Today is just the beginning
When it comes down to it there really is only one thing Donald Trump is good at, and that’s generating drama. This is a guy who makes a mess of things and then tries to cover for it by making a bigger mess of things. That principle has defined his finances, his time in politics, and – up to now – his approach to the legal system. The trouble for Trump is that the legal drama he’s spent so many years doubling down on has now grown to the point where it’s finally swallowing him.
Trump committed crimes before running for President. He committed crimes that helped him become President. He committed crimes while President. He committed crimes in the name of trying to remain President. He committed crimes on his way out of the door from being President. And he’s committed crimes since he ceased being President.
But without the presidency to shield him, Trump was always going to end up criminally charged. Given that his vast crime spree took place on so many levels in so many locales, he was always going to end up criminally charged in multiple jurisdictions. Today he’s being arrested in Manhattan on thirty-four felony counts related to financial fraud. Wait until Fulton County indicts him on more serious charges along the lines of election fraud and racketeering. And wait until DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith indicts him on even more serious charges along the lines of incitement and the Espionage Act.
That’s all coming. And soon. Prosecutors have taken about as long as they know they can take in order to build these cases as thoroughly as possible. Now they know they have to indict within a certain timeframe in order to ensure that the trial – even with the delays that Trump will try to pull off – will still safely take place before the 2024 election cycle can truly get underway. And so everyone who’s indicting Trump will do so within that timeframe. Which is coming up pretty quickly now.
Trump seems to know it as well. Within the span of an hour on Monday night, he made separate social media posts calling for Alvin Bragg and Jack Smith to be indicted. That’s right, he’s still approaching his criminal scandals with the same silly simplistic projection as ever. By the way, that was never an effective tactic. It’s just that back when Trump was ineffectively yelling stupid things about his criminal scandals while he was still in office, he had the office itself shielding him from indictment. Now that he doesn’t have that protection, he’s going to be indicted all over the place. And it’s already obvious that his stupid reality show tactics aren’t going to help him at all.
Today is a monumentally important day. The biggest criminal in American history is now finally, at age seventy-six, being indicted and arrested for the first time. This goes in the history books. It’s the beginning of the righting of one of the biggest wrongs of all time. It’s also a cathartic process for the many millions of Americans who had four years of their lives destroyed by this psychopath’s criminal reign.
But, as I’ve spent the past two years stressing, Donald Trump is all about the past. This is about righting a past wrong so that it can’t happen again, and so that the next person as deranged as Donald Trump will have to think twice about taking the risk of trying to hijack the country and overthrow the government. But Trump is the past. Even as he faces arrest and arraignment today, a new generation of right wing monsters is trying to burn down all that we hold dear. Tennessee Republicans are trying to expel Democrats for being Democrats. Florida Republicans are arresting Democratic Party leaders for peacefully protesting. Right wingers are banning books in red states. And later today we’ll find out if the swing seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court goes to a reasonable candidate or a right wing lunatic.
You see, the battle never ends. Right wingers have been trying to overthrow, burn down, and pervert the United States for as long as it’s been the United States. The Civil War. McCarthyism. Watergate. January 6th. It never does stop. Donald Trump is just one man. One hellish monster of a man, but just one man. His impending downfall is a major, overdue, hard fought, well deserved victory for America. But we’re really just moving on to the next round of the never-ending battle between sane Americans and right wing extremists. Those of us who care about things like democracy, freedom, equality, and the rule of law will always have to make an effort to overcome those who will simply never understand what these things mean.
