American Eschaton Part II
Is It Now 8 Months Until The End of America as We Know It?
On September 27, 2023 I wrote a short essay entitled American Eschaton: 16 Months Until the End of America as We Know It.
Sixteen months from now (472 days, to be exact), on January 25 2025, the next President of the United States will be sworn into office. In an ordinary year in an ordinary decade in an ordinary nation, the next President would be obvious. It would be Donald Trump…
But this is not an ordinary year, or an ordinary decade, or an ordinary nation, and so it’s not going to play out like that…
I predict an American Eschaton: The end of America as we know it. It will be a Fourth Turning, but it will be a Fourth Turning that goes against us. The exact manner in which our eschaton will occur is much harder to predict. The end of America as we know it doesn’t necessarily mean nuclear apocalypse, government collapse, or secession. It could simply mean a transformation of America into something Unamerican. (The Russian Revolution of 1918 was the end of Russia as the Russian of the time knew it, for instance.)
Since then, 8 months have passed and we now find ourselves at the mid-point between first publication of my essay and the prophesized eschaton. Given that President Trump was just convicted of 34 felonies in New York, it behooves us to consider the state of the eschaton.
But first, let’s talk about the actual conviction.
On What Counts was Trump Charged and Convicted?
Trump was charged with 34 counts of Falsifying Business Records. Falsifying Business Records in the Second Degree is a misdemeanor defined in NY Penal Law 175.05 as:
However, that definition doesn’t apply here, because Trump was charged with Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree. This is a felony charge, defined as follows in NY Penal Law 175.10
So the felony is the commission of the misdemeanor when the “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” And it is this latter provision that all of the courtroom drama has been about.
Click this link to read the 34 counts upon which Trump was convicted. You will see that the counts are simply a list of checks, invoices, and ledger entries, which Trump is convicted of each having falsified.
Perhaps a reasonable man might conclude that Trump had falsified business records - but that would merely be the Class A misdemeanor. What is the crime that Trump “intended to commit, or conceal the commission thereof” that would justify making this a felony?
No one knows. Trump has never been convicted of another crime, nor been convicted of aiding or concealing the commission of a crime. To circumvent this… inconvenience, the New York Judge Merchan specifically instructed the Jury that they didn’t have to decide which specific crime Trump committed or concealed.
Obviously, if the Prosecution believed they could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump committed a specific crime or concealed a specific crime, they’d have attempted to do so in Court. The fact is that they did not because they could not.
Thus Trump has been convicted of feloniously falsifying business records to commit or conceal some undefined crime for which he has not been convicted, indicted, or even arrested, and for which the Jury didn’t even have to agree about.
If this sounds absurd, that’s because it’s absurd. Imagine if this is how the legal system worked:
A little old lady dies while you are walking past her on the street. The Prosecutor charges you with felony murder - she died while you were committing a felony! What felony, you ask? We’re not sure which, maybe you were in the neighborhood to commit burglary, maybe you were in the neighborhood to commit grand theft auto, maybe you were planning to murder her. It doesn’t matter. We’ll tell the Jury they don’t have to be unanimous on that, just unanimous that she died while you were doing whatever it is you were doing, you criminal scum.
You meet with some people. Some of those people later commit crimes. The Prosecutor charges you with conspiracy to commit a crime! Which crime, you ask? We’re not sure which, maybe you were planning a robbery, maybe you were planning a murder, maybe you were planning a wire fraud. It doesn’t matter. We’ll tell the Jury that they don’t have to be anonymous on that, just unanimous that you met those people to plan whatever it is you were planning, you criminal scum.
Oh, wait. That is how our legal system works. We just had that demonstrated. What about rule of law, you say? Well, what about it?
What Happens Next?
Trump will be sentenced on July 11, 2024. The maximum punishment he faces for each of the 34 counts is 4 years in prison. That sentence could be applied concurrently or sequentially, putting the theoretical maximum range at 4 to 136 years. However, a separate New York law caps the maximum prison sentence for Class E felonies at 20 years. Therefore, we can safely say the maximum punishment Trump is facing is 20 years in prison.
The minimum punishment for each of the 34 counts is nada. Zilch. Nothing. Thus there’s a wide set of possibilities:
Trump could receive no prison time, merely fines.
Trump could be placed on probation for days, weeks, months, or years.
Trump could be sentenced to spend days, weeks, months, or years in prison.
Trump could be sentenced to, e.g. spend weekends in prison and weekdays on probation, for days, weeks, months, or years.
Trump could be sentenced to home detention, with ankle bracelet and monitor, for days, weeks, months, or years.
Or any of the above combination of the above.
It’s entirely up to Judge Merchan to decide.
Now, many pundits, Left and Right, are referencing an analysis of comparable cases brought by the Manhattan district attorney's office. That analysis suggests that only about 10% of such cases have resulted in imprisonment. On this basis, these pundits are suggesting it is “very unlikely” that Trump will go to prison.
Indeed, among the Right, many of our leading voices are saying things like “I have trust in our legal system,” “the rule of law will prevail,” “Trump will never set foot in a prison,” and so on. I will not link them to spare them embarrassment.
Because all of these people are guilty of normalcy bias in the first degree.
In the history of the Republic, 0% of Presidents have been arrested for crimes after leaving office. 0% of Presidents have been indicated for crimes after leaving office. And 0% of Presidents have been convicted of crimes after leaving office.
When your political enemies are engaging in activity for which the prior precedent was 0%… relying on them to go easy on you because there’s only a 10% precedent is tragically stupid.
How Does It End?
In my earlier essay, I suggested the American Eschaton could end in one of five ways:
Managerial triumph, if “Trump is removed from the ballot by legislation, incarceration, or assassination; or election fraud is used to prevent him from fairly competing; or a pretext is found to cancel elections altogether.”
Managerial collapse, if “the managerial elite fail to stave off systemic collapse.”
Peaceful national divorce, if “one or more states secede from the Union, refuse to recognize the Washington D.C. government, or otherwise provoke a national divorce.”
Civil war / violent national divorce, if “whichever faction loses the 2024 election (Left or Right) attempts a peaceful secession; and the Federal government responds with military action and is met by counter-military force by the state(s).”
Global war, if “China and/or Russia starts the war because their leaders believe that the United States is badly led, broke, disunited, and therefore likely to lose, or the United States starts the war because our leaders believe that the system is heading for either collapse or Trump victory.”
Looking back now, I see I was entirely too optimistic to say that the American Eschaton would arrive in 16 months. It only took 8! The American Eschaton has already occurred - “a transformation of America into something Unamerican” has happened. For the first time in our nation’s history, a President of the US has been convicted of a crime in what looks to many like a politically-motivated case. That is not a small transformation.
But there is more to come. I predict that Trump will, at a minimum, be sentenced to house arrest and, more likely, sentenced to prison. The sentence will be applied concurrently for all 34 cases, so that he is sentenced to 4 years — conveniently the length of the Presidential term he’s attempting to secure.
What happens after that? It seems to me that all five options are still in play, while the remote possibility of a peaceful transition of power is even more unlikely than it ever was.
Let’s contemplate this on the Tree of Woe.
This conviction is so silly and is so easy to overturn that it makes me believe that this is all kayfabe, that the regime has made the decision to re-install Trump and this is part of the campaign to re-install him.
>Because all of these people are guilty of normalcy bias in the first degree.
From an email I wrote to a friend in the summer of 2021:
"My main argument is not that we no longer live under the rule of law in America. That's a different and much more complicated conversation. A good book to read on that latter subject is The Nonsense Factory. Especially since the author is clearly left-leaning.
One reason why that discussion would be difficult is because the rule of law is more of a continuum, rather than binary. Also, because it consists of the rule of law proper and the perception of the rule of law. That perception is extremely important - it can hold the society together for years if not decades, as long as there is some (possibly much lower level) of law and order underlying it.
I believe we (1) definitely still have the perception of the rule of law sufficient to maintain the population in check without declaring martial law throughout the country, (2) that the actual level of the rule of law is much lower than the perception. I have no idea what would happen if/when the perception begins to match reality. So far people seem to be able to maintain a healthy denial of reality (compare this to election fraud denialism.) I am only half-joking. This well may be a self-preservation instinct."
Well, three short years after that was written we no longer even have the perception of the rule of law. Martial law is not far away.