No U.S. politician imagined, let alone broke so many laws, then corrupted justice
How likely is it that Trump’s criminal rap sheet will expand in the next year? Reductions will be modest, despite the Supreme Court’s maddening immunity decision, especially absurd strictures on what constitutes evidence. Who knows whether Trump is finished with directly violating the law, inviting more indictments and convictions? And I doubt we’ve heard every gory detail about the lawbreaking Criminal-in-chief.
Whether desperation or selfishness drives crime sprees, won’t emerging as a big fat loser without viable options evoke responses akin to Trump’s deranged, dead-end 2020 blunders? Really, the slew of crimes only covered: to fabricate voting fraud that (still) denies the results, barrage state election officials, try to steal GA votes, invent unending fake elector schemes—then instigate a riot against Congress that threatened the life of his own VP. And as testimony oozes out of state inquiries, we don’t even know everything.
Put aside that Trump has for a decade normalized lying so that every right-wing demagogue from now on abandons even the appearance of veracity. Forget plausible deniability when blatant lying works. Political talk, mainly on the right, has descended to scheming, unspeakable propaganda. Like God for unbelievers, truth as the ultimate political currency is dead. Set aside the calls to violence and chaos—what fanatic minorities endorse when unable to win fair elections.
Forget that Trump is a serial convict who lost every major, undeflected trial. The 34 felony convictions, plus nearly half a billion penalty dollars, only flesh in a career of fines, bankruptcies, stiffing vendors, harassing foes with litigation and other crooked deals (like taking $10 million payola in cash from Egypt to facilitate foreign aid billions). Barely comparable: Despicable attack on the innocent Central Park Five and chronic, appalling Birther nonsense that ignited his PR rise.
Time again to tabulate the laws/structures/institutions that Trump has already broken—or made far worse:
1) Integrity of party primaries. First off, Trump eviscerated the GOP primary process, degrading it as a phony reality TV roast where ugly insults outrage the audience to gain attention (and make him seem not the politician. LOL). Trump’s insular rally “entertainments” are litanies of chronic lies, personal rancor, vacuous attention to policy or economic growth, job opportunities, viable immigration reform beyond fake walls, educational advances, scientific research, medical/pandemic safety, or security alliances/treaties and climate/disaster relief. Indeed, we hear how wonderful are global autocrats and how America is going down the tubes. Thanks to Trump, after two hundred years, party primaries are now shit shows that disown character or good faith—outpourings obfuscation, bait and switch, spite, threats, intimidation, name-calling, demonization and defamation of officials, witnesses, critics and foes. What a corrupt exchange.
2) Integrity of presidential campaigns. Square all the primary corruptions. Campaigns as bad faith barrages where Trumps deceives his base, promising heaven on earth and the defeat of demon Dems, with empty sounds, know-nothingism, cheap shots, contempt for history, reason and expertise—and appalling demonization of your opponents. Fundraising becomes no more than a predatory abuse of cultist loyalties by which a wicked billionaire, maliciously bragging he’s too rich to need donations, parlays whatever isn’t tied down to much poorer folks on tight budgets or pensions.
3) Integrity of the presidency. Proving that truly “anyone” (however unfit, self-serving or disruptive) can get elected president, the Trump regime was not only rife with crisis management (allergic to planning) but a descent into lunacy, buffoonery, perpetual calumny, endless scandals within and beyond the WH, plus demonstrable incompetence on professional appointments, COVID, tariffs, climate, U.S. prestige, and right-wing legislation re tax breaks, anti-abortion and deregulation—all GOP standbys for decades. Instead of a positive vision, Trump dishes out “bread” (standup jokes, putdowns) and “circuses” (shenanigans, conspiracies, and victimized. Really, only TWO impeachments, overseas blackmail, attacks on functional agencies, John McCain, Gold Star families, and scorn for sacrificed soldiers, the courts, evidence, witnesses, prosecutors and judges? What did I miss?
4) Integrity of Elections. Before, during, and now long afterwards, Trump wages war against certified election results. Who but a ruthless knave bellows before the fact any lost election is “rigged” but none that he wins? Who screams about voter fraud and finds none while trafficking in a conspiracy to corrupt state counts (with threats, blackmail, intimidation), to fabricate fake electors, and to send out mobs of now criminal cronies who failed to disrupt elections. No one has so undermined the centrality of elections—and has so overtly broken faith over peaceful transfers of power, until now one of America’s greatest brags.
5) Integrity of lawful protests and misuse of presidential authority. Taking advantage of America’s strong defense of free speech and dissent, Trump incited a violent crowd, committed to reverse a fair election (rank partisanship), and then distorted MAGA victims as if innocent victims sent to prison; here’s not only the first mob attack on certifying an election formality but one that caused police fatalities.
6) Integrity of top secret national security documents. It’s bad enough to misuse top secrets, worse still when you steal and hide hundreds of protected documents, still worse sharing them with unauthorized eyes and jeopardize our intelligence workers—then worst of all—deny your crimes and refuse to return what belongs to our government. Is this not in sum treason comparable to the attack on the Capitol?
7) Integrity of the Republican Party: The indecent takeover of the national party, the RNC, fundraising and stopping the House from doing its job. Turning a relatively open party into a closed cult with stringent litmus tests undermines the spirit and healthy dynamism of having two major parties with differing agendas and values. That the Trump cult believes in nothing once called “higher principles” or the “good of the country” exposes what happens when autocratic partisanship displaces patriotic loyalty to public welfare.
8) Integrity of our justice systems: No one has more battered the entire system of justice from prosecution investigations, to arraignments and indictments, then to judicial oversight of fair trials. Who else ever berated countless judges, impugned DAs, rejected juries and then found every crooked way to defy convictions, penalties and sentences? Who asserts, then acts above the law, then drags in his own appointed, sleazy judges?
9) Integrity of our core Constitutional republic—and the paramount ascendancy of the letter and spirit of the Constitution when fairly and historically interpreted. Trump, right-wing ideologues and Supreme Court extremists have served up multiple body blows to our legal blueprint for civilized government.
10) Insatiable insults against evidence, logic, reason, truth, sanity, coherence, expertise, justice, fairness, prudence and wisdom. That covers his worst intellectual sins.
No doubt I missed or understated something other than continual bashing of America. Additions welcome.
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