Why Do Republicans Have a Selective Ability to Understand the Law?

When it comes to grasping complicated legal technicalities, Republican voters are weirdly inconsistent.

In this handout photo provided by the U.S. Department of Justice, stacks of boxes can be observed in a bathroom and shower in The Mar-a-Lago Club’s Lake Room at former U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has been indicted on 37 felony counts in the special counsel's classified documents probe. (Photo by U.S. Department of Justice via Getty Images)

If you care, the NYT asked me for short thoughts on Trump’s strength as a candidate. You can find them here. I won’t lie: Some of the contributions to this roundtable are . . . ridiculous.

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1. Kyle Rittenhouse

Over the weekend a number of elected Republicans—and not just MAGA apologists, but Good Republicans, too—explained that most Republicans can’t possibly tell the difference between the alleged crimes for which Donald Trump has been indicted and the garden-variety mishandling of government documents in other cases.

This is a strange claim. Why is it that these elite Republicans believe that their voters can’t understand relatively straightforward facts and law in a case where there is literally a tape of the defendant explaining his state of mind at the time of the alleged crime?

Because in other, more nuanced, cases Republican voters have been remarkably sophisticated in their legal analysis. Let’s take a look.