The Trump Hustle and the “Guardrail” Fallacy

Plus: It’s adorable that Jack Smith believes the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity “test” is a real thing.

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

1. Hustlers

I haven’t read the Jack Smith brief cover to cover, but a couple bits stuck out to me that weren’t about Trump, but rather his enablers.

Let me give you two quotes.

Smith details an interaction between a Trump campaign employee referred to as “P5” and his/her colleague on November 4, 2020. The colleague was in Detroit monitoring the vote count and informed P5,

“We think [a batch of votes heavily in Biden’s favor is] right,” P5 responded, “find a reason it isnt,” “give me options to file litigation,” and “even if itbis [sic].” When the colleague suggested that there was about to be unrest reminiscent of the Brooks Brothers Riot . . . P5 responded, “Make them riot” and “Do it!!!”

The picture of P5 here is an individual unconcerned with legality or truth, pursuing victory for Trump at all costs. Even if it meant overturning lawfully counted votes.

He or she is told that the votes for Biden look right and response is make something up so we can try to get them discounted.

Who does that?

But also: The person on the other end of that instruction, being told to incite a riot? Did he or she quit their job, right there, on the spot?

Apparently not.

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Another of Trump’s campaign aides, who supposedly spoke to the president on a daily basis, wrote in an email: “When our research and campaign legal team can’t back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we’re 0-32 on our cases. I’ll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it’s tough to own any of this when it’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.”

Here is what I don’t understand: Why was this person willing to “hustle” and “help on all fronts” when he/she understood it was all “conspiracy shit”?

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It’s nice that a couple people resigned from the Trump administration after January 6th. But why weren’t there resignations before January 6th from people on the inside, who saw that he was trying to overturn a lawful election?

Why were so many of those people happy to “hustle” and “help” with what they knew to be an illegitimate attempt to subvert the democratic process?

The answer, of course, is that “guardrails” aren’t inanimate, incorruptible pieces of machinery.

Guardrails are just people. People who need jobs. Who have kids and mortgages, friend groups and professional networks.

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One of the things we never really considered before Trump was the extent to which being a guardrail would require sacrifice. We would say, “Oh, there are checks and balances and the guardrails will keep him from doing anything too terrible.”

But we didn’t really play that scenario all the way through, did we?