Trump’s arrest may cause violence
It doesn't matter
Donald Trump will be arrested. Should he not, then American democracy will quickly erode as the rule of law is confirmed as a cynical joke with Donald John Trump above it.
Seven long years of idiocy, malice, deceit, corruption and staggeringly erratic conduct have all accumulated to this moment. This is the price of the cowardice and self- interest that blossomed from the 2015 presidential debate stage. Each helpless politician cowered from Trump’s mean tweets, as each prayed for another to have the courage they didn’t have. They wanted someone else to strike the fatal blow that they could take advantage of in the topsy turvy of the primary season.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was so affronted and troubled by his commander-in-chief that he drafted a letter of resignation inferring comparison between Trump and Hitler. Does anyone doubt that Trump would have political opponents killed if he could? Let’s stop the kabuki on this point.
The threats to kill are now omnipresent in American life. Who exactly is it that is talking about the US government as the “regime” and threatening to topple it? Who among us were the liars who fuelled enough madness during a pandemic that hundreds of thousands of people died unnecessarily because of the lying and malfeasance from the president of the United States, his administration and elected accomplices? Who has denied the reality of the results of a presidential election and fuelled a conspiracy that continues to strangle democracy by choking faith and belief out of it with lie after lie after lie? Who has aligned a political party with white supremacists, fascists, foreign leaders like Orban and militia thugs? What party is an appendage of a vast and interconnected propaganda machine that has monetized lying and division?
Donald Trump has raped women and gotten away with it. He declared bankruptcy over and over again, and got away with it. He got away with cheating every conceivable stripe of contractor. He bluffed, bullied and threatened his way through life all the way to the Oval Office and back to his gaudy palace of delusion.
It is there that Trump was undone. It is there that he will learn a very hard lesson at long last. There is no other way to put this: in America, a man like Trump can rape, cheat and steal. He is probably right about being able to shoot a person in broad daylight. The one thing he couldn’t do is the thing for which he is going to get arrested. He couldn’t steal nuclear secrets and other classified information to wheel and deal with it.
He’s done, or America is done. It’s black and white.
Should this orange-tinted liar and buffoon have the power to intimidate the Justice Department and the courts the way that the Ku Klux Klan and every stripe of terrorist, criminal, bandit, thug and dictator never have, then the corruption and weakness of the government will topple it. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” will end, and be replaced, because it will have decayed to a level of hollowness and nothingness that it can be rolled by a petty thug like Trump.
Democracy requires strength and conviction to survive. The predator alternatives prey on weakness and lassitude. Should the rancid Trump family be able to intimidate the federal government from enforcing the law from either their New Jersey cemetery or their Florida crime scene, then it will prove Trump correct about the putrification of America.
Let’s also talk about the thing that must be talked about.
Will there be political violence if Donald Trump is arrested? According to Lindsey Graham, the answer is yes.
What will happen if Trump walks out of the courthouse, declares his candidacy and begins stoking violence around the country? What if a militia group attacks a governor’s mansion or a state legislature? The direct answer to the question is that many people will die, so the rule of law can be preserved.
But, it is more than that.
The country will soon find itself in a test of wills with a belligerent faction that demands that they are to be treated separately and unequally. They have declared special privileges and rights, including a demand to lawful power without the blessing of the people. They have demanded special entitlements, and have made intimations towards violence if they are not delivered. This minority faction has put itself eyeball to eyeball with Lady Justice and the American way of life, thus, hangs in the balance.
Overstated? Absolutely not.
Seven years have passed since the first reporters chuckled and laughed about Trump saying he would not accept the results of a legitimate election. Where did anyone think this was all going to go? The consequences of giving Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump security clearances were obvious then. What did anyone think would happen? This has all gone exactly where a few of us have said it would go for seven years, and here we are.
This moment had more off-ramps than the New Jersey Turnpike, but none were ever taken. Men like Jim Mattis and John Kelley made sure that the American people had no idea what was happening. Everyone who worked for Trump shared that in common.
The word started percolating when the book sale season started ringing. The media was in business with Trump as well. Transactionalists like Maggie Haberman of The New York Times suppressed information that was in the public interest and saved it for book deals and movies. The whole rotten revolving door system of grift that was born from the Trump moment remains alive and well. I call it the “Trump Industrial Complex.” It is very powerful, but it is not more powerful than the people of the United States of America and their security.
Trump is either above the law, or not. The answer is already clear and known. He is not. He will be arrested. He will be handcuffed like every other person taken into federal custody because the rules apply to Donald Trump too.
The American people allowed this travesty to start with a vote. The American people will end it when a prosecutor stands, and at long last says, “For the people.”
We don't negotiate with terrorists. End stop.
Traitorous bastards like Graham have lived off the largesse of taxpayers like me, only to wipe their feet on the rule of law. Well, enforcing the rule of law IS how I want my tax dollars spent. There is no alternative.
Fervently hoping that Merrick Garland will be the savior of Democracy. Perhaps it was meant to be that he was denied the Supreme Court only to become the most decisive AG in our history. He is a man of everything that DT is not. For this I pray.