Prompt engineering

I had never heard of "prompt engineering" until this week.

Prompt engineering is the process where you guide generative artificial intelligence to generate outputs. Generative AI needs detailed, well-constructed instructions if it is going to give you high-quality results.

IBM, MIT, Purdue, Microsoft, and others offer training on how to do prompts, i.e. "engineer" them. If you take and pass their classes you can put it on your resume.

Each generation needs to master the technology of its era. My great grandparents needed to know how to farm with horses. My grandparents needed to know how to patch the tubes on car tires. 

IBM Selectric II, Correcting

As a college student I needed to know how to correct typos using coverup tape. The IBM Selectric with its spinning ball and eraser tape did it for me in my first jobs out of college. 

Teamster

Teamsters of old needed to know how to direct teams of horses that were in front of them, mostly with a light touch of reins laying across the horses' shoulders, a valuable skill for centuries. It is a valuable skill to prompt an AI program, for now.  Our guest post author warns that soon AI will intuit what we are asking it to do.

Until then, prompt engineering.

John Coster uses artificial intelligence in his work. He leads technology strategy and innovation teams at a large wireless telecommunications company. Over his 40-year career, he oversaw the design and construction projects for large energy users.

Coster

Guest Post by John Coster

There is much written these days about the disruptive technology that hit the world last year: generative AI; especially large language models (LLM). Early dismissive comments were silenced when a NY Times article , transcribed parts of a disturbing "conversation" with Microsoft's "Sydney". It's worth reading the entire article if you want to be creeped out. Sydney seemed volitional, sentient or even sapient. In slightly over 12 months, AI has taken the world by storm, and not just LLMs. AI has not only infiltrated more areas of our lives, but it has also created whole new domains that previously did not exist. Who needs porn stars when you can customize a realistic avatar to your liking? Who needs to know how to construct any kind of essay when you can ask AI to write it for you?

Opinions about the societal implications or even what it means to be human are all over the board. History has shown that technology and automation always displace human workers, but up until now, they have not threatened knowledge workers, including highly paid software engineers. That is no longer true. So, the question on nearly every early-to-mid career professional person's mind is "what skills do I need to flourish or even survive in the new AI-driven economy?" 

NVIDIÅ GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip

I work in the tech sector at the intersection of the physical and digital. My team designs and builds data centers that house systems that enable this kind of technology. Nvidia is the new darling with a market cap of three trillion dollars because it is the only company (so far) that can make the chips that handle the kind of computational workload that AI demands. It feels like a gold rush right now. Hundreds of billions are being invested to develop the most disruptive technology since the Internet.

So, what does it all mean? One of the new skills being touted is "prompt engineering" or knowing how to ask AI the best questions to get the best outcomes. Many large companies hold training on how to best do this. Our company strongly encourages us to use AI to write performance reviews. I hear other large tech companies have mandates to do the same. My experience was quick and easy, and all I did was clean up some of the clunky wording. But many of us wonder if prompt engineering is even a real or enduring skill, or will our queries over time simply train AI to anticipate what we need before we ask? What does this portend for critical thinking skills at a time when we most need them?

This seems like the one technology that is racing faster than we can assess the legal, technical, ethical, economic or social implications.

UPCOMING POSTS: World War II veterans. AI clarifies Judge Juan Merchan's jury instructions. The Hunter Biden trial. More conversations with Republican defenders of Trump. We live in interesting times.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Denise Krause to County Commissioners: Cut your salaries.

     "Cut your salaries. Now. The public wants it, and the problems the county faces demand it. . . . So listen to the people."
          Denise Krause

Screen shot from KOBI news story

Voters in Jackson County, Oregon turned down two ballot measure making the county commissioner position nonpartisan and increasing their number from three to five. But in the same May election they voted 63% to 37% to cut the commissioners salary from $150,000/year to $75,000. The salary would then have been scaled to match the county's median income. That measure did not go into effect because the salary cut was contingent on passage of the measure to increase the number of commissioners.

Denise Krause led the volunteer effort on those three measures. She is a candidate for the open seat for county commissioner in the November election. She presented her case to the Jackson County commissioners at their regular Wednesday board meeting. The county commission and budget committee has finished budget hearings for the upcoming fiscal year. This is the time when the county commission adopts its final budget to begin July 1.

The commissioners took no action on Krause's request.

KOBI screen shot

Commissioners set their own salaries. In the recent ballot measure campaign the opposition cited state law which gives objective standards for the salaries of elected officials, looking at their scope of responsibility and number of people supervised. Krause took issue with this formula and the commissioners definition of their job. 

You say that we need to pay the highest salaries in Oregon to get such highly qualified candidates as yourselves. I don’t believe it. More importantly, the public you serve does not believe it. . . . 

Your job is one of representation of the public. End the step-system that treats your jobs as career positions in which longevity is the test of quality. You are evaluated on how well you represent the public will. The public has spoken. Your job is not to manage the county employees, the budget, or create bigger government. You oversee one employee and give your opinion on the budget. Your job is to listen to the taxpayers and represent their interests.

There is precedent for commissioner-led salary cuts. Krause cited the early 1980s. High interest rates shut down housing construction. Receipts plummeted from timber harvests from Oregon's federal forests, the source of most of the county's general fund budget. The commissioners -- I among them -- cut programs and personnel almost in half. Commissioners cut our own salaries to set an example and show we were in sync with the public will during a deep recession. 

Krause said that the current commissioners have a similar need to set an example that shows they understand and share the upcoming burden on taxpayers. She said "the county has to bring a major spending proposal to county taxpayers," referencing a replacement county jail, which has cost estimates of some $300 million.

The county commissioners campaign in opposition to the ballot measures emphasized -- exaggerated, in the view of the measures' proponents -- the cost of county commissioners. Krause reminded them that their campaign said commissioners offices, salaries, benefits, and allowances for travel and cell phones, would cost A LOT more money. "The campaign signs told a story the public believed," Krause told them. You sold the idea of sky-high costs for commissioners, she said, so now you need to live with the consequences. The public is aware and aroused, she said. They have spoken and you should listen.

Jackson County residents will be able to watch a recorded version of the commissioner meeting when it is posted in a few days. But to know to watch it, and to pick out the elements of a long meeting that has interest to voters, requires curation done by professional media organizations. The only media at the meeting was television station KOBI, a locally owned NBC affiliate station, which aired a 70-second story on the subject. 

Local residents got bad news about the local news-environment this week. EO Media, the owners of the Rogue Valley Times, the newspaper that replaced the failed Medford Mail Tribune, announced staff cuts and plans to sell the newspaper chain. They reported on their cutbacks saying that the business model for profitable news gathering is unsustainable. 

Krause has a story to tell. The public has demonstrated its concern about the salaries and perquisites of its elected officials. If Southern Oregon retreats back into a news desert, people will find out about their community from news feeds on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other non-curated sources. It is better than nothing but mis-information is a easy to produce as accurate information; wild fantasy can be more interesting than work-a-day truth, and is therefore more interesting and fun to pass around.

There is no substitute for professional news media.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com  Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Finding Trump's felony.

What exactly was Trump's crime? False business records. Misdemeanors.

And what exactly did Trump do to turn those misdemeanors into felonies? That is harder to pin down, but the judge found three ways.

"Convicted felon!" 

Democrats are relieved by the guilty verdict. Some are giddy. I am not. I am wary.

I have the eerie feeling I had back at the end of 1999 when "irrational exuberance" pushed internet prices to new highs. I felt it again in 2006 when TV ads described 120% financing of mortgage loans. This won't last long.

The problem with this case isn't the evidence. Of course Trump entered false business records. We see them. 

Nor is it, to my mind, with the prosecution. If prosecutors see clear evidence of actual crimes, they should prosecute. What would be political would be failing to prosecute crimes done by people too rich, too famous, or too politically connected to prosecute. I oppose "too big to fail" law enforcement.

I have no problem with the jury, either.  Manhattan residents are as close as we are going to find in America of a jury of Trump's peers. They are his neighbors, and like him, highly educated, and wealthy enough to live on the most expensive real estate in America.

But a college classmate, Matt Naitove, raised a potential issue, one that could be a basis for reversal on appeal. A reversal on appeal would be a disastrous "October surprise" for Democrats. The "convicted felon" mark of disqualification would become a mark of vindication. Naitove asked what exactly was the secondary crime Trump covered up by making the false business records. There needs to be a secondary crime for these false records to be felonies. 

Naitove describes the circular quality to the prosecution's case. The false business records are crime #1, but they are only of issue here because they furthered crime #2 – influencing an election “by unlawful means.” That “unlawful means” (crime #3), apparently, is deceptive business records that hid from the public the whole “hush money” business. All that boils down to this: The false business records are illegal -- crime #1-- because they are false, and crimes #2-3 are because false business records are intended to deceive, but that is a given in crime #1, not a second (or third) crime. 

Naitove's warning set off a flurry of agreement, disagreement, and questions among other classmates who saw his warning. "What exactly is the felony here?" And, "If a prosecutor cannot even state or identify an actual, legally-cognizable felony, the purported defendant can’t reasonably be convicted, right?" 

If this is a sticking point for him and others, it may be one for some appeals court.

Naitove earned an MS degree at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and then accepted a first job, which became a lifelong career, at Plastics Technology magazine. He retired from that publication after 51 years. He told me he grew up in New Hampshire, which used to be rock-ribbed Republican territory. He said that while it has trended Democratic he has moved "rather in the opposite direction."

 

Naitove

Guest Post by Matt Naitove

New York State law, apparently, forbids trying to influence an election “by unlawful means.”  Trying to influence an election, by itself, can’t be illegal, since that’s what all politicians and their hirelings do every day. So, it’s all about the “unlawful means.”  A Non Disclosure Agreement -- an NDA -- hush money” in the vernacular --  is not unlawful means. Not publicly owning up to embarrassing but non-criminal behavior is not unlawful means. So what is? Covering up embarrassing information by an opaque bookkeeping entry? That would be a tautology. An improper campaign contribution? Numerous legal experts have stated that the Federal Election Commission (FEC )would NOT accept an NDA as a legal campaign expense. Such experts have also said that a candidate (such as Trump) can contribute unlimited amounts to his/her own campaign – but again, this is not considered a campaign contribution by the FEC, any more than buying a new suit or a haircut to make the candidate more attractive to his audience. 

So there are three nested “Russian dolls” in this case. On the outside, the 34 expired misdemeanors (if even that.) Inside that outer shell is the NY State law against influencing an election by unlawful means. The innermost doll is the unlawful means, which has never been opened to see what’s inside. That’s the unconstitutional flaw in this case.

                                                            --   --   --

My own takeaway is political, rather than legal. It is a warning of a potential trap door if Democrats get too comfortable calling Trump a convicted felon and there is an appellate reversal.

But appellate courts may not be stuck in the circle Naitove describes. I urge readers to take the time to read Judge Juan Merchan's jury instructions. He says there are three ways to elevate the misdemeanors into felonies. 

    By covering up an illegal corporate campaign contribution. 

    By creating new false business records. 

    By violating tax laws with improper deductions. 

Here is Judge Merchan: 

For the crime of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, the intent to defraud must include an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof. Under our law, although the People must prove an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof, they need not prove that the other crime was in fact committed, aided, or concealed.

The People allege that the other crime the defendant intended to commit, aid, or conceal is a violation of New York Election Law section 17-152. Section 17-152 of the New York Election Law provides that any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of conspiracy to promote or prevent an election. Under our law, a person is guilty of such a conspiracy when, with intent that conduct be performed that would promote or prevent the election of a person to public office by unlawful means, he or she agrees with one or more persons to engage in or cause the performance of such conduct.

Although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were. In determining whether the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you may consider the following: (1) violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act otherwise known as FECA; (2) the falsification of other business records; or (3) violation of tax laws.

The first of the People’s theories of “unlawful means” which I will now define for you is the Federal Election Campaign Act. Under the Federal Election Campaign Act, it is unlawful for an individual to willfully make a contribution to any candidate with respect to any election for federal office, including the office of President of the United States, which exceeds a certain limit. In 2015 and 2016, that limit was $2,700. It is also unlawful under the Federal Election Campaign Act for any corporation to willfully make a contribution of any amount to a candidate or candidate’s campaign in connection with any federal election, or for any person to cause such a corporate contribution. For purposes of these prohibitions, an expenditure made in cooperation, consultation, or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate or his agents shall be considered to be a contribution to such candidate.

The terms CONTRIBUTION and EXPENDITURE include anything of value, including any purchase, payment, loan, or advance, made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office. Under federal law, a third party’s payment of a candidate’s expenses is deemed to be a contribution to the candidate unless the payment would have been made irrespective of the candidacy. If the payment would have been made even in the absence of the candidacy, the payment should not be treated as a contribution. FECA’s definitions of “contribution” and “expenditure” do not include any cost incurred in covering or carrying a news story, commentary, or editorial by a magazine, periodical publication, or similar press entity, so long as such activity is a normal, legitimate press function. This is called the press exemption. For example, the term legitimate press function includes solicitation letters seeking new subscribers to a publication.

The second of the People’s theories of “unlawful means” which I will define for you now is the falsification of other business records. Under New York law, a person is guilty of Falsifying Business Records in the Second Degree when with intent to defraud, he or she makes or causes a false entry in the business records of an enterprise.

For purposes of determining whether Falsifying Business Records in the Second Degree was an unlawful means used by a conspiracy to promote or prevent an election here, you may consider: (i) the bank records associated with Michael Cohen’s account formation paperwork for Resolution Consultants LLC and Essential Consultants LLC accounts; (ii) the bank records associated with Michael Cohen’s wire to Keith Davidson; (iii) the invoice from Investor Advisory Services Inc. to Resolution Consultants LLC; and (iv) the 1099-MISC forms that the Trump Organization issued to Michael Cohen.

The People’s third theory of “unlawful means” which I will define for you now is a Violation of Tax Laws. Under New York State and New York City law, it is unlawful to knowingly supply or submit materially false or fraudulent information in connection with any tax return. Likewise, under federal law, it is unlawful for a person to willfully make any tax return, statement, or other document that is fraudulent or false as to any material matter, or that the person does not believe to be true and correct as to every material matter. Under these federal, state, and local laws, such conduct is unlawful even if it does not result in underpayment of taxes.

 

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to:  https://petersage.substack.com Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

--

A Republican point of view on the Trump verdict

Republican friend:

       The important thing isn't whether Trump is innocent or guilty of crimes.

       What's important is that the prosecution, trial, and verdict are politically motivated and biased.

I received a letter from a Medford-area Republican of about my age. He is a well-respected CPA.

Good afternoon Pete,

To be up front, I have no idea whether President Trump is innocent or guilty. I suspect that his conviction will be overturned on appeal. But that would not necessarily mean he is innocent. It would just mean that there were so many errors by the DA and the Judge, that it was impossible for President Trump to have received a fair trial.

I question the independence of the Jurors, the Judge and the District Attorney. I am certain that you will remember the multitude of trials in Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia etc., whereby juries of supposed peers consistently found white people innocent of horrendous crimes against people of color and consistently found that people of color were guilty of crimes that they didn’t commit. If I understand what you are saying, the legal system found President Trump guilty and therefore he is. It would seem that you would also argue that these trials of the 50s and 60s declared innocence or guilt and therefore the legal system worked. I just can’t buy that.

The Judges in the Southern trials and in the Trump trial probably were not unbiased. The District Attorneys probably were not unbiased. The jurors probably were not unbiased. But, the legal system, as you so eloquently stated, declared their innocence or their guilt.

I hope that I would have the same feelings and beliefs if I were a Democrat.

I wrote him saying there was lots of documentary evidence in this case. The signed checks. The handwritten note by Trump's financial advisor, Allen Weisselberg, that laid out the plan to "gross up" the reimbursement for the hush money expenses.  And Trump wasn't an impoverished defendant without counsel. He had the best defense money could buy. The jurors weighed evidence, not political opinions, I said.

He responded:

But none of that changes the facts. The DA was not prosecuting Trump for his potential crimes but for political reasons only. He could have started the case three years ago. It sure appears that he was not independent in appearance as well as fact.

The Judge was not unbiased and should have recused himself. There are other Judges. But he would not allow this, probably for personal reasons. He does not appear to be independent in appearance as well as fact.

The make-up of the jurors were not unbiased and therefore could not come to a conclusion based upon the DA's case. They do not appear to be a jury of Trump's peers. 86% of Manhattan, I think, voted for Biden.  

Would [Oregon's Democratic] Governor Kotek receive a fair trial if she were judged by only the people of [Republican-leaning] Central Point or Eagle Point? I really don’t think so.

Our discussion went on longer, without resolution, of course. We were talking past each other. I kept asserting that courts and the justice system got their legitimacy from processes that sought to know the truth independent of politics. My friend said the justice system was just another venue of political opinion.

I have higher trust in the legal system as a place where justice is determined than does my friend. I may be naive. 

The media now routinely describe judges at every level by the president or governor who appointed them, as if that predicts and explains their rulings on the law. Democrats complain about the "stolen" Supreme Court seat, as if a judge appointed by President Obama would rule very differently on matters of political controversy from one appointed by Trump -- and indeed the justice would. 

Trump is the loudest and clearest spokesperson for the idea that courts are corrupt and politically biased. Behind the scenes the Federalist Society has developed a farm-team system of recommendations, clerkships, and appointments to the federal bench that has been effective in credentialing future judges. Democrats don't disagree with the strategy; they complain that Republicans have done a better job of it.

I am disappointed that my friend thinks that the legal system is  biased and corrupt, but I can see why my friend would think so. Democrats complain of the billionaire largesse given to Justices Alito and Thomas and say they are prejudiced. Biden pre-announced the gender and race of his appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson. Meanwhile senior Republican officeholders -- attorneys themselves -- who might offer some passing words of respect for the legal system after this jury verdict in New York, are instead doing the opposite and echoing Trump. When Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, and the spokespeople for the Republican National Committee say that juries cannot be trusted, why should my friend feel any differently?

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Guest Post: A Fair Trial

I am inundated by texts, emails, and requests for money for Trump.

No one claims Trump is innocent (except Trump himself.)

The complaints aren't about a lack of evidence that Trump was dead-to-rights guilty. It is that he was being held to account by the people with the responsibility for investigating and prosecuting criminal acts.

They complain Trump should not have been investigated. Or prosecuted by a Democrat. Or indicted by a grand jury. Or tried at all, since he is a candidate for office. Or tried about something scandalous like a hush money payments to a porn star. Or tried about something trivial like business or election fraud. Or tried in New York City. Or tried under New York laws. Or tried supervised by that judge. Or tried by a jury of New Yorkers. Or tried with witnesses like his former attorney. Or tried when he was barred from publicly criticizing the jury. Or tried when he wanted to testify for himself but was advised not to. 

The solicitations for money pour into my in-box, along with letters and comments from Republican friends: "Don't you see, Peter? "That this wasn't a fair trial!" 

Trump is doing what Trump does. When the outcome is disappointing, he claims the system was rigged against him. We saw this after the Iowa primary loss to Ted Cruz in 2016; the defamation trials by E. Jean Carroll; the conversion of foundation money to personal use case; the business and tax fraud cases in New York; the 2020 election, the 2022 midterm election, and now this trial. Trump has convinced fellow Republicans that, once again, he was robbed.

Robert Litt has a comment on that. Litt is a college classmate, who attended Yale Law School, worked as a federal prosecutor and for the Department of Justice as the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, and served as General Counsel in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The photograph of young Robert Litt is from the Harvard Freshman Register, a glossy book of names and photographs. It is the original "Facebook." 

Robert Litt, 1967

Robert Litt, current

Guest Post by Robert Litt

Accusations of “due process violations” and “corruption” and “bias” in the Trump hush money trial don’t really mean much without specifics. I’ve not seen anything that comes close to justifying those claims. Anyone who has tried criminal cases, and is willing to be honest, will tell you that Judge Juan Merchan called it down the middle in this case, a particular challenge given the aggressive nature of the defense.

 

To give just one example, a lot of judges I have appeared before would have held Robert Costello. one of Trump's witnesses, in contempt on the spot. And the fact that the judge's daughter is a partisan Democrat is no basis for recusal of the judge himself (the principle invoked by defenders of Justice Alito). Indeed, the judge asked the appellate court for a ruling, and that court agreed that he did not need to recuse himself.

 

Dealing with a couple of the specific claims that have been made:

 

-       The judge did not bar a former FEC official from testifying, as Trump has claimed. The judge ruled only that he couldn’t testify as to what the law was. That ruling is completely unexceptionable; in any criminal case the jury is instructed in the law by the judge, not by witnesses. Nothing unusual about that ruling. 

-       The question of jury unanimity is not straightforward. There are some types of things that a jury doesn’t have to agree upon unanimously. For example, under federal law, conviction of conspiracy requires that an overt act has been committed in furtherance of the conspiracy, and the overt acts need to be set out in the indictment. But the jury doesn’t have to agree on which overt act was committed, only that one was committed. More to the point here, my understanding is that the general rule is that a jury must agree unanimously on the “elements” of the offense but not on the “means.” Thus, for example, if someone is charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and there is some conflict as to whether the weapon was a baseball bat or a billy club, the jury need agree unanimously only that it was a deadly weapon, not what the weapon was.  

The judge’s instructions in this case said that the “element” was the intent to influence an election by unlawful means - but the specific unlawful means were, well, means, as to which unanimity was not required. Personally, if I had been the prosecutor, I might have agreed to an instruction that the jury had to agree on the particular illegal means, to avoid an appellate issue, and because I seriously doubt that would have made any difference in the verdict. But whether the judge committed error by not giving that instruction will be for the New York courts to sort out. 

 

-       Unlike the rest of us, the jurors heard and saw Cohen over several days and were able to judge whether they thought he was lying or not. Apparently they concluded he was telling the truth. Some of us may disagree, but we weren’t there. I suspect that the defense tactics - undoubtedly demanded by the defendant - of contesting facts that were neither important to the actual defense nor subject to effective rebuttal (e.g., that he had an affair with Stormy Daniels) undercut the jury’s view of the credibility of the entire defense.  

 

-       The one area where I think the judge may have given the prosecutors too much leeway was in allowing Daniels to go into detail about the nature of the affair, although he did limit her testimony significantly. That’s a legitimate appellate issue that, again, the appellate courts will sort out, including whether any error was harmless given the overall strength of the case. (And the decision of the state courts to reverse Harvey Weinstein’s conviction shows that those courts are capable of treating even loathsome defendants fairly.)

 

-       There is zero evidence that this case was brought to “settle political scores.” Let’s be realistic. Whatever the legal issues may be, as a factual matter the jury found, after hearing evidence from both sides, that Trump caused false entries to be made in corporate books to cover up an affair he had with a porn star. Another judge has found, again after a full evidentiary presentation, that Trump’s organization systematically (and hugely) overvalued assets in order to get bank loans. In other words, he’s a cheat and a fraudster. Is it really right that he should escape accountability for his actions because he is a prominent politician? That would be a real double standard.

 

The fact is that over the years,Trump has almost invariably lost in court proceedings of all sorts. Either everyone is corrupt, or he is - Occam’s razor seems relevant here. The real weaponization of the law is from Trump supporters who want to purge civil servants and replace them with political loyalists and who overtly advocate for compiling lists of Democrats who will be locked up if he is elected - never mind what their crime is; we’ll figure that out later (another example of the “rubber/glue” syndrome that infects MAGA world). 

To my mind, the constant drumbeat of false accusations about corruption and politicization are far more corrosive to the rule of law than is this case. And many of those making such accusations are lawyers who know that their charges are baseless. Shame on them. They are tearing down Americans' confidence in our institutions for their own political benefit. 

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to:  https://petersage.substack.com  Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Easy Sunday: Political ads decoded

A preview of coming attractions in political advertising.

Political ads create a mood. 

Click for a 90-second reminder of how it is done:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmmFQeaY3YM

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to:  https://petersage.substack.com Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

The legal system versus the political system

The legal system seeks to determine the truth.

The political system legitimizes power.

They are two different realms.

I watch Fox News while I make morning coffee. I watched the news anchor dismiss the New York jury decision with a wave of her hand. She said that the real jury would speak via the ballot box in November. 

That is the Trump position. 

I understand that the realms of law and politics overlap, but they operate in two separate ways. The political system works on popularity. The legal system looks at evidence and facts. I mostly look at politics. The matters that can be considered in political decisions are every bit of profiling and body language and first-impression gut feelings that shape how we navigate the world. Most voters don't make decisions based on a checklist of policy positions, even if they think they do. As I write here repeatedly, politics isn’t about denoted messages or facts. Political allegiance is as personal as romantic love or whether one prefers chocolate or strawberry ice cream. It is about gut.

Meanwhile, the legal realm concerns itself with denoted law and curated facts. What is the statute? What is the evidence? Was a crime committed? Alvin Bragg’s secret motivations are irrelevant. Whether Trump is a nice guy is irrelevant. Whether he wanted to overthrow the 2020 election is irrelevant. What is relevant are the facts of this case. The jury heard evidence subjected to close evaluation and cross-examination by Trump's defense team. 

Was Trump guilty of crimes? The jury said yes.

That's the difference between the two realms. One is fed by prejudices and rumors and the free-for-all of information from all directions. The other is about evidence everyone can examine in the bright light of rationality while focused on a narrow question.

Trump, right-wing media, and GOP officeholders are saying that the legal system is not only flawed, but that it is irrelevant. “The real jury is the election.” That a dangerous idea. It ends a justice system and replaces it with mob rule. They are asking us to vote on what the truth is.

I am pretty much resigned to the fact that Trump will win in 2024. Biden doesn’t look like a strong leader who can change things. People are restless for change. Trump looks like a crazy sociopath, but strong. Biden looks elderly. His blocking the Democratic Party nominating process was a massively selfish and suicidal decision for Democrats, but it is done. Politics gives power to what people want. People want change, and Biden isn't it.

But Trump's popularity over Biden's has nothing to do with whether Trump is guilty. The jury found that Trump falsified business records, and did so in furtherance of other crimes. Those other crimes were either corruptly mischaracterizing documents that will be filed for taxes or for corruptly attempting to influence an election or for making an illegal campaign contribution, or maybe a little of all of these. 

Trump can be both guilty of felonies and popular enough to be elected president. Trump should be punished like any other first-offense felon who was in flagrant contempt in court, but whose case is on appeal. He can also stand for election like any other candidate who has been convicted of felonies.

The November election isn’t where we decide if Trump is guilty of corrupt felonious acts. The legal system did that. 

November is where we decide if we want him to be president.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to:  https://petersage.substack.comSubscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]