to belong to the Democratic Party, who have been bitten by the bug of extremism, who are fired by revolutionary fervor, who regard every opponent, every contrary opinion, as a “by-any-means-necessary” fire alarm. It is an attitude that has stirred their creativity, also their vindictiveness. Hercules had to undertake twelve supposedly impossible labors. Donald Trump is fast catching up.

The two big stories du jour are 1) the continuing campus assault on sanity, brought to you by the pro-terrorist “death-to-America-Death-to-Israel” lobby, and 2) the circus of the nationwide legal manhunt against the once and future president of the United States, Donald Trump. Regarding the former, this video showing two Columbia students displaying their solidarity with brave protestors at NYU sums up one portion of the insanity: Interviewer: Why are you protesting?Protester #1: I don't know. I’m pretty sure there's something about Israel [turns to friend] Why are we protesting?Protester #2: I wish I was more educated.Protester #1: I'm not either.

Among the many great lines in T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, is this mournful observation from “The Dry Salvages,” the third of the bunch: “We had the experience but missed the meaning.” How much happens to us that we only half register or undergo without really twigging its significance? One example that is both pedestrian and historical: the criminal trial in Manhattan of Donald Trump.  As I write, Trump is leading slightly in the polls, which means he is not only at the head of the chief opposition party, but also that he represents an existential threat to the future of the regime that is persecuting — er, prosecuting him.  The trial, brought by Soros-funded district attorney Alvin Bragg is often described as being about “hush money,” i.e.

I want to talk about two things in this column: bills of attainder and kangaroo courts. The two often go together. What is a “bill of attainder?” We get the term from English law. A person or persons whom the people in charge don’t like is “attainted.” Forget about due process, presumption of innocence, or any such quaint ideas. Bills of attainder worked through the untrammeled deployment of state power. To be accused was tantamount to being found guilty; common penalties included the abrogation of the right to own property, and, not infrequently, the right to life itself.