A Fourth Indictment
This should not be routine
A fourth indictment and a new set of charges against a former president reverberate through a bifurcated nation.
It is remarkable that something unique in American history — a former president as a defendant in multiple state and federal criminal cases — takes on a sense of the routine. It is a sign of just how precarious our position is and proof of how much Trump has pushed beyond the boundaries of precedent.
To treat this latest news out of Georgia as anything approaching the mundane sacrifices the outrage and sadness that should permeate our national consciousness. There should be nothing commonplace about formal charges that a former president used the powers of his office to subvert democracy. That should be uncontested; sadly, it's not.
Tens of millions of Americans greet the indictment news with outrage, but not because of the seriousness of the charges or the larger story of a violent attempted coup. They rally around the man enmeshed in an unprecedented web of legal peril. They exalt him. He is their hero and their party’s likely standard-bearer for the next presidential election. They will grasp at the faintest tendril of a conspiracy theory to justify their idolatry.
To this mindset, no volume of facts or appeals to reason will break the fever. Trump, ever the adept showman, embraces the role of persecuted martyr. The idea that he is a powerless victim of government overreach would be laughable if it weren’t so poisonous and pathetic. Most of the charges he faces in this Georgia case and others center on his use of his immense power for personal gain at the expense of the nation.
What is so striking about these cases is that the crimes he is alleged to have committed occurred in plain sight. Donald Trump tried to steal an election to remain president. And he showed he would resort to almost any tactic to do so. Whether his criminal culpability can be proven in court beyond reasonable doubt is unanswerable at this moment. But whether he wanted to end American democracy as we know it is not in dispute.
What is also clear, as this case in Georgia demonstrates, is that Trump couldn’t have done this alone. The inclusion of 18 co-defendants elucidates his chorus of conspirators. This was not a whim. This was a plan. And, again, it was one we all could see unfold. This latest indictment includes an incredible set of details to paint a larger picture of coordination and conspiracy with Trump at the center of it all. Now the question is whether there will be accountability, for him and all who helped him.
The complexity of the case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis — including the high number of defendants — suggests that a trial will not take place before the election. That does not lessen its importance. What happened in Georgia — blatant election interference to the point of attempted sabotage — should be adjudicated thoroughly. And because it is a state case, it would not fall under Trump’s Department of Justice if he were to return to the presidency. But it is not likely to change the contours of our immediate political environment or the prospects of the 2024 presidential election. Instead, it figures to reinforce the beliefs of each side.
The federal case that Special Counsel Jack Smith has brought concerning the 2020 election is different. It was designed for speed. Trump’s lawyers may have to defend their client’s actions in front of a jury even as he runs for president. There could be a verdict before — perhaps long before — the nominating conventions.
But even then, how much will the realm of the law spill into shaping our politics? Ultimately, the greatest threat to Trump’s power and the most likely path to his eventual accountability is for the American people to act as the jury of his peers. They can deliver their verdict by voting against him at the ballot box.
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My sentiments are very similar to Hilary Clinton. I am greatly saddened that a president has been indicted for not one, but many crimes against the very core of democracy.
I am even more saddened to see how roughly half of the country have not only become complacent about this, but have bought into the GOP/Trump party line that this is all about partisan politics.
Even if Trump disappears, this is a cancer that will stay with us.
Democrats and Republicans must first be Americans, not people who demonize the opposition without even thinking.
This will not end well unless we change.
I've been thinking about the deep, dark cynicism that is killing us all. Trumpism is its pinnacle.
Science tells us that cynicism leads to dementia, and right now it feels like most of society is demented. And no wonder. We the People been pummeled and pummeled, over and over, for generations.
I watched a documentary last night about Vietnam war resisters "("The Boys Who Said No") and how their heroic stands against the draft and the war ended that horrible episode. (Did you know Nixon wanted to drown 200,000 people by bombing their dams, and when Kissenger said 'no,' he wanted to nuke Hanoi?)
The draft resisters (including my husband) overcame cynicism with their bodies. Like the freedom fighters....
But then I thought about all the stuff that has killed all our faith in institutions, backwards and forwards: the endless efforts by the oligarchs to kill FDR's New Deal; the assassinations of JFK, his brother, and King; the killing in the Vietnam war, the killing of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, based on fantasy and folly after 9/11; the killing of the economy in 2008; the killing of George Floyd and so many other innocents; the killing of Covid; the killing of decency (social media, Trump); the killing of reason, the banning of books, and the suffocation of education; and the killing of the rule of law with the corrupt Supreme Court....and more.... That's a lot of institution-killing.
No wonder we all want to crawl into our tribal holes.
I think too of the French Revolution, and how a cry for bread led to a Reign of Terror (as DeSantis calls for "slitting throats") and of course, the killing of the Earth.
No wonder we are a mess. But as "The Boys Who Said No" showed, it <is> possible to shift things, if only we will say no to our cynicism and reclaim rationality.
https://www.boyswhosaidno.com/