“In the hush money case, Trump was found guilty of trying to influence the 2016 election by falsifying payment to a porn actor to bury her story of an affair. He faces three other felony indictments, including the federal case over his effort to overturn the 2020 election. But they are not likely to be heard before November’s expected election rematch with Biden.
Thursday’s verdict came after a jury in 2023 found Trump to be liable for sexual abuse against advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and a judge in a 2024 business fraud case determined that Trump lied about his wealth for years, ordering him to pay a staggering $355 million in penalties.”
- APNews.com “Republicans join Trump’s attacks on justice system and campaign of vengeance after guilty verdict” 01 Jun 24
Aside from the possibility of restraining his disloyal, fascist cabal from destroying the Republic, the trial of Donald J. Trump has had several other useful, clarifying effects that should not go unnoticed.
First, the reaction to this conviction by the Republican party, the Trumpist cabal, and all their fellow travelers has revealed something of significance. All their complaints about Black Lives Matter protesters, Pride parades, and protests in general, based in their insistence that breaking the law for political purposes is intolerable behavior are revealed to be pure, self-serving, hypocritical rabid elephant shit. They care nothing for the rule of law, the dignity of the judicial system or the right to trial by jury. When it suits them, they will spit on the rule of law, the Constitution, and everything else they claim to revere.
They have no true allegiance to the rule of law. They are publicly stating that they will prostitute the justice system to their own desires at the first opportunity. They are scoffing at the idea that twelve citizens can hear evidence, and render a just verdict. We should have known what they were when they failed to denounce insurrectionists that carried nooses and the banners of slavers into the halls of Congress, but ...
You would think this would shame them, especially those who are in elected office. It is like seeing a pacifist general, or a vegetarian butcher. The system is their bread and butter – they undercut the ground on which their legitimacy stands. But it does not shame them. It is impossible to shame someone who has no sense of dignity or duty. This is the moral hazard of electing people who proudly proclaim that the government has no legitimacy. They get into office, and prove not only their own lack of civic virtue, but that representative democracy does indeed have a potentially fatal flaw – stupid, selfish people elect stupid, selfish representatives. A democracy in any form cannot be morally better, or smarter than its constituency.
Secondly, this trial and its verdict has demonstrated that it is still possible to hold public figures to account. What has happened in this trial is a demonstration of why con-artists, priestcrafters, wannabe-tyrants and grifters hate the jury system. Twelve citizens sat and listened to every witness, weighed all the evidence, and convicted Donald Trump unanimously on thirty four felony counts. Whatever chicanery, casuistry or sophistry is desperately spewed on this unconquerable fact by lawyers, liars and billionaires, this will not be altered. Who Donald Trump truly is, and his relationship to the law is now public record, and where you line up – on which side of that line – will you support a man convicted of fraud to influence an election? – defines you as well as him.
Finally, we learned that the insistence by fundamentalist Christians that they are deeply concerned about public morality or the character of our leadership is a lie that would put Judas Iscariot to shame.
They are holding up a man who paid off a porn star, who cheated on his wives, who publicly bragged about sexual assault, who was found liable for sexual assault by a jury, who has broken every promise he ever made, every oath he ever took before God. Tell me, Reverend, is this who you want the children you keep claiming to protect to become? Is this the example of manhood you want your daughter to be exposed to?
The man they are supporting is a serial adulterer, an abuser of women, and a thoroughly irreligious fraud. They are not interested in morality, they are, and always have been, interested in the power to force people to live as they wish. They are not moralists, they are tyrants to the bone. Their moral convenience would shame a Pharisee. Pilate showed Him more respect than you do, Preacher.
After this verdict, when you tell me that you are “More MAGA than ever,” perhaps you should consider what you are saying. You are saying that:
The Presidency, and the nation deserve nothing more than a felon, convicted of fraud in this and multiple other cases, in the most powerful office in the history of humanity.
The legal system, and the right to trial by jury mean nothing to you. The rule of law does not apply to those you hold above it.
The character of a public leader is irrelevant. A liar, an assaulter of women, a man of incessant vulgarity, public disgrace and dishonesty, an open and virulent bigot is fine by you. An example, in fact. A leader that your children should emulate.
Don't try to tell me that you'll vote for Trump, but you wouldn't want your children to act like him. Not good enough to be a role model, but good enough for an office of almost limitless authority, power and influence?
Nothing about the Trumpist movement is intellectually or morally defensible. When you tell me you are “More MAGA than ever” you are telling me you are more dishonest than ever, more disloyal than ever, more bigoted than ever, more treasonous, more willfully ignorant than ever. You think you are making a statement, but in fact, you are making a confession of utter moral, intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy.
Who is on the right side of history... Can't wait to see
I really liked your use of the term "rabid elephant shit". Totally appropriate.