The doomsday hysteria about Judge Aileen Cannon is officially out of control
Nearly every time I post something about Donald Trump’s federal criminal trial in his classified documents scandal, I get flooded with replies along the lines of “The trial is doomed because Judge Aileen Cannon has moved the trial to a rural Republican county where the jury will acquit him.” But every single word of that sentence is false.
First, the trial has not been “moved.” All along it’s been set to take place in Fort Pierce, which is where Cannon is based. That’s a normal decision, not an improper one. The outrage addicts on our side have simply invented the false claim that Cannon has “moved” the trial, so they can convince themselves that Trump is going to be acquitted, so they can feel outrage at the notion that he’s going to be acquitted.
Second, Fort Pierce is not some rural area. It’s a bustling suburban area. It’s more Republican-leaning than, say, Miami. But the outrage addicts are falsely portraying Fort Pierce as if it were Little House on the Prairie, so they can further convince themselves that Trump is going to be acquitted, so they can feel even more outrage.
Finally, jury selection is a sophisticated process that’s designed to screen out people who are biased – and screen out people who are trying to hide their bias. Court employees seat juries for a living. Prosecutors oversee jury selection for a living. They know how it works. They know how to weed out the kinds of people who are too biased to sit on any given jury. But the outrage addicts on our side simply want to believe that Trump will be acquitted, so they can spend every day raging about it.
This means that the sentence “The trial is doomed because Judge Aileen Cannon has moved the trial to a rural Republican county where the jury will acquit him” contains not one, not two, but three fictional claims. It’s sheer nonsense. But it’s the kind of tidy, simplistic narrative that the outrage addicts on our side spend all day every day chanting in unison, so they can make sure they’re able to feel outrage all day every day. And of course far too many folks in the media and pundit sphere are more than willing to pander to these outrage addicts in the name of boosting their own ratings and retweets.
But the factual reality is that the trial hasn’t been moved, it’s not taking place in a rural area, and its location isn’t going to result in some biased jury anyway. In fact, as awful as Judge Cannon is, she hasn’t actually made a single improper move yet. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t. But if she does, Jack Smith can and will use the 11th Circuit to overrule or remove her. And even if that doesn’t work, Smith can and will bring related charges against Trump in some other jurisdiction. This stuff is pretty obvious when you think it through, instead of merely listening to the folks who chant the same nonsense phrases all day long.
Let’s keep in mind that Jack Smith is not some hapless idiot. He moved this case to Florida knowing there was a realistic chance that Cannon would end up with the case. If Cannon had the magical ability to blow up this case, would Smith have moved the case to her neck of the woods to begin with? Are we really supposed to believe that Jack Smith forgot Cannon exists when he moved the case? These doomsday scenarios always fall apart with even an ounce of critical thought. But then the doomsday hysteria peddled by the outrage addicts isn’t meant to withstand critical thought. It’s meant to bait you into having the kind of emotional reaction that prevents critical thought from happening. As always, your job is to not fall for it.
