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Thoughts on Trump's Indictment [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-06-09
Seeing Trump get his comeuppance — or at least head rather inexorably toward it — is gratifying in its way. Still, it doesn’t seem like a big milestone.
Trump took off with secure documents, perhaps relatively unimportant ones, perhaps very sensitive ones. We can’t know. It seems unlikely that he meant to use them to harm our country. More likely he thought that he could make a buck and besides, he loves to flex his power. His intention hardly matters since the risk to our nation is the same either way. This case is very important.
But Trump also orchestrated the January 6 insurrection. His fans gleefully executed the storming of the capitol that he didn't exactly order them to do but hinted at so broadly that only lawyers could argue that he wasn't the architect of the event. Many of his minions have been hauled off to jail. They’re still lionized by MAGA folk as heroes, though, as is Trump himself. Trump hasn’t had to deal with anything more than criticism for that event, criticism that he can use to increase his popularity and his coffers.
Were he any other president, the stash of secret documents would be a huge issue. But though he deserves a comeuppance for it, it’s minor compared to fomenting the insurrection. A few people will take a lesson from the document case and be more cautious with how they handle sensitive documents themselves. But all over the country are people who watched the insurrection, if they did not participate, and thought, “Yes! The election was stolen! I see now how we can and should do anything possible to assure that Democrats don’t win elections!” We’re still seeing false claims of election fraud, threats to election workers, and recommendations to purchase firearms and be prepared for similar action.
A large segment of the public believes that the insurrection was heroic. They have seen little to convince them that it was a heinous crime. They support Trump’s anti-American acts while still waving the flag. Indicting and trying Trump for that crime won’t convince all of them but it will help. This needs to be done before another election cycle comes up and there’s another opportunity to normalize the idea that it’s fine, patriotic even, to deny election results and engage in criminal behavior to change them. Teaching America that it’s a bad thing to mess with sensitive documents isn’t nearly as important as using a Trump trial to demonstrate that the election process is sacred to our nation and will be protected.
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