New York City has prepared for possible demonstrations and protests if the immediate past president of the United States is arrested today. Personally, I’d love to see it. It’s long overdue. The man was a crook and a con man before he was elected president, and he was a very dangerous autocrat and conspiracist while in office. You do remember September 6, don’t you? How anyone with half a brain could still support and defend this person is beyond me. And quite frankly, the fact that many still do is deeply disturbing. Alarming, even. But that said, he was not immune to prosecution before he was elected and he’s not immune now. Nor was he above the law while in office. He was impeached twice, but a handful of Republican senators blocked his justly deserved conviction.
So, yes, I hope he was right when he said he’ll be arrested today (for paying hush money to a porn star in 2016). Admittedly that hope is fading, but the day isn’t over yet. I doubt I’ll ever be treated to the sight of him in handcuffs, today or any other day. That kind of perp walk is the stuff of tv dramas. But I can dream …
Note, March 30: The dream came true!
Image: Barricades go up outside NYC’s Manhattan Criminal Court on March 20. Photo: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
Even if he’s arrested, he’ll be immediately released on bond and so far it doesn’t look like many of his “supporters” are going to join any protest. In any case his legal troubles are far from over.
The Stormy Daniels thing is small potatoes compared to his mishandling (theft?) of secret documents, interfering in Georgia vote counting, fomenting insurrection and the overthrow of the U.S. government … etc. He belongs in prison, period. I hope I live long enough to see it.
I have to agree with your dismal view, Susan: the shit will never go down.
And I also agree – without any forcing ! – with your view of him as a person. But I cna’t agree with “alarming, even”: imnsho it’s terrifying. How those who are his supporters ever became so, and how after all the years of his utterly appalling ‘presidency’ they can remain so .. there are no words.
I chose “alarming” in an effort to not appear totally (partly, maybe, but not yet totally) out of my mind. I’m not terrified to the point of locking myself behind reinforced doors — yet — but I am extremely concerned by what’s happening in this country, encouraged mightily by, of all people, a U.S. president. It appears that maybe the conviction and imprisonment of a number of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists (192 to date) has caused some of the man’s support to wane. Others have distanced themselves with an eye to their own political futures. Being elected president should not immunize anyone from prosecution and conviction for criminal activity before, during, or after their term as president.
I’m with you 100%: it shouldn’t. But it will. 🙁
I sure hope you’re wrong. Never has a public official been more deserving of criminal prosecution and conviction. Fomenting insurrection in a plot to overturn election results and steal the presidency of the U.S. … wow, talk about high crimes.
I share your dream and hope justice is swiftly served.
We’re already well past “swiftly,” but the wheels of justice turn …
I sense that the greatest political danger currently is isolationism. DeSantis has dipped his toe into it and Trump’s regular rant-salad dallies with it. (He likes to poke at “globalists.”) The message is that the U.S. is so powerful, we don’t need the rest of the world. The reality is that we have never needed it more. Example: I just read that modern high-yield agriculture is completely dependent on phosphorous, which may be limited to a few decades, and that most of the world’s supply is in Morocco and Western Sahara. The next largest deposits of phosphate ore are in China and they are only 10% of Africa’s!
Oh well. Climate change will probably do us in before that.
The world is far too interconnected now for anyone to resort to isolationism. I would venture to say that no one country, however large, has everything it needs within its borders. Certainly the U.S. does not. So much of what we depend on is either manufactured or grown in other countries. I doubt we could become totally self-sustaining at some time in the future even if we tried. We could certainly move in that direction with, say, manufacturing, but I think essentially the horse is out of the barn and isn’t coming back.
For those interested, this is only the most immediate case against the former president. See the Associated Press story “Trump’s potential indictment caps decades of legal scrutiny.” I jumped on his case back in 2012 and in 2011 when he got on his Obama birther kick.