In many ways, as of the last week in February, it feels as if we are all taking a trip on the Titanic, fast approaching that iceberg. Take for example the New York Times piece from today. I don’t disagree with a word in it.
Our situation is dire, in so many ways that it’s difficult to count all of them. But … I really hope you can spare a few minutes to watch Rick Wilson’s video, to supply some needed perspective.
And permit me to supplement Wilson’s take in the following way. Begin with several things we know for sure, or at least to a very high level of confidence, about how events are going to evolve over the next few weeks.
Five Things We Know for Sure, or at Least to a High Level of Confidence
1. Trump, Elon Musk, and their henchmen remain high on their own supply. In very important ways, they literally do not know what they are doing. In many ways, they don’t know the harm they are causing (or are about to cause) in the lives of their own supporters. In many ways, they have a fundamental misperception of public opinion. (Yeah, lot of that going around.)
2. Trump and his crew will continue to wreck the federal government, which will produce ever increasing levels of mayhem.
3. Trump and his crew will do jack shit to combat inflation, in violation of the one campaign promise that put him over the top in 2024.
4. The process of wrecking the federal government will culminate—in maybe a month, or it could be sooner—in a true constitutional crisis, where Trump openly defies the Supreme Court.
5. Any of several pending foreign policy crises will ripen into disaster. In particular, just as Biden had his Afghanistan moment, so Trump is probably going to have his Ukraine moment.
Now, Let Us Hazard a Cautious Prediction
Here is the prediction:
While we cannot predict the outcome when all of these situations ripen into disaster at more or less the same time, we can say with some confidence that the five trends will interact with each other.
To take an example: The number of people who might be willing, in good times, to acquiesce in Trump’s overthrow of the rule of law is smaller than the number of people who will cheer when he defies the Supreme Court at the same time that he is royally screwing over the folks who voted for him. And, at the same time, selling out America’s allies and cheering on a Russian invasion.
Danielle Sassoon, Esq., a graduate of Harvard College and of Yale Law School, a former clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia, a continuing member in good standing of the Federalist Society, and—for a few weeks, following Trump’s inauguration—temporary chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan, has resigned. She took this action because she could not, in good conscience, obey her masters’ orders to go into court and ask for dismissal of the criminal case against Eric Adams, in circumstances where there was no proper legal basis for making such a request.
Her resignation letter of February 12, addressed to Attorney General Bondi, spends 7½ pages explaining the baselessness of the position she had been ordered to advocate to the courts. The letter concludes thusly,
I Cannot in Good Faith Request the Contemplated Dismissal
Because the law does not support a dismissal, and because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged, I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations. As Justice Robert Jackson explained, “the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when heacts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst.” The Federal Prosecutor, 24 J. Am. Jud. Soc’y 18 (“This authority has been granted by people who really wanted the right thing done—wanted crime eliminated—but also wanted the best in our American traditions preserved.”). I understand my duty as a prosecutor to mean enforcing the law impartially, and that includes prosecuting a validly returned indictment regardless whether its dismissal would be politically advantageous, to the defendant or to those who appointed me. A federal prosecutor “is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all.” Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935).
For the reasons explained above, I do not believe there are reasonable arguments in support of a Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss a case that is well supported by the evidence and the law. I understand that Mr. Bove disagrees,and I am mindful of your recent order reiterating prosecutors’ duty to make good-faith arguments in support of the Executive Branch’s positions. See Feb. 5, 2025 Mem. “General Policy Regarding Zealous Advocacy on Behalf of the United States.” But because I do not see any good-faith basis for the proposed position, I cannot make sucharguments consistent with my duty of candor. N.Y.R.P.C. 3.3; id. cmt. 2 (“A lawyer acting as an advocate in an adjudicative proceeding has an obligation to present the client’s case with persuasive force. Performance of thatduty while maintaining confidences of the client, however, is qualified by the advocate’s duty of candor to the tribunal.”).
In particular, the rationale given by Mr. Bove—an exchange between a criminal defendant and the Department of Justice akin to the Bout exchange with Russia—is, as explained above, a bargain that a prosecutor should not make. Moreover, dismissing without prejudice and with the express option of again indicting Adams in the future creates obvious ethical problems, by implicitly threatening future prosecution if Adams’s cooperation with enforcing the immigration laws proves unsatisfactory to the Department. See In re Christoff, 690 N.E.2d 1135 (Ind. 1997) (disciplining prosecutor for threatening to renew a dormant criminal investigation against a potentialcandidate for public office in order to dissuade the candidate from running); Bruce A.Green & Rebecca Roiphe, Who Should Police Politicization of the DOJ?, 35 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Pol’y671, 681 (2021) (noting that the Arizona Supreme Court disbarred the elected chief prosecutor of Maricopa County,Arizona, and his deputy, in part, for misusing their power to advance the chief prosecutor’s partisan political interests). Finally, given the highly generalized accusations of weaponization, weighed against the strength of theevidence against Adams, a court will likely question whether that basis is pretextual. See, e.g., United States v. Greater Blouse, Skirt & Neckwear Contractors, 228 F. Supp. 483, 487 (S.D.N.Y. 1964) (courts “should be satisfiedthat the reasons advanced for the proposed dismissal are substantial and the real grounds upon which the application is based”).
I remain baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached, in seemingcollaboration with Adams’s counsel and without my direct input on the ultimate stated rationales for dismissal. Mr. Bove admonished me to be mindful of my obligation to zealously defend the interests of the United States and to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the Administration. I hope you share my view that soliciting andconsidering the concerns of the U.S. Attorney overseeing the case serves rather than hinders that goal, and that we can find time to meet.
In the event you are unwilling to meet or to reconsider the directive in light of the problems raised by Mr. Bove’s memo, I am prepared to offer my resignation. It has been, and continues to be, my honor to serve as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.
Very truly yours,
DANIELLE R. SASSOON
United States Attorney Southern District of NewYork
You know what they say: You can always tell a Harvard man—but you can’t tell him much.
Michael Sandel, a political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard, has a whole lot to say about the root causes of working class resentment in the United States.
I want to take issue with one implication found in the Guardian piece quoted in my most recent post, Rage in the Rust Belt.
The author implies that the good folks in the Rust Belt are thinking in zero sum terms: if Blacks or Gays are getting some benefit, that must mean that good old working class white people like me are being deprived of that benefit. In other words, there’s only so much to go around, and if your tribe is getting more, that necessarily means my tribe is getting less.
Now, I am sure that a lot of working class white folks do feel exactly that way. And I am sure that Orange Jesus and his supporters and enablers have done everything they can to whip up such zero sum thinking.
But … but … but …
As a matter of fact, and as a matter of logic, it’s entirely possible that you can legitimately complain of being “left behind” without thinking, fallaciously, that the reason you were “left behind” is that someone else got a benefit.
In other words, resentful thinking—a sense that you’re being treated unfairly—is not the same thing as zero sum thinking.
Zero sum thinkers are likely to be resentful, but not all resentful folks think in zero sum terms.
I found this three-year-old video from the Noo Yak Times insightful and profound.
Blue states—defined as those states, like California and Illinois, that have Democratic governors and Democrats in control of the Legislature—are not voting their stated values.
The presenter addresses housing, taxation, and education, and demonstrates how blue state governments are systematically screwing the lower and middle class.
Please understand the point I am trying to make, however imperfectly I am making the point. The point is NOT that anyone should lash himself with a whip for the sin of “hypocrisy.” (If you feel you have been hypocritical, and if you think that self-flagellation would do you good, then go ahead. Please don’t let me stop you. But that’s not the point here.)
The point IS that
we blue folk, collectively, are not (for whatever reason) acting and voting the values we claim to hold, and that
the situation is unsustainable, and that,
unless we are prepared to live in a fascist state, the economic concerns of the lower and middle class have got to be addressed, and that right soon.
After the episode shown above, Mika—obviously prompted by the back office—came on to clarify that Trump was not criminally convicted of rape, he was found civilly liable for “sexual abuse” as “sexual abuse” is defined in New York state law. Judge Lewis Kaplan noted that what the jury found that Trump did would be called “rape” in jurisdictions other than the state of New York.
This is the same issue involved in the infamous Trump v. ABC News settlement. Mika and her back office were right to make the clarification and avoid giving Trump a stick with which to beat her over the head. Debating the fine points about New York’s narrow definition of “rape” is not the hill to die on.
Recently, I have called attention to some scathing criticisms of Kamala Harris—and of the Democratic political class in general.
But, lest we forget, they damn near pulled it off.
Of those who voted, the latest data show that 50.2 percent voted for someone other than Trump. Specifically, Harris got 48.3 percent while 1.9 percent voted for Jill Stein or RFK Jr. or someone else.
And no, ladies and germs, I am not saying our side should be complacent because our margin of defeat could have been a lot worse.
I am saying: by all means, go on with the political autopsies, but keep a grip on.
Why indeed? Well, as Sharry explains, there were lots of reasons: Republican bad faith, especially back in 2013, plus lots of misjudgments and political malpractice on the liberal side.
But it’s got to get fixed.
Frank Sharry is an immigration activist and advocate. If you’re interested, check out his Wikipedia article. As a point of personal privilege, I was happy to learn that he’s a Princeton man. As we used to say back in the day: “Princeton in the Nation’s Service.”
Facing MAGA 