[gottorf]

The commander-in-chief isn't leading a charge at the front lines, so whether or not he can legally own a gun has no bearing; otherwise, we'd have to demand that every elected official has direct, hands-on experience in everything that they legislate, regulate, or judge. Well, perhaps that wouldn't be so horrible, after all...

I personally find the way he came to be a felon to be a darker subsection, but your mileage may vary, of course.

[anigbrowl]

What you are missing about the analogy is that the US military is effectively the largest gun on the planet.

[gottorf]

I assume your point is that a felony conviction is evidence of an unsound mind that justifies prohibiting someone from owning a firearm, and that this translates to leading our military.

The analogy falls apart if said felony conviction is unjust or otherwise has no bearing on one's ability to lead the military. By and large, American voters think so, with two-thirds of those polled thinking that what he was convicted of is a nothingburger[0].

[0]: https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-indictment-hush-money...

[ryandrake]

The analogy only falls apart if you are applying a double standard.

You might say "Certain kinds of felonies don't indicate a person is unfit to wield a weapon/the military, and certain kinds do." I'm a supporter of the 2A and I'd listen to that. As long as you intend to apply that across the population.

But if you're saying "A bunch of people don't like this particular conviction against this particular person, so we should have a separate standard for him," well that not how the rule of law works.

[kelipso]

What is a presidential pardon then? Maybe not how rule of law works but it's how democracy works.

[gottorf]

A presidential pardon is an enumerated power of the office under the supreme law of the land, so it's hard to argue that it isn't rule of law.

[gottorf]

If we're talking about the rule of law, there is no law against a convicted felon from either being elected President or being the commander-in-chief. There is only the irony (as the GP brought up) of someone who cannot legally possess a firearm being in charge of the military, but neither irony nor hypocrisy is yet illegal. So I see no problem here.

Is your point that a convicted felon should be legally barred from holding office? Then there is a straightforward legal process to achieve your goals. However, I caution you that politically motivated prosecutions have existed before Trump and will exist after, and that there's probably a better reason than mere oversight that the Constitution places so few limits on who can be voted President.

[rat87]

I think it would be very difficult to present an honest nonpartisan case arguing that Trump is not guilty of

1. The case he has been convicted of 2. The cases that are still in progress 3. Many things he hasn't been charged with yet.

But if you want to do so I'll try to listen. The case you listed isn't even the case he has been convicted of so far. But I don't blame you for the mixup there's so many crimes people may have trouble confusing them.

[gottorf]

> The case you listed isn't even the case he has been convicted of so far

The source I cited refers to Trump's "hush money" convictions (over falsifying business records), which to my knowledge is the only criminal case that went through to the end of a trial and resulted in a felony conviction[0]. Is this untrue?

> an honest nonpartisan case arguing that Trump is not guilty

The argument is that the prosecution of these cases is partisan to begin with; that is, no one not named "Donald Trump" would have been prosecuted for the same matters on hand to the same degree. Obviously neither I nor anybody else can prove this claim, so you be the judge.

MLK Jr. was legally harangued throughout his life, with many arrests and two felony indictments. In 1960, he became the first person in Alabama to ever be charged with felony perjury over tax returns. Are we to believe that he really was the first Alabamian to cheat on taxes? Had he been convicted, would you seriously believe that justice had been served, or would you instead think of the whole thing as partisan lawfare?

Imagine this scenario: you see a line of cars on the highway all going 20 miles an hour above the speed limit, but only one gets pulled over. You have reasons to suspect that it's because the local sheriff doesn't like the driver, but you have no means of proving that. The logical counterarguments could be A) the officer happened to only see him; B) everyone was observed to be speeding and if the sheriff's department had more resources, then everyone would have been pulled over, but out of practical necessity only one car could be pulled over and it happened to be him; or C) actually, it was in fact just him who was speeding and nobody else. I don't find any of those to be persuasive in Trump's case.

[0]: https://www.politico.com/interactives/2023/trump-criminal-in..., last updated August 2024

[mullingitover]

> The argument is that the prosecution of these cases is partisan to begin with

Irrelevant. The criminal justice system in the US is very defendant-friendly. Blackstone's ratio is baked into our '12 people, after hearing a vigorous defense, believe the defendant committed the crime beyond a reasonable doubt' requirement. "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer" is our system.

Trump did something so illegal that twelve people grabbed at random off the street are convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that the crime was committed. He had the best attorneys money could buy. The system bent over backwards for him to avoid any hint of impropriety exactly because these types of bad faith apologetics would be lobbed at it.

And the AP survey is not a good look: an outright majority believe he's unfit, and before you do a victory lap you must account for the additional 21% who simply don't know the facts well enough to have an opinion. The jury that convicted him was handpicked because they did not know enough to have an opinion, and they convicted him once they saw the facts. So it's a safe bet that all but the most extreme partisan apologists rule him out when they're aware of the facts.

[gottorf]

> Trump did something so illegal that twelve people grabbed at random off the street are convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that the crime was committed

It seems like you're calling my point irrelevant by side-stepping it entirely. To clarify, my point is that many voters don't have confidence that had it not been Donald Trump who committed these crimes, it would have been prosecuted. That Trump was found guilty has no bearing on whether he was singled out for prosecution for political reasons, or that there are not in fact other people who commit the same crimes who are not prosecuted.

I agree with you that the US criminal justice system is very defendant-friendly, but again, that has no bearing on any issue of selective prosecution. And of course, juries aren't perfect; otherwise OJ Simpson really didn't kill that woman, and Emmett Till's lynchers really were innocent.

> these types of bad faith apologetics

> the most extreme partisan apologists

I'm willing to have a conversation with you or anyone about this, but not if you are operating under the presumption that I am an extreme partisan acting in bad faith. I'm making a reasonable argument that it's understandable for voters to not consider Trump's convictions a dealbreaker. You may also make a reasonable argument against my position. But there's no need for name-calling, or worse, the belief that anyone who rejects your argument is acting in bad faith.