Some thoughts about the verdict:
Donald Trump is guilty.,..of trying to overthrow the government of the United States. That’s not the charge in this case. But it was, sort of. He was found guilty of election tampering, of trying to influence the result of the 2016 presidential election by hushing a porn star. So, like Al Capone and tax fraud, Trumpster gets nailed for a lesser version of the ultimate crime. A trial on the ultimate crime—the fake electors scheme—is being delayed by the recalcitrance of the United States Supreme Court, whose members include three Justices Trump appointed and two others, Thomas and Alito, whose corruption has been demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt.
Donald Trump is guilty…of being a mortal sleazeball. Every major witness in this case was disgusting. Michael Cohen is a lying low-life. Stormy Daniels is a disgusting, extortionist gold-digger. David Pecker is a revolting pig who publishes a sordid rag—the National Enquirer--and had a side-dodge extorting the corrupt wealthy sleaze ball elite. There are others like Donald Trump who paid Pecker to “catch-and-kill” stories about their illicit relationships. Too many of the plutocrats who run America are arrogant miscreants who think they’re invulnerable. This trial was incredibly valuable for exposing that fact.
Donald Trump is guilty…of trying to undermine the U.S. judicial system. His constant attacks on Judge Mershan were disgraceful—nothing new, of course. He is a nihilist sociopath who is trying to tear down every American institution that stands athwart his ego, from the courts to the electoral process to the military (suckers!)….to the principles that underly them, principles that he’s not familiar with—democracy, the rule of law, the separation of powers, the emoluments clause: that it is illegal to try to make money out of your office.
Donald Trump is guilty…of being a racist. I thought Alvin Bragg’s case was weak—it was stronger than I thought, but its flimsiness will be tested on appeal—but the fact Bragg is a black man, a left-liberal with a weak record on crime, has been the unstated basis of Trump’s claims that the case was rigged. The fact that New York is a city of minorities—of immigrants—is also an unstated basis of Trump’s claim that the case is illegitimate. It was not brought by white people. Donald Trump believes black people are inferior and ignorant. He’s said so many times, publicly and privately. He assumed the Central Park Five were guilty because they were black. He now thinks black people are so stupid that his macho act will appeal to alienated black men—as it has to sicko rappers like Ye and the fools he had on stage with him in The Bronx last week. He tries to roll like an outlaw—an outlaw who attempts to beat the law by buying his innocence with slick lawyers, an outlaw who stiffed the honest small businesspeople he hired to build his casinos, an outlaw who exaggerates like rappers do—who said today that immigrants are criminals and mental patients, sex offenders, you know the rest. He’s a brash dude who made his bones claiming that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. His racism is blatant. It is what endears him to the militias and his other scum supporters.
And We are guilty…of giving this miscreant any sort of credibility. We are guilty of electing him President. We are guilty of buying into and enjoying his crudeness— ”He talks like us,” the voters told me in 2016—and his ignorance, and thinking that his TV act—The Apprentice—represented a real businessman making real decisions. We are guilty of jeopardizing this grand experiment in self-government by falling for a classic flim-flam artist, a grifter, a crook.
I am disgusted. Not only by him. That’s easy. But also by our sloth and amorality and frivolity and willful ignorance, our obsession with trivial grievances, our need for bread and circuses. We are spectators in the Coliseum, cheering as the gladiators are killed by lions. Nothing has changed, except this: We are the most privileged people in history. All of us, even the less fortunate among us. And we are still idiots. Privilege has brought us nothing but moral incompetence and stupidity. With any luck, our great-grandchildren will be shocked and ashamed by our selfish triviality.
Your observation “And we are guilty…” made me think of that cynical quote by journalist H.L. Mencken a long time ago. The line “the White House will be adorned by a downright moron” surfaces frequently, but the full quote pertains directly to today’s presumed Republican nominee and convicted felon. “The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
Excuse me but WE are not guilty. Many of us have been working ongoing - in local communities, at the state and national level - against this moron. We will continue and hope that others will wake up and also step up.