I am in a deep blue small town in a deep blue state, here on the West Coast.
The natives are jubilant today.
“Happy Indictment Day!” shouted the neighbor of my host, as my host and I sat out on a balcony. The neighbor was emerging from a car, three stories below us. The building must have contained thirty apartments. The man was certain that everyone who was in earshot of his joyous shout, agreed with his sentiments.
He witnessed my silence. “Don’t you agree?” he goaded me, a near-stranger, still shouting. “Don’t you?”
Finally I responded, “I am not sure that this sets a great precedent. Every sitting President in the future will try to indict his or her political opponent.” He cut off the discussion — a reaction, from the Left, to which I am getting accustomed — and headed inside.
Earlier, at lunch, an otherwise lovely lady had celebrated the possible-near-incarceration of “that criminal.” Again, she assumed that everyone present shared her view of the events of the day.
I am experiencing considerable inner turmoil at the spectacle of President Trump’s indictment, as well as at the almost animalistic glee that this spectacle has triggered in the solid bloc of Democrats that currently surrounds me.
I am extraordinarily sad — at the thickheaded ignorance of history that those who are celebrating tonight, reveal; and at what has become of our country.
Don’t people understand — much as they may hate this fellow — that this is exactly what coup leaders in every banana republic, do? Seek to imprison their political opponents?
Especially while the political opponents are on the campaign trail?
Another reason for my discomfort and misery is that I have a guilty conscience, because of what I experienced two decades ago and what I know — things that not that many people have experienced or know, and things that seem to be generally forgotten. These memories bear directly on current events.
The indictment of President Trump is for the crime of “election denialism”, among other alleged crimes. It’s a thought crime.
It is quite odd that many major news articles have links when the word “indictment” is mentioned, but these links take the reader to other news articles, and do not link to the actual indictment. DailyClout.io, in contrast, published the indictment. The first few paragraphs make your head explode, as they directly contradict — themselves:
“1. The Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, was the forty-fifth President of the United States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election.
2. Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway—to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.
3). The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the Defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful.”
So — you are allowed to challenge the vote, and you are allowed to say what you want about the vote count, because of the First Amendment, but in fact you are not allowed to challenge the vote count, and you can’t say aloud why you are seeking to challenge the vote count?
Other news stories, understandably, do not link to this word salad.
It’s odd, for instance, that Reuters itself presented what is in the indictment, as late as Aug 1, as hearsay, and simply paraphrased it:
“Based on the descriptions, they appear to include Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who called state lawmakers in the weeks following the 2020 election to pressure them not to certify their states’ results; former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who tried to get himself installed as attorney general so he could launch voter fraud investigations in Georgia and other swing states; and attorney John Eastman, who advanced the erroneous legal theory that Pence could block the electoral certification.”
It seems that people around President Trump tried to pause the certification process until the votes could be fully verified. It seemed that his lawyers tried a legal theory to delay certification.
Hasn’t a version of all of that happened before in our nation’s history?
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