I write this the day after Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of election fraud by a New York jury. Many are celebrating and many are angry. There's a lot to unpack and some of the arguments making the rounds are pretty out there. There are some like Elon Musk who seems to be upset that power and money were not sufficient to protect Donald. There are some claiming it is politically motivated, overlooking the fact that Trump's attorneys helped choose the jurors who eventually found him guilty. There are deliberate misinterpretations of the jury instructions. But the one I am choosing to address here is: Bill Clinton did the same thing and nothing happened to him.
Let's start with the obvious flaw. The focus of this argument places the emphasis on the sex act. But sex acts are not and never were what either man got in trouble for. In Clinton's case he lied under oath about it. In Donald's case he made payouts and conspired with a magazine to publish stories in a direct effort to effect his election. So while both men did break the law, they did not in fact "do the same thing". It's similar to the arguments about classified documents, with people claiming Trump did the same thing as Biden, overlooking that Biden turned the documents over when asked while Trump refused a court order to do so. You can't pick one element of a series of events to claim they are exactly the same, the context actually matters.
But they did both break the law. SO why should Trump be punished while Clinton got away with no consequences? Well, those of us who have memories that go back before 2016 remember there were, in fact, consequences. Bill Clinton was the first president to be impeached since Andrew Johnson in 1868. His impeachment led not only to his censure by Congress but his disbarment and fines of over $100,000. It is of note that the Senate that voted him not guilty on his 2 articles of impeachment had a decent Republican majority. Had he lied under oath in order to sway an election, there could have been additional charges and I daresay more serious consequences.
With this in mind, I think the Trump apologists need to find a better argument. Sure on the surface level it seems legitimate, and his supporters will never probably go any deeper than that. But if you want to actually convince the non-believers, you're going to need something that holds up better. Unfortunately for you, I think the reason so many of you are going with this argument is you don't have any better ones.
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