It seems the stress of the past few months has done nothing to dim the remarkable comic timing of former president and potential future jailbird Donald Trump as he posted on his Truth Social network this morning: “I hear that Deranged Jack Smith, in order to interfere with the Presidential Election of 2024, will be putting out yet another Fake Indictment of your favourite President, me, at 5pm.”
It’s the placement of “me” after “your favourite president” that does it; the slight pause and quiet clarification it implies, in case any of his followers on the small social platform — populated largely by QAnon followers who left Twitter when it was too left-leaning — thought Grover Cleveland was facing persecution by the state. This was followed by a shockingly predictable comparison to his situation and that of Nazi Germany.
Yep, after the aperitif of Stormy Daniels’ hush money, and the entrée of boxes and boxes of classified documents stored next to the toilet, the main course has arrived: Trump has been indicted on four charges as a result of special counsel Smith’s investigation for the Department of Justice into his attempts to overthrow the result of the 2020 election.
When we say “main course” we really mean it — these are by far the most serious charges he’s facing. The New York Times went so far as to say: “This third indictment in four months finally gets to the heart of the matter, the issue that will define the future of American democracy.”
If found guilty, he could collectively face more than 30 years’ jail. Incidentally, the indictment also makes reference to six unnamed co-conspirators, which… look, we might leave that one alone for now.
The historic moment has dominated the biggest news services around the world:
If there were an Olympics for the most common topics of media commentary around Trump’s political career, the podium spots would surely go to the pieces speculating that: A) a more dignified, restrained “presidential” Trump might finally have arrived; B) Trump might finally have crossed a line and taken his rhetoric or actions somewhere that most of his voters simply couldn’t follow; C) whether this or that scandal finally represented his Watergate moment.
Moments A and B never came, and those waiting for them missed the point: to the extent it had any coherent content whatsoever, Trump’s appeal was his offer to burn down the consensus his opponents in both parties had spent decades building — the disappearance of America’s industrial base, the wars of “regime change”, multiculturalism and “political correctness”.
The silver spoon real estate heir turned reality show villain — who got rich keeping the unions out of his building sites and kicking working-class (mostly Black) families out of their homes and stayed rich by playing warped versions of himself on any TV show or ad that ever asked him — reworked himself into a voice for the working man.
It was duplicitous, and his program was impossible to implement, and yet this — not to mention his obvious corruption, relentless vulgarity and chaotic administration — delivered him the second-highest vote in the history of the US (that his fairly uninspiring opponent received the highest is a measure of the depth of feeling Trump provokes in all directions).
But Trump’s Watergate might actually, finally be here — and it’s a fitting one. The man who promised to burn it all down and pull an America, both old and new, from the embers, may finally go down for directing his followers to invade and sabotage the very institutions and processes he rode to the highest office in the country. The possibility he could still celebrate victory in 2024 from a jail cell (though he might have a hard time voting) is just the cheese on the cold, congealing quarter-pounder.
You can’t vote if you have a criminal record in the US but you can run for President. Sort of says everything about their rich protecting racist constitution.
To be accurate, in the USofAholes conviction for federal crimes, such as serious felony and the length of sentence (usually 2yrs+) can void the right to vote in federal, ie presidential, elections.
Many states extend the abrogation of the vote in their elections to less serious offending, some permanently, some not but they cannot disenfranchise anyone for presidential elections – in theory.
Florida has the highest number of disenfranchised 1.6M/about 10% of the electorate which might explain DeSantos ‘winning’ recently.
The national total in 2020 was <6M/<2.5% – hardly seismic given that >30% of enrolled never vote for president.
Not a chance. The Republicans, and Trump in particular, have learned a big lesson from Watergate. Nixon’s fatal mistake was not his ordering illegal actions including the burglary of the Democrat offices. Nixon and his party only went wrong when many of his party decided to respect the rule of law by withdrawing support for Nixon, so Nixon lost his nerve and resigned. These days all Republicans understand that the rule of law is just a nasty trick used by liberal elites to undermine the Republican’s divine right to rule and act however they like. They will never again concede anything and Trump will never admit he has done anything wrong ever. There will be no more Watergate moments.
Nixon should have been the first ex-president indicted on criminal charges, not Trump. The pardon given to Nixon after he resigned was one of the worst mistakes in the history of the USA’s version of democracy. It gave the green light to all the subsequent efforts to subvert the democratic processes by all available means, to the point where Trump’s attempted coup after the last election was not different in kind to what they had already done, only more extreme.
While it is refreshing to find someone even more cynical than myself regarding the feces-festival that is the Republican Party, I personally can’t see Trump surviving the onslaught of trials, including Georgia, Stormy, Smartmatic (which will diminish his Big Lie nonsense) and those pesky boxes of files and possibly stolen art. Among others.
There are so many hurdles to jump before the 2024 election. I will enjoy the sight of Trump, in his designer sports shorts and MAGA emblazoned T-shirt, running at them red-faced and puffing, his bulk wobbling like an animated fat berg, trying to measure the height and the distance, failing miserably, and hoping that Rupert can parlay the utter disaster into a propaganda win.
The trouble is that the prosecution of these cases could lumber along slowly, despite the relative haste of special counsel Jack Smith in preparing the detailed indictments; even if some of the trials are over when the next election rolls around the appeals may still be waiting for judgment. One of the counter-views to your optimism is that Trump needs to get the presidency back in order to see off these legal challenges. In a catch-22, or vicious circle situation, the failure of the justice system to convict Trump before the election could maintain his chance of winning again, which in turn would increase his chance of not evading conviction. A depressing thought, only mitigated by hope that the octagenarian, fearfully ordinary and cognitively adrift Biden can overcome, again.
That should be ‘chance of evading conviction‘!
If Trump or another Republican does win the Presidency in 2024 and then shuts down all these Federal investigations thereby allowing him to get away with what he did, I think it will have significant repercussion for law and order in the US. Worst case scenario is that no one will have faith in the justice system and lawlessness will takeover.
You can’t have people at the top committing crimes and getting away with it while the rest of the population gets thrown in jail for much much less. Take for example that lady in Texas (i think) where she was sentenced to seven years jail for voting unintentionally at the last federal election.
Will it matter if it isn’t Trump himself? The entire GOP- state and federal- have adopted Trump’s style because it works so well for them and if Trump himself is in jail, then he becomes a martyr in the eyes of the GOP voters – a martyr whose unavailability justifies the substitution of whichever Trump V2 they put up as a presidential candidate. They all sound like Trump already. The GOP has gotten rid of every moderate Republican that was still hanging in there. They’re all Trump now, Frank. All of them.
Imagine the scenario if Trump receives a gaol sentence – the loons who support him may treat the storming of The Capitol as a dress rehearsal for 2024 mayhem. How many generations will it take for US society to heal itself in his wake…if it can recover at all.
There will be another “Trump” along soon enough. Only this one will be intelligent. And that will be the end of the “American Experiment”.
Given that the Mafia now have proof that a crook can get elected President, it’s only a matter of time until they apply their significant resources to the project.
Meanwhile, there are only two alternatives for the GOP position……………
They either believe the nonsense that Trump continues to spout (in which case their stupidity is matched only by their gullibility – either of which should preclude them from public office)……..
Or they don’t (in which case they are as crooked as Trump, so again, that should preclude them from public office)……..
Frankly, a President Joe “Bananas” starts to sound like a desirable option.
Let’s hope he ( and it will be a “he”) doesn’t get an extra helping of American hubris along with the intelligence, Denis, because he’ll probably end everything animal, vegetable and mineral in a nuclear WW3.
I did wonder briefly if a convicted and gaoled Trump would be pardoned by some president in the near future but I suspect that neither Republicans nor Democrats would want him back in circulation, so maybe if he gets 30 years he’ll be out of the picture for 15 or so. That should do.
The charges arising from the phone calls to Georgia will result in another indictment soon. If he is convicted on offences against state law there, pardoning him will be beyond the power of any federal President. Perhaps we can appreciate the fact that he has been such an “equal opportunity” criminal. Here’s what the food is like:
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/07/07/what-s-in-a-prison-meal
For someone who lives on Oreos it might be an improvement.
My understanding is he can still be pardoned by the state Governor who at this time is a Republican.
Well, it seems the Governor gets to stack the parole and pardons board but does not actually have the power to make these decisions himself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_State_Board_of_Pardons_and_Paroles
No amount of evidence is going to convince that horde of his hard-core (agitated, weapon bearing) ‘true believers’, in his (manipulative) ’cause’, that this is anything other than his ‘martyrdom at the hands of a corrupted state’.
And I agree, I reckon “Uncle Sam” is so sick, so riven, that there is little chance of mending, of recovery, that this could push the disunited states of America over the edge to the “Failed State of America”.
… A banana republic that imports it’s bananas.
Ironic! Never forget that the original “banana republics” were South American colonies of the United States whose governments were under the thrall of the United Fruit Company and were routinely replaced if workers or citizens got too uppity and demanded things like fair wages or fair property laws.
That would be Central American colonies, specifically Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
Pedant! They are south of Texas, anyway. I am sure there were a few south of Panama in one list I saw. Don’t remember when or where.
At the risk of being accused of invoking Godwin’s Law, I think the events at the Capitol Building in Washington on 6 January rate comparison with Hitler’s Putsch in Munich on 8-9 November 100 years ago. For that, H!tler did porridge, where he took the opportunity to write “Me!n K@mpf”. In similar circumstances, Trump would be able to spend his idle hours tweeting “Witch-hunt” and “Sad”.
PS – a note of advice for law enforcement agencies in Australia, be aware of that date – the neo-N@zi sympathisers among us will most certainly mark it with some sort of event.)
Typos are deliberate to get around the Crikey censor’s algorithm.
My original, without typos, is “Awaiting approval”, no longer “Awaiting for Approval”.
Hurray – someone must finally have read the comments and acted.
Ah, just imagine…..a no longer orange but still obese man in ill fitting tracksuit bottoms and an XXXL tshirt trying to scramble onto the top bunk in a cell in Leavenworth with his fellow convicts taunting him.
Orange hair in an orange jumpsuit.
If his cell mates are in gaol for fraud they are likely Trump supporters.
In the unlikely event that all this legal strife culminates in one or more actual gaol sentences and Trump is incarcerated there is still the matter of which category of gaol he would be sent to. There are great variations. White-collar convicts deemed low risk can be sent to minimum security prisons where there are few restrictions or indignities other than being inside each night. It is a world away from the horrors of the state pen or the federal maximum security facilities, and mostly seems to function as a compulsory period of networking for like-minded high net worth scofflaws to plan their next big scams and advise each other on how to avoid getting caught next time.