Bias and Donald Trump

This piece is too long for a letter to the editor and too short for an Op Ed piece or even a Ben Paine blog post.  Here it is anyway.   When I write I publish.

On September 11th, 2023, the NY Times published an article: Trump Seeks Recusal of Judge in Federal Elections Case, as she had shown bias against him.  In the end, can Donald Trump get a fair trial anywhere?  Can this, or any, judge sit in judgment on Donald Trump without bias?

 

So, to be clear, bias is a judgment about someone, typically negative.  A close cognate of bias is prejudice, as both words define a judgment that is typically negative.  The difference is: a prejudice is without foundation, without appeal to facts or reality.  Bias is most often earned, it is based on what you learn about someone, hopefully from reliable sources.  An easy example: if you judge a man incompetent and not worthy of being hired because he is black, without knowing anything else about the individual in question, that is an easy example of prejudice, PRE – JUDGMENT.  Any American’s judgment about Donald Trump will be a matter of bias, not prejudice, as he is a public figure who is well-known to perhaps 100% of the U.S. population, most of whom have already rendered a judgment about him.  We Americans are all biased about Donald Trump, he has been in our faces for decades, we all have rendered a judgment about him, either good or ill.

 

Let’s be clear: what Trump’s lawyers did I would have done as his lawyer, too.  But what are the odds of a judge not being biased about Trump when we are ALL biased about Trump?  Perhaps the emphasis was on the judge’s bias AGAINST Trump.  Well, just how many informed Americans are not biased negatively about Trump, including everyone who sits on a judicial bench?  Can Trump not get a fair trial anywhere in these United States, or anywhere else in the world, where he is universally known as well?  It seems that the only Americans who are biased in his favor are his base, whom he calls “the poorly educated.”  Not too many judges belong to that camp.

 

Putting the biases of judges aside, can Trump get a fair jury trial anywhere in this country?  How many potential jurors have not heard of him and already come to a conclusion about his guilt or innocence?  Indeed, I wonder if any jury can be seated that will not have at least a few Trump acolytes who will have risked perjuring themselves to win a seat on the jury to make sure that Trump does not hang; all it takes is one (biased) juror to render a not guilty verdict, facts and the law be damned!

 

I am biased as hell about most things, because I am interested in almost everything, and I consume the news like it was a buffet in front of a hungry man.  And I come to conclusions, I earn my biases.  But I like to think I am not prejudiced, about anything.  I am probably wrong.  My bias about Trump is deeply, deeply negative.  The man was taught by the best – by his father Fred Trump and by Joe McCarthy’s lawyer Roy Cohn – how to do wrong and not break the law, or appear not to have broken the law, or have a jury find you not guilty by hook or by crook.  Trump has mixed feelings about the law; first, he has contempt for the law but, second, he knows to avoid being caught up by the law.  He doesn’t want to go to prison any more than you or I.  Do I have a bias (really, a guess or a prediction) about the verdict in any of Trump’s future trials?  No, I do not.  But I hope he hangs!