Since roughly the 2020 election, I’ve simultaneously:
- Thought something was amiss about the elections; if not Chicago-style ballot stuffing, at least a world of irregularites with the “legal” changes due to Covid – mail in balloting, and the collusion between the DOJ, the Biden campaign, big media and big tech to “shape” the Hunter Biden story, among others
- Told some of the more extreme election skeptics, especially on the air, “That’s an interesting theory, but until Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani bring an actual case with evidence to court, rather than beclowning themselves, what do you expect we’re going to do about it?”
Three points.
Imperfection
The first point? I made that a few weeks back, when I talked about why I don’t necessairly think “a judge and jury say so” is completely invariably the dispositive last word on any issue. Long story short – judges and juries make mistakes. And that’s ignoring the fact that some prosecutors play fast and loose with the rules, some defense attorneys have no idea what they’re doing, and some judges just want to make their @$%$#& tee times.
Sometimes it gets caught.
The legal system isn’t perfect, but it beats most of the alternatives.
Which may or may not be good enough.
Second: In a separate, seemingly unrelated topic: in Minnesota, most judges are elected. But the candidate pool is intensely circumscribed because, as a lawyer once told me, running a campaign against a sitting judge in front of whom one will one day have to appear in court is pretty much a one-way trip toward spending the rest of your career chasing people who bounce checks.
Judges, by inference – who are charged with being our society’s stentorian impartial guardians of justice and fairness and due process – apparently have the egos of a bunch of middle school “mean girls”.
Reading between the lines: the reputation and social standing of practitioners among other practitioners is as much a part of the judicial system as due process and gavels and the literal letter of the law.
Socially Rigged
So – did the social pressure among lawyers, judges and everyone else in the legal profession that we discussed above affect the election, or the way the courts approached questions about it?
I don’t know. But this article, among others, certainly seems to brag about the power of the Legal Mean Girl caste to bring Big Law into line. Certainly Big Media isn’t going to report on it.
Let’s just say I can be convinced.