If A causes B and you don’t want B, try not to encourage A. That’s a political reality that fifth graders on the playground recognize, but Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has trouble with it, according to his congressional colleague Rep. Dan Goldman.
Goldman is commenting on Kevin McCarthy’s statement about the presumably imminent indictment of former President Donald Trump, who received a target letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith‘s office, which, as Trump says, “almost always means an arrest.”
The former President reportedly called McCarthy and his other allies in the government — while at the same time lamenting the so-called “deep state” — to discuss their presumed defense of him. McCarthy answered the call, though with a tenor that lacked the ferocity the Speaker has mustered in past defenses of Trump.
This argument makes no sense.
— Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) July 18, 2023
If Trump went up in polls after his two indictments, wouldn’t the “political” move disfavor more charges?
In truth, there is nothing political about the independent special counsel, who is following the facts and the law without fear or favor. https://t.co/MRlHAYUIlN
Goldman makes the A/B argument above quite plain, saying clearly that McCarthy’s argument “makes no sense.” If, as McCarthy cites, previous indictments (A) helped Donald Trump rise in the polls (B), then Democrats “weaponizing” the government to foil Donald Trump would not do A (indict him again) so as to avoid B (his rising in the polls).
“If Trump went up in polls after his two indictments, wouldn’t the ‘political’ move disfavor more charges?” Goldman asks rhetorically. But Goldman knows politics is not a game of logic but of emotion, and his political algebra, while seeming clear, has too many hidden variables to solve for.
