Yesterday Tina Peters, a county clerk in Colorado, was sentenced to 9 years for trying to subvert the election in Mesa County. She is a minor figure in the MAGA chronicles, and I wouldn’t have paid a lot of attention to her sentencing had I not stumbled across a video of the judge handing it down.
It’s 13 minutes long and very much worth your time. The judge, Matthew Barrett, explained why he was giving Peters nine years in the clink: her behavior was extremely damaging and plainly criminal; unlike many of the defendants he sees, she is a woman of wealth and privilege; and she was completely unrepentant and mendacious.
This language and harsh sentence should be completely mundane. Judges rail at defendants constantly across America. But for the MAGA lawless, that hasn’t happened. They are powerful White people whom everyone offers second and third (and 29th) chances, despite the fact that they treat the law with withering contempt.
There’s nothing unusual in the MAGA movement or its functionaries. They exist in every country and have done through the centuries. The Tina Peters will always exist. They are the cancer cells in the body politic. How a country handles them is the real test, one we have failed at so miserably. Over these past nine years, that’s been the truly alarming part.
As he reviewed the available punishments, Judge Barrett dismissed probation. It would “unduly depreciate the harm that you’ve caused,” he said. I loved that phrase. It describes how we’ve handled the MAGA criminals, starting, of course, with Donald Trump. Judge Barrett is not alone and I don’t mean to diminish the work of those who have managed to stand up for the rule of law. But as a country, we’ve failed. The Barretts are toiling in a system that is hamstrung by a Supreme Court that is busy spreading the cancer.
It shouldn’t be so rare to hear a judge speak this way or for justice to be so complete and severe. It shouldn’t be riveting to listen to a judge walk through the quotidian rationale for jailing an unrepentant criminal. Well, here we are.
If you haven’t seen the video, I strongly encourage it. This is what justice looks like, what I expected when MAGA became a criminal enterprise. It was somehow good for my spirit to witness it. With a month before the election, it feels like a warning or an omen.
🤞
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