Bottom line is of course that if he committed the crime, the “motivation” behind charging him for it doesn’t matter…but there’s another distinction worth making in this context:
For myriad reasons, and much to our detriment, we’ve gravitated into a landscape where essentially EVERY aspect of American life is “politically motivated.”
Sports isn’t just sports now—it’s which player knelt for the anthem, which team featured a Pride jersey, which team did or didn’t refuse a White House visit after a championship.
Movies aren’t just movies now—it’s which film was “woke” because they had a Black princess, which map of China was behind Barbie, which film has Conservatives convinced their kids are being hunted.
We can’t escape it in music, which has become another front in the virtue/signaling wars—by both armies— and it’s more about which artist is/was/should be “cancelled” for [insert latest outrage here.]
Health care isn’t just health care now, judges aren’t just judges now, library books aren’t just library books now.
A safe, free, and effective vaccine for a global pandemic became a litmus test for where the potential victims stood politically.
For fuck’s sake, we’re at the point where the WEATHER has to be filtered through a political lens. Whether or not climate change contributed to this hurricane or that wildfire becomes the passionate debate, not how we can help those affected, or mitigate future disasters.
So, IF, for discussion’s sake, we concede that Trump’s hush money case may have been at least in part “politically motivated”…so fucking what? Is there some special attribute connected to (the politician) Trump’s crimes that makes them unique within American society, and immune from a political dimension?