Rob a Bank, Say You're Running for President, and the Courts Will Go Easy on You

Donald Trump’s aggressive response to his fourth criminal indictment in five months follows a strategy he has long used against legal and political opponents: relentless attacks, often infused with language that is either overtly racist or is coded in ways that appeal to racists.

The early Republican presidential front-runner has used terms such as “animal” and “rabid” to describe Black district attorneys. He has accused Black prosecutors of being “racist.” He has made unsupported claims about their personal lives. And on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump has deployed terms that rhyme with racial slurs as some of his supporters post racist screeds about the same targets.

The rhetoric is a reminder of Trump’s tendency to use coded racial messaging as a signal to supporters, an approach he has deployed over several decades as he evolved from a New York City real estate tycoon to a reality television star and, eventually, the president. Even if he doesn’t explicitly employ racial slurs, his language recalls America’s history of portraying Black people as not fully human.

Passing over the clear fact that the only way the TOFF could be even more openly racist would be to walk around dressed in Klan robes, anybody who acted the way that the TOFF has would have, long ago, had their bail revoked and have been tossed into the nearest Federal jail. I agree with Charlie Pierce, it is far past time that he be treated like every other criminal defendant.

Advisers say the Trump campaign sees a benefit in him testing boundaries by publicly attacking judges and prosecutors — either he gets away with it, or he gets to play the victim for being censored by the courts. Some of Trump’s political advisers said they are betting that judges will not risk the blowback of imposing sanctions on a major-party candidate.

Let's test that theory, shall we? Toss him in a cell. Slap a GPS tracker on one of his swollen ankles and confine him to his banana farm in Florida. Drop a multimegaton fine on him every time he goes batshit on social media. Freeze his assets. Treat him like a mob boss, a drug kingpin, or the leader of a terrorist cell because, in one way or another, he is all three of those things.

If his corporal's guard of a legal team wants to litigate these measures, let them have at it. If his mouthbreathing devotees want to make trouble, point them towards the hundreds of people now doing time for what they did on January 6. If he wants to test the strength of the rule of law, let the rule of law at least give him a battle without tying its hands through timidity and anticipatory dread. It's worth fighting for.

DoJ, Georgia, NY, get a fucking clue. TOFF is a criminal facing over ninety felony charges, start treating him like a defendant so charged.