Whether one agrees with the political views expressed in this article or not, this is an excellent representation of how “the system” is losing legitimacy due to cultural fragmentation. People are increasingly unwilling to accept the outcome of not only elections but also court cases if “their side” does not win. Many conservatives view both the election of Biden and the conviction of Chauvin as illegitimate, just as many liberals would have regarded the reelection of Trump or the acquittal of Chauvin as illegitimate. It doesn’t matter who is “right” in a purely empirical sense when the competitors regard each other as existential enemies. This is gang warfare. For Crips, Bloods are always wrong simply because they are Bloods, and vice versa.
By William S. Lind, Traditional Right
On Tuesday, April 20th, a Minneapolis jury found police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of three counts, including second-degree murder, in the death of George Floyd. The “trial” had the usual characteristics of a political show trial, including an automatic verdict of guilty, even though we still do not know whether Floyd died from officer Chauvin’s actions or because of Floyd’s combination of heart disease, breathing problems, and ingestion of both fentanyl and meth. In show trials, the facts don’t matter anyway.
The markers of a show trail include:
- The President of the United States, Joe Biden, said publicly before the verdict that he was praying for “the right verdict.” Could anyone doubt what verdict he meant?
- One defense witness had his former home vandalized, presumably by people who thought he still lived there. Witness intimidation, anyone? Hello?
- The Left openly threatened riots unless the jury caved and voted Chauvin guilty. In a column in the Saturday-Sunday, April 24-25 Wall Street Journal, Joseph Perkins quoted Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who is black, saying in Minneapolis the weekend before the verdict, “I hope we get a verdict that says guilty, guilty, guilty. And if we don’t. . . we’ve got to stay on the street. We have to get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational.” Perkins quoted attorney Alan Dershowitz saying Waters’ words were “an attempt to intimidate the jury,” which they certainly were in a city that had already suffered major riots over Floyd’s death.
- In an editorial on April 21, the WSJ noted that, “Even after the verdict, commentators who applauded the jury gave last year’s riots in American cities the credit for inspiring it. Not the facts. Not the law.” If that doesn’t define a political show trial, Lavrentii Beria took in orphans’ washing.
