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I’m seeing anger and cynicism over Manafort’s sentence.

This is to remind you that cynicism destroys democracy.

See this about the GOP and cynicism👇


Putin’s active measures are designed to get people to lose faith in democratic systems.
1/ Putin knows when enough people lose faith in their government, autocrats can take over, because people stop caring. If all systems are corrupt, who cares?

americanprogress.org/issues/securit…

A system run by human begins can never be perfect.
2/ I spent 15 years as an appellate defense lawyer (I represented only people who couldn't pay—I was appointed by the appellate courts and paid through California’s general budget)

My clients were not only indigent—many suffered from mental illness. Some were homeless.
3/ Many were women in abusive relationships.

My clients were often treated unfairly.

One of the pillars of democracy is an independent judiciary. This means that judges won’t always do what we like.

Another pillar of democracy is a presumption of innocence . . .
4/ People talk about indictments as if they'll somehow save the republic.

An indictment is just the start of a process. Trials are always chancy. Nobody can predict what a jury will do.

This is why I have argued against people who say, “Unless they all go to jail . . .
5/ . . . for long periods of time, justice will not be done.”

For me, the concern about Manafort not serving a lifetime sentence is that he will go back to his old ways.

But he can’t, really, not like before. He has been exposed.

The world knows who and what he is.
6/ His defenders will defend him. There is nothing we can do about that.

We still have people defending American slavery, for goodness sake. Those people will always be with us.

We need to wrest the country back from the far right wing and begin repairing the damage.
After I read comments, I often think of better titles for the thread 😉

This one should be: "Defending rule of law even when we don't like the results."

So, I made the fix on my blog.

All of my threads are now blog posts. You can read this one here: terikanefield-blog.com/defending-rule…
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