Trump is finally convicted for his crimes! But he's still running for president.
The justice system prevailed. But Trump's criminality has been so normalized that it's accepted he'll continue his presidential run. We've got to point to that corruption of our system.
It was glorious to see justice done on Thursday afternoon as a jury of his peers in New York found Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts.
Finally, the rule of law has worked against this hardened criminal.
I was on the air when the news broke and privileged to bring it to people across the country, many of whom called in to my SiriusXM program. And I’m sure many of you are celebrating justice done as well.
But we cannot let this horrendous stain on our country—the first former president convicted of crimes, and after being twice impeached to boot—become normalized. And sadly, too much of the media—not to mention the GOP—allow this to happen.
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Trump is now a criminal, a convicted felon, running for president as the nominee of one of the two major American parties. And already, the media is treating it as business as usual.
Where are the newspaper editorials calling on Trump to drop out of the presidential race? Sure, he’s not going to listen, and some might argue Trumpism will only die if the voters drive a stake in it.
But that shouldn’t allow the media to just jettison any moral compass they have left. Both the Washington Post and The New York Times ran editorials about the conviction, slamming Trump but saying it’s now in the hands of the voters.
They have platforms to call for the GOP to pressure Trump out of the race—but they’ve given the GOP and Trump a pass.
If this were President Biden, do you think they’d not be calling for him to drop out?
Actually, they already have! Their columnists (and their reporting, by implication) were ridiculously calling on Biden to drop out just a couple of months ago based on the fact that he’s two years older than Trump and thus supposedly too old to be president.
But they’re fine with a hardened criminal continuing to run. This is how low the media has sunk and how much Trump’s sinister, criminal behavior has been normalized.
The GOP, even worse, has accepted and normalized criminal activity and is rallying around Trump. From Mitch McConnell to Susan Collins, GOP senators who try to position themselves as non-MAGA are attacking the convictions, fearful of what it means for the election—since they’d rather a convicted felon and insurrectionist than a Democrat as president. And I don’t even have to tell you what the MAGA Republicans are doing.
Democrats have to lean into this, pointing not only to the criminal justice system working but also to the corruption of the GOP accepting this criminal as their candidate.
They also need to make sure the verdict and the reasons for it are clear.
This isn’t about a cover-up of an affair with a porn star. It’s about stealing the election of 2016 by using illegal means to suppress information damaging to Trump and—via the National Enquirer scheme, which Trump green-lighted—disseminating false information about his opponents. It was election tampering and election fraud.
The Biden campaign put out a statement affirming that justice prevailed and that “no one is above the law.” But it also warned that Trump could still win. I took this as the campaign leaning in but also underscoring that Trump’s brutal actions have been so normalized that people should not get complacent simply because he’s finally been held to account on a few of his many crimes.
They’re right. In a system in which there is no accountability in the GOP—and its followers are in a cult—and in which corporate media is derelict, we cannot let our guard down.
I do think that Trump’s conviction is monumental, and I believe it can have an impact on the election, where even a tiny shift could be very bad for Trump. It feels like something powerful happened.
But it’s up to Democrats and every one of us to make sure that that impact is felt and that the American public sees the gravity of the situation as well as the facts, unobscured.
Meanwhile, it’s a great day in America! And I know you all have some thoughts. So post away!
What a great “pull yourself up by the boot straps self-made man” story! Here’s a man that built his business from scratch (with his dad’s millions), successfully ran his businesses into the ground financially, was unfaithful to his multiple wives, colluded with the Russians, was twice impeached, weakened our NATO alliance, was civilly convicted of sexual assault (ie rape), stole classified government top secret government docs, lead an armed insurrection attempting stay in power despite losing the election, and now is a convicted felon. The best part! He wants to be president again! What a great country we live to allow someone like Trump two opportunities to destroy our democracy and ruin America! A person can’t do that just any where- only in the good ‘ol US of A!
PS God help us all if Trump gets elected again.
www.tomthedemocratist.com
I was surprised, but really happy with the full conviction! I also found myself being greatly relieved that finally, he didn’t get away with something. And based on the high quality of both the judge’s work and the demeanor and presentation of the jury, I am certain it was not “rigged.”
But I was surprised because I thought the whole system would find some way to produce a hung jury or only very few points of conviction. I had begun to lose faith and confidence in our system. This just outcome has helped me begin to recover from the effects of the mega-gaslighting that are going on from both Trump and the Republican Party and that is coming at us all.
This morning I realized that I had fallen prey to some of that gaslighting. Not that I would ever have voted for that man or that party, never again, but that I began to doubt my own perception of things, which is gaslighting. I actually feel Joe Biden should win a Nobel Prize for his leadership and human decency, except for one thing…his response to Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza. But there’s still time. Biden’s got to “break some rules” and shut down the supply of bombs, and maybe other weapons, to Israel.
So many thanks to Michelangelo and other SiriusXm Progressive Channel presenters for emphasizing, over and over, the good Joe Biden is doing, and the lies and deception coming from everywhere in the Republican Party.
Richard
Fenton, Missouri