By Rich Lowry
Thursday, May 30, 2024
‘Rigged” is a favorite word of Donald Trump and his
allies.
It describes how institutions and processes have been
distorted by a progressive elite to tilt the playing field against Trump and
his supporters.
For the former president, it’s an all-purpose charge
lodged against anything he dislikes and is especially useful as applied to the
2020 election, since it can vaguely encompass everything from sharp practices
by the other side to outright theft.
When Trump made his statement to reporters on Wednesday morning prior to
the jury getting the Alvin Bragg case, he repeatedly used the word “rigged,”
and, in this instance, he was absolutely right.
The charges were rigged, the prosecution’s presentation
of the case was rigged, the judge’s management of the case was rigged, the gag
order was rigged, and the instructions to the jury were rigged.
The whole thing was rigged from beginning to end, in the
hopes of — to the extent this case and the guilty verdict will matter in November — rigging the
presidential election.
If this had happened in an alderman race in Cook County,
Ill., it’d be discomfiting enough, but it happened in what purports to be the
greatest city in the world and involves the campaign to become the most
powerful political leader in the free world.
The high stakes would, one hopes, compel the authorities
to have the most exacting standard for their own conduct and put a premium on
maintaining the perception and reality of fairness. The logic of rigging runs
the opposite way, though — because it is considered so imperative to stop
Donald Trump, any means of opposing him becomes acceptable, indeed necessary.
By any normal standard, Alvin Bragg failed in his duty as
a prosecutor by flagrantly distorting the process to manufacture the 34
felonies he charged Trump with. Yet, by the prevailing standard on the left, he
has faithfully fulfilled his duty by so effectively rigging the
criminal-justice system against the man whom they hate and fear.
One possible reaction to Trump from his adversaries would
have been to emphasize their commitment to rules and norms and to do everything
they could to buttress them and make the case for them.
Instead, they threw out the rule book beginning in 2016
and have pursued Trump according to the ethic that the ends justify the means,
and that consistency, reason, and fairness are for suckers.
To be sure, this approach has its temptations, especially
for people who never particularly cared for process or rules to begin with. But
their recklessness has further undermined faith in the system, while the
alluring idea that there’s a shortcut to diminishing or defeating Trump has so
far proved illusory.
Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan have set a new
standard for rigging, and nothing good will come of it.
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