The Rubicon: A River in Manhattan

We’ve finally crossed our Rubicon.

Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges by a Manhattan jury is a turning point in American politics from which we will not soon – or perhaps ever – return.  The only ones who claim to believe that the charges and conviction were anything but a fig leaf of legality barely covering a political initiative are the same ones who peddled Russiagate, “white supremacy!”, “kids in cages!” and other anti-Trump hoaxes.  Even publications like the Wall Street Journal, that’s no friend to Trump, have editorialized that the case, including such basics as the nature of the crime charged, had the goal of hamstringing a disfavored presidential candidate.

We might question that conclusion but for its seven-year context: 

Before a single vote was cast in 2016, elites had openly lost their minds, calling Trump ‘Hitler’ again and again.  The voting had barely ended when fevered notions arose about how he could be denied the office to which he’d been elected.  Perhaps he was insane and therefore unfit for office according to the 25^th Amendment.  Or state electors could simply refuse to cast their votes according to the will of the people. 

Neither idea lasted, so the anti-Trumpers moved on, hoping that the president had colluded with Russians to steal the election.  No, there was never any evidence for that proposition; yes it had been entirely bought and paid for by the campaign of his opponent; yes, the FBI, the CIA and the NSA had investigated the claim and found it baseless and, no, Putin’s shenanigans had had no effect on the election’s results.

But never mind.  Two months into Trump’s term, Robert Mueller was brought in, given wide leeway and a large budget with which he hired virulently anti-Trump lawyers whose aim was to find something – anything – that could be used to impeach the president.  For two years, media speculation, that often resembled prayer for Mueller’s “success,” followed. 

He found nothing, but again, never mind; Democrats impeached Trump anyway.  Then they impeached him again, the latter coming just days before he was to leave office in 2021, the aim being to deny him the presidency should he seek it again in 2024.  Then came the welter of criminal charges followed by the Colorado Supreme Court decision, an arrogation of power quickly shot down by a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court.

All of that sent the loud and clear message that Democrats and their friends in the news media would deny the presidency to Trump by fair means or foul.  But, as Trump himself has said repeatedly, their actual target isn’t him, it’s half or more of the American electorate.  Indeed.

Those tens of millions of Americans who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and who will do so again this year, are the ones who rightly see themselves as simply not among the interests of ruling elites.  They and their legitimate needs have long been left out of the process of governing and know it.  How could they not? 

After all, they remember being told by Bill Clinton that NAFTA would kill only 250,000 jobs, all of which would be made up for by “retraining.”  But “free trade” agreements destroyed closer to five million jobs and contributed mightily to an opioid epidemic that ravages blue-collar America.  They sent their sons and daughters to fight and die in Iraq based on the elite lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.  The disaster of 2008 that sent the economy into the doldrums and tossed millions of people out of their homes was built on lies about the quality of mortgage-backed bonds.  Soon came the lies and incompetence surrounding Covid.  Those shut down much of the economy and kept kids out of school - body blows to families’ finances and their children’s mental health.  That incompetence of course necessitated still more incompetence - vastly overspending to attempt to make up for the destruction caused by elite policies.  That incompetence in turn sent inflation sky-high, further damaging everyday Americans’ finances.  Then the same elites who’d authored that string of incompetence had the gall to criticize working class Americans for complaining.  “Don’t you understand how good you have it?!”

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan looked like a horrifying episode of The Three Stooges with desperate Afghanis falling from the wings of departing planes that left billions of dollars of U.S. equipment behind for no apparent reason.  Elite policy allows millions of aliens to cross our borders, further depressing the wages of Americans, while hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on a losing war in Ukraine, a nation that even Barack Obama admitted is simply not important to U.S. interests.  We spent $320 million to build a pier to get food and medicine to desperate Gazans. It lasted eight days before breaking apart.  Last week we learned that the $7.5 billion the Department of Transportation budgeted to build charging stations for EVs has, in almost four years, built a grand total of seven.

When was the last time U.S. governing elites did one thing right?  When did a single one of their initiatives even pretend to benefit the working class?  Not in memory.  And none of the dishonesty, venality and utter incompetence is lost on voters.

So they turned to Trump in 2016, 2020 and will again in 2024 because, despite his many and obvious flaws, he’s not one of those who anoint themselves our betters but who seemingly know nothing and can do nothing and, when their schemes fail again and again and bankrupt the country, walk away richer than ever, more assured of their own rectitude.

They turned to Trump and will again.  Oh, that “Trump” may in the future have a different name, look and background, but what he/she will certainly have is Trump’s understanding that everyday Americans who go to work, pay their bills and taxes, try to raise their children with sensible values and maintain a certain belief in this country matter.  They aren’t racists or homophobes and they’re not stupid; they’re our country’s backbone and the only basis on which any healthy future can be built.

They vote for Trump because he seems to value them, to recognize them.  So, when we hear the virulence with which elites attack him, we understand that he’s right, they’re not attacking him, they’re attacking them, those everyday Americans with the temerity to believe that their needs and values are important, that the political system should work for them.

As a president, Donald Trump was fairly unexceptional, his policies well within those of mainstream Republicans.  But no mainstream Republican has been met with anything like the vitriol slung at him.  That’s because Trump does the one thing elites fear and loathe - he stands for those Americans whom elites ignore, the many, the “deplorables.”  Those Americans are a threat to elite values, yes, but most importantly to elite rule.

And it is that that has called forth the all-out attacks on Trump, including, most recently and absurdly, his conviction on 34 felony counts that, were he not running for president, would never have even been considered by a Manhattan DA, much less filed or brought to trial.

And that is why his conviction is our Rubicon.  Romans feared Julius Caesar’s crossing of that river because it indicated to them that he intended to do away with the Republic and rule as emperor.  Today, the use of the criminal justice system as a last-ditch effort to destroy the candidacy of the man for whom more Americans intend to vote than any other is at last proof positive that governing elites will stop at nothing to maintain their power and keep the many powerless.  They’re an oligarchy, one that disdains America, American values and everyday Americans and brooks no questioning of its authority.  Almost like an emperor.