One of the most bizarre court-reported court cases in American history is a little-known decision out of the Western District of Pennsylvania. It’s called Mayo v. Satan and his staff. The case dismisses a civil-rights action brought by a man named Gerald Mayo, who alleged “that Satan has on numerous occasions caused plaintiff misery and unwarranted threats, against the will of plaintiff, that Satan has placed deliberate obstacles in his path and has caused plaintiff’s downfall.”
Unfortunately for Mayo, the court dismissed the case. It recognized the contrary authority of The Devil and Daniel Webster, but nonetheless held that “even if plaintiff’s complaint reveals a prima facie recital of the infringement of the civil rights of a citizen of the United States, the Court has serious doubts that the complaint reveals a cause of action upon which relief can be granted by the court. We question whether plaintiff may obtain personal jurisdiction over the defendant in this judicial district.” And thus, alas, a petty jurisdictional ruling meant that Mayo was solely accountable for his many sins.
I’ve thought of this court case as I’ve read defenses of the continued, unconditional, and even fawning support from Trump’s base, even as he’s engaged in conduct that these same people would condemn in any other human being — much less any other politician. Most Trump supporters, in their everyday lives, would be appalled if an angry person yelled “go back to where you came from” to a black American colleague, even to a black immigrant colleague. I know this to be true. Virtually every person I know here in Tennessee supports Trump, and they are good and decent people in their daily lives. Many of the same small business owners who wear MAGA hats would immediately fire an employee who used such language at work.
Orin Kerr — referring here to Trump’s tweets today that mocked the fact that someone robbed Elijah Cummings’s home and then later celebrated Kim Jong Un’s “great and beautiful vision for his country” — is exactly correct:
The President’s message this morning is that he adores and fawns over murderous foreign dictators while gleefully celebrating that an American public official has been a crime victim.
Someday we will be astonished that any American could be fine with that.
— Orin Kerr (@OrinKerr) August 2, 2019
But when it comes to politics — especially politics and race — something changes in these otherwise good and decent folks. At The Atlantic, Elaina Plott reports on Trump supporters’ rage at being called racist and their defenses of Trump’s most controversial statements. I happen to agree that too many progressives have been indiscriminate — sometimes even malicious — in their claims of racism against Republicans and Republican politicians. But it’s one thing to condemn excessive use of the racism label. It’s another thing entirely to rationalize or excuse conduct you’d condemn in any other circumstance.
If you had a time machine to the days before Trump went down the escalator, many millions of his supporters would be indignant if you told them that, one day, they’d support a man like Trump. “Who do you think I am?” They’d say. “A Democrat?” After all, they’d seen their opponents rapturously cheer a president who perjured himself and faced compelling charges of the worst forms of sexual misconduct. But Democratic defenses of Bill Clinton are now a part of the case for Trump: “If the Left didn’t want us to be bad, then it shouldn’t have been so vile.”
This is Mr. Mayo’s case in political form. The Left made me do it. The Left made me like this. They made me angry, and their actions excuse my response. And if you see me lashing out, don’t you dare blame me.
Those devils made me do it.