Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Donald Trump won the Republican nomination this year because the party’s voters wanted a candidate with energy and pugnacity, above all. They accepted both Trump’s populist ideas and his obvious character flaws; the conservative intellectual leadership largely did not. The primary season became an attitudinal conflict, with the grassroots scorning conservative intellectuals as effete and ineffective. Yesterday, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal—headquarters of elite conservatism—ran back-to-back stories that show why the grassroots have been so scornful. Both editorials dealt with abuse of power by partisan liberal prosecutors. Both correctly analyze the merits of the cases. But both are also shockingly tone-deaf to the realities of today’s politics.

Let’s take the second piece first. Last year, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin decisively shut down a political witch hunt against conservatives by Milwaukee County district attorney John Chisholm, who appealed to the US Supreme Court. Monday, the Court declined to hear his appeal. By the Journal’s reckoning, Chisholm lost in court last year, then lost again this week. But did he really lose?

In 2011, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker passed a reform package that limited the power of the state’s public employee unions. He then survived a union-led recall effort. Chisholm, a hyper-partisan liberal, whose wife is a teachers’ union leader, sought revenge by attacking Walker’s allies. On the pretext of searching for campaign-finance law violations, Chisholm launched an investigation of conservative groups. The state’s “John Doe” law allowed him to keep the identities of the targets sealed, and the targets muzzled. The state Supreme Court described the investigation’s flavor thusly:

Millions of documents, both in digital and paper copy, were subpoenaed and/or seized. Deputies seized business papers, computer equipment, phones, and other devices…. Such documents were subpoenaed and/or seized without regard to content or relevance to the alleged violations… As part of this dragnet, the special prosecutor also had seized wholly irrelevant information, such as retirement income statements, personal financial account information, personal letters, and family photos.

The seizures were performed in the shock-and-awe manner normally used for large-scale drug raids. The targets were marched out of their homes in the middle of the night, and held on the street by police. Neighbors, awakened by the squad car lights, came outside to watch. The John Doe law forbade the targets from explaining to their neighbors the reason for the search. Note also that the prosecutor did not even have a good-faith basis to suspect the targets of a crime; the seizures were merely a fishing expedition. The situation was both Orwellian and Kafkaesque.

Hold that thought for a moment.

Now consider the Journal’s lead editorial, about New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s cease-and-desist order to Trump’s charitable foundation. “The announcement,” the Journal writes, “is Mr. Schneiderman’s latest misuse of his prosecutorial authority to attack his political enemies.” Just so. Schneiderman is another hyper-partisan Democrat, and an active supporter of Hillary Clinton. His power play is corruption, pure and simple. Hard-left enclaves throughout the country, whether in red states or blue, function as “sanctuary cities” not only for illegal immigrants, but also for partisan left-wing prosecutors. To pretend otherwise is obtuse. The Journal asks, “Where’s the liberal outrage?” You’re joking, right?

A decade ago, the Journal made similar complaints about Ronnie Earle, then the district attorney of Travis County, Texas. Like Chisholm, Earle wrongfully used campaign finance laws to attack his target—in that case, Tom DeLay, then the House Majority Leader. Earle’s malicious, politically-motivated prosecution forced DeLay to resign from Congress, and resulted in his criminal conviction. Two years ago this week, an appeals court vacated DeLay’s conviction—but only long after Earle had destroyed his political career.

Ronnie Earle is a thug. Did he “lose” because DeLay was vindicated in court? No. Sustaining the conviction would have been a nice bonus for Earle, but it was not his goal. Earle’s goal was to defenestrate a powerful leader of the Republican Party. He succeeded. DeLay’s defense cost him millions; the prosecution didn’t cost Earle a dime. Earle sent a loud, clear message: If you’re a successful, powerful, partisan Republican, watch out. DeLay’s ultimate legal victory, ironically, only confirmed that message. DeLay, though legally vindicated, lost. Earle ultimately lost in court, but politically, he won.

John Chisholm is a thug. How long will the Walker reforms survive in a blue state, especially with Wisconsin’s conservative leadership nearly bankrupted by Chisholm’s prosecution? The Journal is wrong. Chisholm and his cronies didn’t lose. As with Earle, their prosecution of conservatives cost them nothing. But the conservatives’ defense cost them dearly. We lost. Chisholm and his cronies won.

Eric Schneiderman is a thug. He is wrongfully, lawlessly, using his prosecutorial power in a naked attempt to swing the presidential election. The ultimate outcome of his case against Trump doesn’t matter. Trump has already survived dozens of such cuts; one more may make no difference. But Schneiderman drew fresh blood, and that’s a win.

This prosecutorial thuggery continues because the thugs keep getting away with it. Tom DeLay still has the right to sue Ronnie Earle, but he’s unlikely to win with a jury from Travis County—the same folks who convicted him in the first place. DeLay will most likely take his lumps and move on. John Chisholm likewise lost nothing over his persecution of conservatives. And Eric Schneiderman? If Hillary wins, God forbid, he will be on the short list for US Attorney General.

The only way to get thugs to stop is to punish them; elite conservatives have repeatedly established that they are far too genteel for such work. That problem goes back many years. The Left portrayed George W. Bush as a reckless, ruthless cowboy. In fact, when it came to political fighting, he was a miniature poodle, as most of the mainstream conservative leadership has been. When Tom DeLay served as Majority Leader, the Wall Street Journal’s editors repeatedly attacked him as a threat to conservative moral purity. They came to his defense only after Ronnie Earle had destroyed him politically. Thanks a bunch, guys. Now they do the same with Trump, defending him from Eric Schneiderman only after relentlessly attacking him for the preceding 18 months. In the Milwaukee case, the Journal actually performed some useful service, as the only national news outlet to expose the John Doe probe while it was still in progress. Even so, John Chisholm remained on the attack, conservatives on the defense. Now the editors seem to think that patience and moral righteousness have received their due reward, and all will be right with the world. Shall we ask Chisholm’s victims about that?

Why has Trump retained and even grown his support, with almost uniformly hostile media coverage, a badly mismanaged campaign, and rejection by the vast majority of conservative opinion leaders? Could it be as simple as this: Grassroots conservatives are sick of a self-righteous, fair-play-above-all politics. They know, while their elites have forgotten, that if you play only defense, you lose. Many of Trump’s supposed liabilities are actually assets, because they show his willingness to play offense.

“Where’s the liberal outrage?” There is none; there will be none. Partisan liberals long ago stopped caring about justice, propriety, and fair play. Today’s liberals care about power, period. The behavior of Chisholm, Earle, and Schneiderman proves that. So, by the way, does the behavior of the Thug-In-Chief, Hillary Clinton. In a saner world, those prosecutors would already be wearing orange jumpsuits. In this world, they are too well protected by their fellow liberals. Cutting them down will take a president with determination, guts, and ruthlessness. The grassroots like Trump because he is a pit bull among the poodles.