u/candobees

The article is about the jury being exposed to improper information, but this bit in particular stood out to me, especially in light of Seidemann sitting in on Marc Agnifilo’s jury selection for the Weinstein case:

>ProPublica discovered that at least four of the members of the first jury are now Facebook friends with Joel Seidemann, a Manhattan assistant district attorney who helped lead the prosecution.

Mods, I think we need a tag for Seidemann 🤔

This might be an unpopular post.

LM has been condemned by a lot of popular figures on the right. Charlie Kirk, Ted Cruz, Ben Shapiro, even Trump himself.

I watched the reactions on social media (particularly Reddit) very carefully on the day he was arrested, especially from the conservatives. While there was the odd hyperbolic troll, I was shocked by how many of them seemed grudgingly permissive and even fully supportive. This was a genuine, instinctive reaction in absence of tentpole right-wing figures telling them how to feel. A lot of those posts were removed immediately.

Then MAGA politicians and even influencers started commenting on LM and the tide turned completely. Sentiment went from “I don’t entirely hate this” to the Lui*i Leftism stuff almost overnight.

I have relatives who voted for Trump who went from saying they’d never convict LM on a jury to parroting the due process stuff as soon as Trump condemned LM.

I have gone through all of LM’s old social media, as I presume most people here have too. He wasn’t a leftist or even a centrist. His opinions fell all across the political spectrum. I’m not going to draw attention to specifics since it seems to anger people, but there were enough right-wing talking points on there to position him as a figure the right could sympathise with.

LM was always going to have support from the liberal crowd. And they would not stop supporting him if the conservatives did. In fact, most of the progressive crowd I know was overjoyed he had supports from both sides.

I’m sure anyone who identifies as a Democrat has strong feelings about playing to the other side, especially in light of everything’s that happened in the last few years.

But his team’s job is to get him the best possible outcome, and I think a key part of that was winning over Republican support or at the very least dissociating him from being an exclusively leftist hero.

Almost everyone was pissed about the Patrick David-Bet letter, and I feel like that would’ve gone over better in early 2025 because now there have been expectations built up about LM’s supposed socialism. It might make people angry, but any progressive who ends up on his jury is not going to flip because he wrote to a MAGA influencer (as opposed to right wingers who absolutely will throw anyone associated with the left under the bus)

Why has his team made this single feeble effort to get the right-wing to sympathise with LM so late in the game? While he is being tried in NY, the deck is really stacked against him and I am not expecting voir dire to go his way.

They could have even made it a healthcare thing and focused on victims the right would sympathise with - disabled veterans, people with big families.

I feel like even a few popular right-wing figures supporting him would’ve made a big difference. And unlike the left (I can only think of Elizabeth Warren talking about it in a roundabout healthcare-focused way) they will not hesitate to support someone on trial for murder. Kind of flinching at LM being clubbed with someone like Daniel Penny, but it might have given him a better shot during trial.

In his team’s shoes, how would you have gone about his PR campaign?