CONFUSING SYMPTOMS WITH OUR DISEASE

 


©Wendell Griffen, 2023

 

Donald Trump has been indicted, again. His supporters believe that Trump’s latest indictment by a grand jury on federal charges brought by US Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith arising from Trump’s actions to remain in power are baseless attempts to block Trump from being elected President of the United States in 2024. News reporters, legal commentators, and pundits are talking about the latest indictment, whether it will affect the 2024 presidential campaign, and Trump’s mounting legal problems.

Trump’s history of antisocial behavior (as shown by his personal and professional dishonesty, cruelty, bigotry, and lack of empathy) was chronicled, reported, and criticized long before he was elected US president in 2016. Given all that has been reported about Trump’s maniacal effort to remain in power, sensible people should not be surprised that he faces criminal charges. His distinction comes from being the most impeached, criminally charged, and civilly adjudicated person to serve as US president in the nation’s history.

Let’s be clear. Trump’s legal situation results from his personal decisions and actions. In Florida and Washington, DC, federal prosecutors have brought criminal charges against him based on indictments voted by separate grand juries. In New York, the state prosecutor in Manhattan has brought criminal charges against Trump. Trump may also be indicted and charged by the state prosecutor in Fulton County, Georgia, for his efforts to overturn the Georgia vote tally for the 2020 presidential election.

In each case, Trump is entitled to fair trials on the charges. Prosecutors will be required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt any charge they bring against him. Trump’s attorneys will be able to cross-examine witnesses and present opposing evidence. On each charge, jurors will decide if Trump is guilty, meaning if prosecutors prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his conduct was a crime.

If Trump is found guilty, judges will decide what sentence is appropriate. If Trump is not found guilty, he will not face the prospect of punishment. If he is found guilty, he will deserve to be punished. If he is found guilty, Trump can challenge his conviction(s) and sentence(s) in higher courts.

It is irrelevant that no other former US president has been in this situation. No other former US president has been accused of doing what Trump is alleged to have done. Trump is not accused of breaking laws that apply only to Trump, or only to former presidents. He is accused of breaking laws that apply to any of us. The belief that Trump should be able to break the laws that apply to the rest of us because he is a former president is absurd, untrue, undemocratic, and dangerous.

However, the deeper problem – meaning the disease – is that a sizeable part of the US adult voting population in one of the major political parties believe that a wealthy white man should not face charges for allegedly criminal conduct. They believe Trump is superior to the rest of us. The idea that Trump will be charged, tried, and could be found guilty of committing crimes is especially unsettling to some of them because the trials will occur and jurors will be selected in places populated by people Trump dislikes (meaning places where unwealthy, non-white, and politically diverse people live).

Trump’s popularity, despite the well-documented history of his anti-social domestic, business, entertainment, and political conduct, is symptom of a pervasive and dangerous disease that afflicts US morality, thought, and politics. It shows that many in the US Republican Party endorse wealth privilege, xenophobia, white supremacy, male authoritarianism, capitalist greed, militarism, techno-centrism, imperialism, and white supremacist, misogynist, religious, nationalist, and homophobic bigotry. They are not a fringe group. A majority of them claim to love God, be followers of Jesus, and believe in “liberty and justice for all.”

These people do not want, and have never wanted, the United States to be a diverse, equitable, free-thinking, generous, and welcoming democracy. Instead, they want the nation to be a white male-dominated, fascist, and pseudo-religious kleptocracy. They support Donald Trump and resent that he faces criminal charges because they, like Trump, want to live in a society where people of color, women, immigrants, LGBTQ persons, and other marginalized people, do as they are told, and “stay in their place.”

Donald Trump’s popularity is a symptom of a pervasive disease that afflicts our lives, our diverse faith, and shared hopes for justice and peace. That disease – not Trump – is the deepest threat to democracy in the United States.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE LAMENTABLE AND INEVITABLE ISRAELI-HAMAS WAR

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2023   Mark Wingfield of Baptist News Global has written an analysis of the current war between Israel and Hamas. I am quoted in it along with others who hold shared and different perspectives.  https://baptistnews.com/article/in-this-war-there-are-no-good-guys/ The analogy Ashlee Wiest-Laird shared in Wingfield’s piece is appropriate. Nobody should expect people whose land has been stolen, who've been locked in a room of their house, denied basic protections and civil rights, attacked at will by a stronger, US financed, stocked, and cheered military that is the fourth largest in the world, and whose 75-year plea for justice has been belittled, to decide that fighting their way out of the hellish place they have been forced into is unreasonable.  I wrote a long piece for Baptist News Global in May of this year to mark the 75th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (meaning "catastrophe") that provides the historical context for the war now bei
Read more

THE CRUEL DISMANTLING OF DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION (DEI) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

  THE CRUEL DISMANTLING OF DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION (DEI) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS © Wendell Griffen, 2023   In an email message sent on Tuesday, June 13, Dr. Charles Robinson (Chancellor at the University of Arkansas flagship campus in Fayetteville, Arkansas) announced that staff and resources from the campus Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) would be reallocated to other campus offices beginning this fall. I’m posting a link to the message Chancellor Robinson sent the campus so you can read his words. https://chancellor.uark.edu/key-communications/150-forward-update-from-chancellor-robinson.php Robinson sent his message two weeks before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decided, by a 6-3 vote, that the admission policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina (UNC) are racially discriminatory because both schools include racial identity among the factors considered in determining who to admit. The SCOTUS decis
Read more

IT’S TIME TO VOTE AS FREE PEOPLE

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2024 Early voting for the Arkansas primary elections begins February 20 across Arkansas, and March 5 is Election Day.   So, candidates are working hard to attract attention and influence voting decisions by voters. This essay is my effort to inform voters in Arkansas about election contests involving candidates for positions on the Arkansas Supreme Court, Arkansas Court of Appeals, circuit courts, and district judges. Because judicial candidates are the least well known of all political office contenders those of us who understand what judges do must help voters decide whether to support certain candidates over others. I have been a licensed attorney in Arkansas since 1979. I am also a retired state court judge who served on the Arkansas Court of Appeals (from 1996 through 2008) and as a Circuit Judge (from 2011 through 2022). I taught law   at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bowen School of Law from 2009 through 2011. I share this information so rea
Read more