Checkmate.
Those of you familiar with chess will know what a forced mate is. For those of you who don’t know, it involves a series of chess moves where one opponent forces the other opponent to respond with answering moves that are forced, ending in checkmate. Sometimes forced mates are “announced” as in “mate in five moves.” I’ve even seen chess puzzles on the order of “mate in 17.”
It’s from the forced mate and other chess problems that chess grandmasters get the undeserved reputation for seeing five or six moves ahead. While that is sometimes true it isn’t always true, because not all replies to moves are forced replies, and many legitimate and winning responses are open to the chess player during ordinary play. Just like in life.
But sometimes life presents us with forced mates. Situations arise where possible responses are limited or even dictated by powers beyond our control. Medical problems, interpersonal problems and legal problems sometimes come our way without a solution. As the saying goes, the only way out is through, no matter how unpleasant the road may be, we must take it.
For decades Donald Trump has played amateur chess of the most inept kind. He has gotten away with crimes that the rest of us, who don’t enjoy his undeserved reputation for business acumen and unearned wealth, would have been jailed for. This seeming immunity to consequences has imbued him with a hubris that he has no legitimate claim to. Prosecutorial lethargy is not the same as cunning. Trump hasn’t gone to prison for his various crimes of the past for the simple reason that no one has bothered to prosecute him.
Until now. Now he is faced with multiple simultaneous prosecutions. Alvin Bragg has already indicted him in New York State with 34 criminal counts. Jack Smith has hit him with 37 federal criminal counts in Florida bringing the total to 71. Fani Willis is preparing indictments in Georgia that could bring the total to more than 100.
In other words, by the time the presidential campaign season arrives in earnest, Trump will be damned near 78 years old and facing as many as 100 felony criminal counts in at least three separate venues. One venue, Florida, will prosecute him for federal crimes. The other two, Georgia and New York, will prosecute him for state level crimes.
Criminal trials are different from civil trials in that a defendant MUST be present 100% of the time for the proceedings. And fantasies where Judge Aileen Cannon makes a career-ending agreement with the defence to postpone Trump’s federal trial until after the presidential campaign season will only force him to have to attend one of the two other state trials. A forced mate.
And convictions in state trials cannot be pardoned. So the fantasy now being mooted in the popular press, that Trump’s Hail Mary play is to get elected president, be removed by the 25th Amendment and have his Vice President pardon him is just that — a fantasy. No Vice President can pardon anyone for state level convictions. That’s another forced mate.
But it gets worse. Campaign season is a time for spinning a candidate’s virtues and blasting their opponent’s defects through advertisements, usually on TV. But no televised political advertisements for Trump will be able to compete with the real life news coming out of the courtroom. It will be particularly damning if Trump’s trial is televised, which it could be in Georgia. Again, another forced mate.
It’s looking more and more like Donald Trump is facing a situation through which there is no legitimate road to victory. All the advantages he enjoyed in 2016 are gone. The energy is gone, he looks dreadful, his prospects for prison will be a constant campaign liability. He has a disgraceful presidential record. Only his most fanatical worshippers will vote for him, and they are dwindling by the day. His prospects for garnering the nomination are dwindling. His prospects for winning look too remote to seriously consider. Again, another forced mate.
Meanwhile more and more Republicans are saying out loud what they’ve been thinking all along, that Americans were duped by Donald Trump, that it’s time to admit it. From Chris Christie to Ron DeSantis to Bill Barr to Mike Pence, more and more Republicans are bashing Trump in public and more and more of the public are letting them get away with it. Another forced mate.
As if all that isn’t enough, then of course there’s the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Jack Smith is now apparently preparing yet more charges against Trump that could end in a seditious conspiracy conviction. Under such a conviction the 14th Amendment to the Constitution would prevent Trump from ever holding public office again. Once more, another forced mate.
The coming year will write Donald Trump’s political epitaph. It will be written in the blood of his victims during the January 6th insurrection. It will be written by exposing his betrayal of the American people and making a mockery of his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” by his flagrant mishandling of state secrets and his unconcealed and shameless obstruction of justice. It will be written in his overt betrayal of the sacred right of every American to vote and have his or her vote count. It will be written in his outrageous violation of the sacred rite of the peaceful transition of power.
Donald Trump is facing his final checkmate. It’s a forced mate from which there appears to be no escape. While there are many roads to that forced mate, the end is always the same. It now appears to be inevitable. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.