From the beginning, we have always known that former President Donald Trump had nothing but disdain for the principle of law. Donald Trump has always loved one and only one thing: power.
In Iowa, back in January of 2016, he gloated, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
Then, there was the infamous exchange with
Access Hollywood, in which Trump boasted, “You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Voting for a man who disdains the principle of law and cravenly abuses power the way Trump has always been known to do, is an act of treachery against our nation.
And of course, there were the breaches of his marital vows and the multiple payoffs made to silence the women he had affairs with, and the dozen and a half or more women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. All of it, complete and utter disdain for the law and the legal and moral rights of human beings.
And even the courts, to Trump, have only been a means to abuse his power, a place where he could fire off frivolous weaponized lawsuits as fast as bullets from an AK-47, a habit that in one case got him fined a million dollars in the federal court of southern Florida.
And let’s not forget the serial bankruptcies and the violated rights of Trump’s creditors.
Such a brief summary: life and physical safety; love, sex, and marriage; financial security; and the sanctity of the justice system–Trump has long and repeatedly disdained them all, reveling in his power to do as he would.
The point being: When you vote for a person like Trump who openly demonstrates in every possible way a love of power and a disdain for the principle of law, of course you get a president who refuses to leave office when he loses an election, but instead opts for fomenting insurrection. Such a vote, in fact, can hardly be regarded as anything other than a vote to overthrow democracy.
The law of democracy cannot be reconciled with the love of power. That’s why Donald Trump has always disdained democracy’s fundamental principle of law. The law of democracy imposes checks and balances aimed at ensuring that the power of an individual or a cartel of individuals is never more powerful than the majority vote of individuals when they exercise their political power to advance the best interests of the general welfare of all society.
Casting a vote for a person like Trump who openly demonstrates in every possible way a love of power and a disdain for the principle of law is, according to the philosophy on which our American nation and democracy is founded, a vote against the general welfare of all society and against the foundation on which our society currently is built.
That is to say, such a vote is profoundly anti-patriotic. Whether such voters understand this or not, voting for a man who disdains the principle of law and cravenly abuses power the way Trump has always been known to do, is an act of treachery against our nation. And on January 6, 2021, we all witnessed that treachery bear its inevitable fruit.
The reason all this needs to be spelled out is that the headlines describe the multiple
indictments of Donald Trump as unprecedented and creating a dangerous situation.
As to the first point, the indictments are not the thing that is unprecedented. What is unprecedented is that so many American citizens voted for the embodiment of disdain for the principle of law.
As to the second point, these indictments do not create a dangerous situation. They are again the obvious and inevitable fruit of electing a man to be president who disdains the law of our nation. And the reason the indictment of Trump does not create a dangerous situation is that the indictments are
backed by copious, jaw-dropping amounts of evidence.
There is no danger, for example, of the case against Trump giving rise to politicized kangaroo courts jailing future presidents on, yes, trumped-up charges because, in the case against Trump, there is a mountain of evidence against him, and a court that would abuse its power for political ends in the future would lack this mountain of evidence. That’s why we have due process. Due process allows us to administer justice without fear of justice being overthrown. To argue otherwise is to impose ignorance on wisdom, which unfortunately is what some of the political commentary seems to be doing.
Connecting the indictment to potential violence is like saying we should get rid of sidewalks to avoid the wrath of drunks. Guess what: they’ll still fall and then be blaming the dirt.
Others see the indictments as potentially giving rise to violent backlash from Trump’s supporters, but such arguments unwisely accept the false premise of Trump supporters who see themselves as victimized by the lawful and proper administration of justice. Any violence by Trump supporters has no more to do with the indictment of Trump than the sidewalk has to do with the drunk who falls down upon it. Connecting the indictment to potential violence is like saying we should get rid of sidewalks to avoid the wrath of drunks. Guess what: they’ll still fall and then be blaming the dirt.
Due process is what has in the recent past and will in the future sort out the weaponized abuse of the courts for political purposes from the proper and necessary administration of justice. And due process is also what will ensure that responsibility for violent behavior and drunken disorder is properly laid at the feet of the miscreant, and not ridiculously imposed upon law abiding society. So, we need to push back against claims that the indictment of Trump creates a dangerous situation. The indictment of Trump is making the world a safer place. Full stop.
And let’s stop saying the indictment of Trump is unprecedented.
What is unprecedented is that so many citizens lacked an understanding and commitment to democracy that they ended up electing as president a man so obsessed with his own power that he inevitably left behind him a wake of evidence of criminal disregard for the law so large it might be mistaken for the Sierra Nevada. If this unprecedented situation happens again, the same result of multiple indictments
should happen again. We count on it. That’s what a democracy of law and order is all about. No man, not even the president, is above the law. That and only that is what the headlines should be saying over and over and over again.
In conclusion: The real solution here has nothing to do with the indictments. It has everything to do with the votes being cast.
Don’t vote for a man who gloats about his power to commit crimes and you won’t have to indict him when the slow wheels of justice finally start to turn.
