The news broke yesterday: Former President Donald Trump has been charged over his -- in my opinion, not to mention the grand jury's -- criminal actions in connection with his attempts to overturn the 2020 Presidential election, including the 6 Jan 2021 insurrection.
If you're a committed fan of Mr. Trump, this is a bell without a clapper. You're going to ignore the details of the indictment and keep on sharing memes inappropriately comparing the ex-President to Moses, Jesus and heroic archetypes, depicting the elderly, overweight, small-handed and balding man as well-muscled and stalwart. Never mind that the one time he was given a chance to stand up for his country, he mysteriously developed bone spurs and dodged mandatory military service, bone spurs which have never troubled him since.
For everyone else, CNN has published an "annotated" version of the indictment, which reproduces all 45 pages of the charges against Mr. Trump with CNN's opinion of what they mean next to it (handily in a different font), so you can see if they're barking up the right tree. Read the indictment, no matter what you think of the news network's notions.
Is this prosecution politically motivated? You're darned right it is -- like the Civil War was politically motivated. As the indictment sets out in detail, Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators worked to undermine and destroy the Constitutional and legislative mechanisms by which the United States selects Presidents. His is the kind of politics that shatters governments and wrecks countries, and he must be held to account for it.
Will this change the course of the 2024 Presidential race? I doubt it. Donald Trump has a lock on the Republican nomination at this point and he would even if he was indisputably found guilty and locked away in the the deepest, dankest cell of the Federal ADMAX prison in Florence, CO. But I hope it will show that the price of playing games with the normal process of electing Presidents, of staging an autogolpe, is too high for another try.
Of course, one possibility is that the various trials proceed, Mr. Trump is found guilty in one or more, finishes his campaign from prison, wins, manages to be sworn in behind bars and attempts to pardon himself. That would probably end up before the Supreme Court and I'm not seeing any decision possible that doesn't lead to trouble. More likely is that Mr. Trump will prolong his various court cases and appeal any losses, hoping to stay out of jail, win the Presidency and self-pardon; if he does, this leads back to the Supreme Court as before. So those are ugly outcomes, long before any worries over his campaign promises of vengeance.
Interesting times. How I long for boredom. But can boredom win elections?
Unless something happens to prevent it, I'm pretty sure the 2024 election is going to be a screaming mess with no good outcome.
ReplyDeleteLIke the old saw about the fresh meat joining the unit during a lull in the fighting. After a few days of nothing, he approaches the sergeant and complains about being bored. Sergeant looks at him with an armor piercing stare, says. "Kid, boring is GOOD!".
ReplyDeleteAlas, it came time to turn over rocks and bring our cultural and political crap into the daylight. It had to be done. 'Course now we've got scorpions, poisonous snakes and wolverines everywhere. Joy. That we could just fast-forward and get to Reconstruction (which will be more snakes).
The three purported ancient Chinese curses:
"May you live in interesting times
May you come to the attention of those in authority
May you find what you are looking for."
The old fable of the turtle & the scorpion comes to mind here. We Republicans knew what we were getting- a better class of grifter who played fast & loose with the rules. Now it's biting him and us in the rear- what should we have expected?
ReplyDeleteNot having been a Republican then or now, I knew what they were getting, too, or so I thought. I didn't vote for him or Sec. Clinton. I was surprised when he won in 2016. I expected the senior members of the party would keep him in line. I was wrong.
ReplyDeleteHappily, his egotistical denial of the members of his party protected us from his desire to move into the sort of authoritarian system we see in Russia, Hungary, or Turkey.
ReplyDeleteHe went more for the quick ego hit of working his cult & preaching to his choir over actually building a coalition of government people willing to give him more power.
Even Jan 6 was a flop, a political fizzle, an exercise in incompetence that would have been comedic if people hadn't died.
Joe in PNG,
ReplyDeleteThey’ve got plans for that next time ‘round.