Cognitive processes about Donald Trump: Of axioms, empirics, and philosophical questions

 Take a moment to recall the strange days of Donald Trump's presidency.  Do so, not merely because it is going to happen again-- although there is a high likelihood that it will-- but because every day was a new roller coaster of cuckoo.  Merely reading the news involved those unsettling stomach drops which are entertaining for the young, but horrifying for anyone past a certain age.  Stomachs are not supposed to do that.  Here we are.  Again.  Did you feel a little of that old, black magic when the indictment announcement was made?  When the document was released?  When Trump's congressional stooges, like Andy Biggs, started trying to incite violence?  Just wait until the trial.  Unless Aileen Cannon delays the trial past the election, Trump "assumes" the presidency, so to speak, and pardons himself.  Which is not a possibility to discount.

Anyway, if you want legal analysis, there are plenty of lawyers.  Too many.  See:  Butcher, Dick The.  Instead, I have some question.  Cognitive questions, really.  In my initial comments on the indictment, I noted my skepticism that Trump can be convicted because a jury will still include some Republicans.  To them, it is axiomatically true that Trump is innocent of all crimes, and all accusations that anyone might ever make.  Let us consider the basics of reason and cognition.

What is an axion?  In the construction of a formal proof, an axiom is an assumption, but it is an assumption that is necessary, and so basic, so elemental that we cannot conceive of it being untrue.  We cannot prove it-- it is, after all, an assumption-- but since all deductive reasoning begins with a set of assumptions, we begin with only the most minimal assumptions, which are too fundamental to be untrue.  Could they be untrue?  Um... maybe, but kinda not?  The point is that we are quite careful about what we treat as an axiom, because everything follows from our axioms.  We do not question them.  They are our assumptions.

From those assumptions, we can engage in formal proofs.  That is deductive reasoning, in the terms of epistemology.  Depending on how far you went in math, you may remember this only from geometry, but perhaps you went further and did something like real analysis.  In any context, though, deductive reasoning works by stating your assumptions, and walking through the formal steps of a proof to see what follows from those assumptions.

Then there is empiricism.  Deductive reasoning is limited by your axioms, but we make empirical observations about the world.  We can even do this thing called "hypothesis testing."  At the most basic level, we perform inductive reasoning.  The sun rose yesterday, it has risen today, so it will probably rise tomorrow.  That is a prediction without a model, but once we develop a model, we get into proper science.  And we can ask, am I wrong?  When we make an empirical claim, we must allow for the possibility that we are wrong.

Still, we are assessing states of the world.  There is this separate category that I am currently calling "philosophical questions," for lack of better terminology.  Let us call them, abstract principles.  As a subset, we have normative questions, and questions of legal interpretation.  Is X good or bad, right or wrong?  How do we interpret the law?  Deduction is useful, but there's more to it.  Empirics have something to say, but you need a little more.  And there may be room to debate.  And you may accept the notion that you might be wrong.

Just a few simple ideas to guide some questions about Donald J. Trump, indicted ex-president.

Donald J. Trump has been criminally indicted at the federal level under such laws as the Espionage Act.

I assert that his supporters, and the Republican Party broadly, treat his innocence as axiomatic.  It is an assumption, not subject to any logic, empirical evidence, or interpretation of the law.  It's the "shoot someone on 5th Avenue" principle.

Let's turn this around.  If you are reading my blatherings, you probably do not like Donald Trump.  Do you treat his guilt as axiomatic?

If so, you are committing the same cognitive violation.  Check your reasoning.

In my assessment, Trump's guilt is proven, legally, by the evidence in the public domain already.  Did he take the documents?  Yes.  Otherwise, the FBI would not have recovered them.  Were the documents related to national security, and otherwise the property of the federal government?  Yes.  Did he knowingly lie and direct his attorneys and employees to lie and cover it up?  Yes.  Repeatedly.  There are even recordings of him directing these processes.  This is open and shut.

I do not even know what kind of legal defense could be mustered at trial.  My best prediction will be the firehose of bullshit.  Accusations at the DoJ, insinuation, and general craziness, hoping that a Trump judge lets them get away with spouting the kinds of loony conspiracy theories that inflame the Republicans on the jury, and you get jury nullification.  The only thing even close to a viable legal strategy would be to lose the case, and then appeal by claiming that the Espionage Act and the Presidential Records Act are all unconstitutional under an extreme version of the unitary executive theory, which allowed Donald Trump as God-Emperor to do anything he wanted because he had authority over all federal laws and offices as God-Emperor (president).

Would SCOTUS buy it?  Thomas will buy anything, particularly with Harlan Crow's money, but if Trump were sitting around in prison waiting for the case to go there on appeal, that wouldn't work for his bitch-ass.  Jury nullification, it is, then.

So how do I know that I'm not treating Trump's guilt as axiomatic?

I can do a few things.  I can note, for example, when I have gone against the Trump-hating grain to say that the law is on his side.  For example, "incitement to riot."  After his speech on January 6, many of the people calling for Trump's prosecution noted his use of words like, "fight," and claimed that his single use of the word, "peacefully," was a throwaway line that shouldn't exempt him from a charge on incitement to riot.

I dissented.  I noted, first, that politicians regularly use the word, "fight," metaphorically, including Democrats on a regular basis.  There are violent attacks on Republicans and conservative activists.  I do not hear anyone demanding charges against Democratic politicians for using the word, "fight," on that basis, because we do recognize that the word can be and often is a metaphor.  And yes, Donald Trump did say, "peacefully."  Under the legal standards of incitement, once is enough.  It may not satisfy you morally, but under incitement law, it is enough.

I could keep going.  I could note that while we still joke about the golden shower tape, those of us committed to truth recognize that there is no empirical basis for it.

How do I know that I am not treating Trump's guilt as axiomatic?  I can look at where I declare him not guilty, because if I treated him axiomatically guilty, I would not do that.

Do you do that?  It's a quick check, and not a complete check, but a valuable one.

Are Republicans doing this?

No.  That's a big problem.  But of course, most Democrats aren't either.

Be very cautious in what you treat as axiomatic.

I have one more observation for this morning, as a cognitive check.  Those of us who are repulsed by Donald Trump, and everything he does, often ask why almost no Republican ever gets to the point of recognizing his danger to the United States and saying, OK, I will vote for a Democrat.

Liz Cheney got to that point.  A few others, but not many.

He tried to overthrow democracy itself, and then stole national security secrets, withholding them from the feds for reasons we do not know, spilled them, and he is still holding some.

Holy fuck, what is wrong with you people?

So we ask.  As I just did.

Also, how many women have to have similar stories about rape before you acknowledge that the guy who brags about getting away with rape and lusts after his own daughter is probably a rapist?

Seriously.

We ask these questions.  We wonder why even those Republicans who seem to recognize that there are things deeply wrong with Donald Trump cannot cross the line and say, OK, I'll vote for the other party.

So now I ask you, you probably-Democrat, you.  You person who probably hates Trump.

What would it take to get you to vote for Donald Trump?

Picture this.  It's election day, 2024.  You walk into the polling place.  Slowly, with dread sinking deep into the pit of your spleen.  Like an impending execution, you walk to your voting station and you stare at the ballot.  You hear the hangman laugh his guttural laugh as you stare down at the ballot and see beneath you, truly beneath you, two names.  Donald Trump, and...

Adolph Hitler.  The reanimated leader of the national socialist party, his brain having been secretly saved, has been put into the body of someone who is somehow a citizen eligible to be president and your choice is Donald Trump or Adolph Fucking Hitler.  Not some asshole who cut you off in traffic whom you called, "Hitler," in a fit of pique, not Justin Trudeau, who wore blackface like a goddamned asshole, not someone who misgendered you if you're trans and trying to pass and just wanna live your life in peace without people giving you shit, no, actual Fucking Adolph Hitler.  Real deal.

Do you pull the trigger and vote for Trump?  I mean, I guess Hitler missed with that last bullet, which is a shame, but straight up.  Would you vote for Trump over Hitler?

I would.

As the old joke goes, we have now established what kind of a man I am, and now we are haggling about the price.  Let's move it a step down from Adolph.  Trump, or Pol Pot?  I'm still goin' Trump.  Where does the line have to be before I get indecisive?

Where does it have to be for you?

I might actually vote for Trump over Ilhan Omar.  Or any member of The Squad.  The purpose of this post is not to elaborate, but I have spilled enough virtual ink explaining what makes them so noxious.  Regardless, though, if your question to the GOP is what it would take to make them vote against Trump, then the symmetric, and symmetrically important question is what it would take to get you to vote for him?  If you cannot conceive of an answer, then aren't you making the same error?

Make no more assumptions than you must.  This is the cardinal rule of mathematics and of science.  Anything that is not an assumption, though, must be subject either to empirical analysis, or deductive reasoning, and that means you must subject your own assessments to scrutiny allowing for the possibility that your initial impulse, whatever that may be, is wrong.  If you do not allow for that, you are treating your impulse as an axiom.

What would it take to convince me that Trump is innocent?  He has admitted to taking the documents, there is documentation of his intent to withhold and hide the documents, and that leaves only one possibility, which is a constitutional argument against the laws themselves.  Trump has claimed, publicly, repeatedly, that as president, he was allowed to do whatever he wanted.  He believed it, and ultimately, that's why he did what he did.  In order to convince me that he is innocent, I would need to see a compelling constitutional argument that he was not bound by the Espionage Act or the Presidential Records Act.  That is a high threshold that would ultimately take the Supreme Court overturning a set of laws, or at least restricting their applicability.  I have seen no such argument.  I have never even read an intellectually serious attempt.

But, if you are not open to an argument being made, then you are treating Trump's guilt as axiomatic.  Don't do that.

That said, it's a very high threshold, because Trump has admitted what he did, and by the letter of the law, he's fucking guilty, clear as day, when there isn't wildfire smoke in the air.

Relatedly, if you are not open to thinking about what it would take to vote for Trump, you are guilty of the same problem of which you accuse Republicans who rail against Trump and then admit that they will vote for him.

Ask these questions, and use no more axioms than you must.

And you knew this one was coming, right?  You may not have known which version, but here's Ella, live.  "That Old Black Magic."