Three methods of analyzing Trump's [insert integer here depending on date] indictments

 This week, the world has been presented with yet another memorable photograph of one of the most photographed people in the world.  Donald J. Trump.  His mugshot was one of him scowling his scowl, which was not as I expected.  I expected the shit-eating grin.  Consider the shit-eating grin he sported when he got the Mitt-ster to humiliate himself, groveling for a Secretary of State job which was never going to happen.  Had I been advising Trump, I would have told him to eat shit.  I mean, wear the shit-eating grin.  Instead, he scowled the scowl of the scowler, and we saw a mugshot of the angry man of persecution.  It was, of course, less cringy than what happens if you do a Google image search of "Trump bathrobe."  Please, for the love of all that is beautiful in the world, do not do that search.

I warned you.  You had to do it anyway, didn't you?  Don't blame me.  You did the search.  That's on you.

Anyway, Trump has been booked, charged and shot his... mug.  I thought it might be time for something other than snark.

Yes, I do things besides snark.

Shut up.

So let us consider the range of responses we observe to these indictments.  Generally speaking, there are three styles of analysis regarding the legal validity and probability of conviction.

1)  Analysis of the evidence itself

2)  Analysis of the pattern of attacks and vitriol of emotions directed against Trump

3)  Probability and the jury pools

Let's get into this a bit.

Methods 1 and 2 distinguish, generally speaking, how Democrats and Republicans think about Trump's likelihood of conviction based on the validity of the charges.  In a sense, strangely, both take the process of a trial to be valid.  Then there's me at three.

Democrats, lefties, and the few Republicans who have broken from the Trump spell ask the question of Trump's conviction as follows.  Will Donald Trump be convicted?  Consider the strength of the evidence, the clarity of the law, the relationship between the specific charges brought, the potential defenses Trump might raise, and ask how these cases will end.

The kinds of observations one sees are as follows.  The Feds have a very high conviction rate.  The Mar-a-Lago documents case is clear on the law, leaving essentially no ambiguity, not on Trump's possession of the documents, his willfulness in taking them, retaining them, hiding them from the Feds, nor any of that.  His defenses make little sense.  "I declassified everything" is a lie.  We have a recording in which he stated that he did not declassify the plans to attack Iran, but wished he had, his own people state that there was no blanket procedure to declassify documents, which could not be implemented anyway, and the Espionage Act says nothing about the classification status of the materials anyway.

Note, too, that it is Trump's detractors arguing that the New York hush money case is the least likely to lead to a conviction, based not on the jury pool (hi!), but on the legal details.  Law and facts.

Put it all together.  We can think probabilistically and ask, given all of the charges and all of the evidence, what is the likelihood that Trump escapes conviction on everything?

Now let's consider Method 2.

You may have noticed that I do not like Donald J. Trump.  I do not gainsay him, as Democrats and leftists do, but I do not like him, and yes, it is as much visceral as anything else.  If Epictetus is my model of a good person, then Donald J. Trump is going to be a problem for me because he is the opposite.  There are people with whom I disagree who are good people.

I disagree with Liz Cheney about a lot, but she is a better person than I.

I disagree with Nancy Pelosi about a lot, but she is a better person than I.

Cheney and Pelosi are as far apart on public policy as anyone.  Both get my stamp of approval, which is a rare thing, which normally conveys value, except that no one cares what I think.

Donald Trump has no opinions because he does not care about public policy.  That's part of the problem.

If those who want Trump convicted are honest, we mostly have not just negative, rational assessments of him, but deep, emotionally negative reactions to him that begin the instant he speaks.

We often hate him on a level that is uncomfortable for those who do not want to hate.  And it isn't Republicans, because he wasn't a Republican until five minutes ago.  He isn't conservatism, because he wasn't a conservative, which is a word that no longer means anything.  It's him.

The hyper-negative reactions to Trump began as soon as he started making moves into politics.  If you recall, that was when he took over the "birther" movement from a crackpot lawyer named Orly Taitz.  From there, it was a straight shot to supplanting Ronald Reagan within the Republican Party.  Legal challenges began immediately as well.

Observe.  A bunch of political opponents who froth at the mouth at the very mention of Trump's name-- many of whom are dogmatic and censorious leftists who do their own vile shit-- immediately begin investigation after investigation after investigation.  See: Ginsberg & Shefter, Politics By Other Means.

One may propose two explanations for this.  Either Trump is the most crooked person in the history of politics, or the investigations are a weapon directed against someone driving people crazy.

And you observe the effect of people driven mad in many senses of the term by an intentional provocateur.

So what if you just don't bother to look at the specific charges?  What if you write it all off as a partisan attack, after another partisan attack, after another partisan attack?

And if you read this from the perspective of a maddened Trump opponent, recognize that your own infuriated state is what creates that explanation.

Partisanship is the most powerful heuristic.  Nobody can read all of the news.  Nobody can process all of the information in an optimal method, one piece at a time.  What most people do is use a lens like partisanship to simplify their views.  Have you actually read the Espionage Act and the Presidential Records Act?  Have you read the charging documents?  Or if you hate Trump, have you just let partisan media tell you that Trump is indisputably guilty?

And similarly, turn that around.  Republicans can't devote the time either.  What they can observe, devoting the same amount of time, is Democrats and leftists frothing at the mouth.  And they can respond to that.

Hence, neither Democrats nor Republicans at the mass level are actually looking at the laws themselves.  They are taking partisan cues.

So what will juries do?

This brings me to door number three.  In most cases, juries know nothing about the facts of the case before the trial begins.  In fact, if you have ever been called for jury duty, you have been asked if you know anything about the case, and immediately dismissed if you do know anything about the case.

That cannot happen with Trump.  Everyone already has an opinion of him.  Not only do we know who he is, we have opinions.  Nobody would be allowed to sit on a jury with Trump as defendant under normal rules.  Why?  Because no human being can disregard their opinions of the man.  It just isn't possible.

Anyone arguing based on Methods 1 or 2 is thinking about the charges as though a jury can.  Method 1 takes the law as written and the evidence as given, and concludes that the probability of conviction is high.  Method 2 focuses on the motivations of the prosecutors and concludes that the evidence must be weak, can be disregarded, and concludes that the probability of conviction is low.

Wrong!  You have already made up your mind, and so has basically everyone in the country, except for people who really have no business on juries.

So how shall we analyze the matters going forward?  What will happen depends not on the laws (Method 1), nor on how ostensibly biased the process and persecution of Trump is (Method 2), but on the jury pools.

And this is why I remain skeptical of any convictions.  Conviction is a mathematical process.  It is a voting process.

Conviction requires one of two actions-- either keeping all Republicans off of the jury, or convincing Republicans that the trial is not to be viewed through Lens Number 2.

And what do you think Trump's lawyers will do?

What are they doing regarding Fani Willis right now?

And as this happens, professors-- that lowest class of bottom-feeders-- are starting to argue that the 14th Amendment should be used to keep Trump from the ballot.  Not the electoral process, but the 14th Amendment.

What picture does this paint?  Does this paint a picture of a good-faith interpretation of the law, or the use of the law to attack a political opponent?  And how will that be read by the Republicans on the juries?

This is why I remain so skeptical of any convictions.  Not Method 1, nor Method 2, but Method 3.

Jerry Hahn, "The Method," from Time Changes.