Donald Trump is Truly the ‘OJ Simpson’ of US Politics!

HE’S ABOUT TO GET AWAY WITH ‘CONSTITUTIONAL MURDER’ . . .

by Selvam Canagaratna-February 8, 2020, 4:58 pm
"Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles."
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1881.

Former NFL star, actor and TV pitchman O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman had been found stabbed to death outside Nicole's condominium in the Brentwood neighbourhood of Los Angeles, just after midnight on June 13, 1994.

Detectives drove to his house on nearby Rockingham Avenue to notify Simpson of Nicole's death. They found blood on the door handle of OJ’s vehicle and inside his house, and on a right glove which matched a left-hand glove discovered at the murder scene. The gloves were found to have both Simpson's blood and the victims’ on them.

Evidence continued to mount against OJ over the next few days. More blood was found inside his house. Simpson wrote what amounted to three suicide notes, to the public, his girlfriend and his mother. Police were sent to his house to arrest Simpson but discovered that he had escaped in a white Ford Bronco belonging to his friend Al Cowlings, who was driving. Simpson was declared a fugitive and an all-points bulletin was issued for his arrest.

Simpson was spotted on the freeway in the back of Cowlings' Bronco traveling at 35 miles per hour. Simpson held the .357 firearm aimed at his head.

The above details were recalled by Lucian K. Truscott IV in his piece in the January 25th issue of Salon magazine. Truscott recalled that what became known as ‘the low-speed chase’ had lasted for hours, while thousands of spectators packed overpasses along the route, and all the major networks, including CNN, interrupted regular programming to carry the chase, which was followed by some 95 million viewers as it dragged on. (Ninety million had watched that year’s Super Bowl.) The chase ended 50 miles later at Simpson's estate, where he was arrested, after drinking a glass of orange juice and talking to his mother.

Simpson's ‘dream team’ of lawyers, which included a much younger Alan Dershowitz, got him off. By the end of the trial, everyone knew what the verdict would be, despite a mountain of evidence that he did it. The defense had put the LAPD and prosecution evidence on trial, not Simpson. "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit" was lawyer Johnny Cochran’s clever counter to the bloody glove soaked in the DNA of O.J. Simpson, his dead wife and her lover.

‘OJ’ killed them both and got away with it, noted Truscott.

And now Donald Trump, OJ’s political doppelganger, is going to get away with it. We have witnessed the Trump low-speed chase over the past four years. It began when he was running for President in 2016. Everyone knows that Trump called out for help from the Russians, and everyone knows they hacked the Democrats' emails and did everything they could to help elect him. Everyone knows that Trump fired FBI Director James Comey because he wouldn’t pledge loyalty and had begun an investigation of Russian influence in Trump’s campaign.

Trump has lied repeatedly, not only about his corrupt campaign in 2016, but about practically everything else he's done since his inauguration. He told some 15,413 lies since taking office, through early December, according to The Washington Post.

And now here we are in the midst of the impeachment trial of Donald Trump by the United States Senate – not for the help he solicited from the Russians in 2016, which he should have been impeached over, but for the help he solicited from Ukraine for his 2020 re-election campaign! And just like we knew ‘OJ’ would get away with it, we all know Trump will too.

OJ’s lawyers never really bothered to make a case that he didn’t do it. How could they? His DNA was all over the place. It was his ex-wife who was dead, stabbed multiple times in the head and upper body and neck. Testimony at the trial would show that after Simpson killed Goldman, he returned to his wife's body, put his foot in the middle of her back and pulled her head up by her hair and slit her throat, nearly decapitating her.

Trump’s ‘dream team’ won’t try to make a case that he didn’t do it either. How could they? Trump released the nearly verbatim notes from his call with Volodymyr Zelensky. It’s right there in his own words. He asked the Ukrainian President to do him ‘a favour’ by investigating his chief political rival, Joe Biden.

The Democratic House managers took the time to establish Trump’s motive, showing that he hadn’t withheld aid to Ukraine in 2017 or 2018, and in fact waited until polls showed Biden at the head of the Democratic pack to pressure Ukraine to investigate him in 2019. Only then did he withhold nearly $400 million in aid. He didn’t bother asking Zelensky to investigate corruption in Ukraine. No, all he wanted from the President of Ukraine was an investigation of Joe Biden.

There were multiple ‘theories’ why the jury didn’t find OJ guilty: he had been a star NFL running back, and he was an enormously popular public figure. The LAPD, which OJ’s lawyers put on trial, was as unpopular as OJ was popular, and demonstrably racist to boot. The prosecution had been as ham-handed as Simpson’s ‘dream team’ was highly skilled. The verdict amounted to jury nullification, according to some legal experts.

This time round, it’s the House managers, acting as prosecutors, who have been skilled in their presentation of largely irrefutable evidence against Trump, and the defense that has been, to this point anyway, clumsy and ineffective.

But none of it matters. Donald Trump once said he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it, remember? He was right. Now we’re going to learn that he can kill the Constitution as well and leave his bloody fingerprints all over it, but the Republicans in the Senate will let him get away with it.

Donald Trump truly is the ‘OJ’ of American politics.