A Nakedly Political Power Play

Before I comment on the indictment of Donald Trump, I must, first, issue a disclaimer and, second, mention what this piece isn’t about.

The disclaimer is that I hold no brief for Donald Trump and never have.  I’ve never voted for him and don’t intend to start.  I find him personally coarse, offensive and not very smart.  His egocentricity verges on narcissism, which is far more than simply a personal failing; it’s an obstacle to an effective presidency.  While in office, his daily tweets kept his name in the news and his base motivated, but by also motivating his opponents, hamstrung his own policies.  Plus, by the end of his term, the U.S. Executive Branch was playing with the C Team, the A and B varieties having refused to work for an obnoxious blowhard.  I’m no fan of Trump.

Now, what this piece isn’t about is the validity or lack thereof of the indictment.  Based on the facts I know, I can’t say whether Trump committed any crime, and won’t speculate. 

Nor is this piece about the precedent the indictment sets.  That issue has been and will be chewed over at great and partisan length.  My input wouldn’t improve the meal. 

What this piece is about is the indictment’s multi-layered context that is all-important, both now and in the future, and compels the conclusion that vested power in the United States is doggedly anti-democratic, that it will do essentially anything to preserve its own power and defeat any threat thereto.  That context is how the indictment is now seen by millions and will be seen by history.

One of those layers includes the many reasons voters elected Trump in 2016 and came out in even greater numbers in 2020, despite (and because of) four years of slander and libel against their candidate.  Those reasons can be summarized as their accurate sense that everyday Americans are pretty much the last thing on the minds of federal office-holders, the news media, lobbyists, the administrative state, etc.

The prime example thereof is the wholesale destruction of the American working class by neoliberal tariff and trade policies, but there are plenty more: the opioid epidemic, two million illegal immigrants per year, crony capitalism, the invasion of Iraq, the surveillance state, serial lying by office-holders, the war in Ukraine, fanciful notions about climate change and what to do about it, catastrophically low levels of school achievement by the country’s youth, the untrustworthiness of the news media, etc.  More and more Americans see that what’s important to them isn’t what’s important to the power elites who rule them.   Washington gives not a tinker’s “damn!” about middle Americans, and many of them know it.

The second layer of that context consists of the virulent and quite unhinged hatred of Donald Trump that began spewing out of the news and social media even before November 2016.  Post-election, they got more serious and the goal became plain – get a popularly-elected president out of office by hook or crook.  The Russia collusion hoax and the Mueller investigation, two merely pretextual impeachments, the raid on Mar-a-Lago, the suspension of his Twitter account and the abandonment by once-trusted news organizations of any pretense of fairness, balance or sometimes basic honesty, leave little doubt. 

The third contextual layer is the fact that, whether rightly or wrongly, Trump supporters view him as the antidote to a poisonous status quo that makes (a) no secret of its disdain for them and (b) a pretense of acting on their behalf that wouldn’t fool a child.  He skillfully positioned himself as the outsider, the populist running against the inside-the-beltway “deep state.”  And remember, voters like those who make up Trump’s base have been around far longer than he has, just waiting for a leader who seems to understand and care about them.  Ross Perot hadn’t anything like Trump’s political savvy, but still garnered almost 20% of the popular vote way back in 1992.

All that strikes fear in the hearts of power elites.  They’re used to the fix being in, for the two parties to weed out all candidates who might seriously challenge the status quo.  They therefore offer voters every four years two presidential candidates who, whatever their differences, agree on one thing – that the will of the people must conform to the will of elites.  Anything else could mean the most dangerous of all possibilities – an outbreak of democracy.

That’s exactly what, decades ago, liberal icon Noam Chomsky called the most important lesson of the Viet Nam war.  It took a decade, but governing elites were forced by popular opinion to reverse their policy on Viet Nam and, ignominiously, end U.S. involvement.  That loss of power to everyday Americans – that unexpected outbreak of democracy - scarred the psyches of those who, till then, had assumed that, whatever their policies, the people would fall into line.  That trauma lasted until 2003 when President Bush thumbed his nose at the massive opposition to his invasion of Iraq.  The message then was that governing elites would, once again, do as they please, that the people could have their say (after all, we have the right of free speech), but their say would be ignored.

The election of Donald Trump and his continuing popularity, that’s so far overcome every effort to bum-rush him off the political stage, is today’s Viet Nam war protest.

So, whether Trump is found guilty or not, his indictment and prosecution must be seen as more of the same; they fit perfectly into those contexts.  Just a few days ago, the president of El Salvador hit the nail on the head by saying, “Just imagine if this happened in any other country where the government arrested the main opposition candidate.”  Indeed. 

And by “this,” is meant, not only Trump’s indictment, but that it’s been brought about by a DA of the opposing party, a DA who, like many other Democratic DA’s, has previously announced his refusal to indict any but the most egregious criminal acts.  He’s the same DA who’s chosen to take to court a case that’s tissue-thin legally and that relies to a great degree on the testimony of a serial perjurer.  Add to that the fact that, whether he wins or loses the criminal case, Alvin Bragg will certainly benefit politically in overwhelmingly-Democratic New York City and State (Vote Bragg for Senator!), and the conclusion that this is a nakedly political power play becomes hard for fair-minded observers to deny.    

The message, today for Donald Trump, and far into the future for every other candidate considering donning the mantle of populism, is crystal clear: confront existing power in the United States, attempt to answer to everyday people, to listen to their legitimate complaints, to attend to their legitimate needs, and an unholy alliance of government, the legal system and the media of mass communications will do everything in its awesome power to destroy you.

To which, We the People raise our plaintive voice to say, “Whatever the outcome for Donald Trump, we remain.  We are not going away.”  As of last February, and despite all that unholy alliance could do, in a Washington Post/ABC poll, Donald Trump held a 48%-45% edge over Joe Biden.