This piece is running as an op/ed in newspapers in the very red congressional district (VA-06) in which I ran for Congress (as the Democratic nominee) in 2012.
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Some insightful commentators are saying that this is no longer about Donald Trump, not about “the facts and the law.” It is about us, they say, the American people: are we, as a nation, willing to look squarely at the facts? And do we care about the basic values of American Democracy?
Regarding whether America will pass this test, the apparent answer is no, in part, but in larger part, yes.
The test these commentators are envisioning concerns the coming trials of Donald Trump, and these truths that will be validated:
- The case against Trump – regarding the crimes charged -- will be proved overwhelmingly.
- Trump will have no defense against the charges.
- If the American citizens, serving on the juries, honor the oath they take, Donald Trump will be convicted (of some of the most serious crimes ever committed in our history).
All that is the reality the trials will demonstrate in courts of law, where truth matters.
But, because Trump has no good legal defense, Trump is trying to transfer the battle to a different realm – the political realm – where Trump has a long history of using lies successful. In that realm, the outcome is more uncertain.
In “the Court of Public Opinion,” Trump mounts his defense. (His bogus “First Amendment” argument will go nowhere in a Court of Law, but it will likely succeed in persuading a part of the American public.)
Against mountains of evidence, Trump is seeking to persuade enough Americans (that his prosecution is “politically motivated,” and that he’s “done nothing wrong”) to enable him to regain the Presidency and wield the powers of that office to defeat the Rule of Law.
It appears that Trump will succeed with enough of the Republican world that – despite how thoroughly the gravity of Trump’s crimes and destructiveness will be proven in the trials – that he will win the Republican nomination.
There is evidently some combination of people,
- the “don’t care” people, who support Trump because they support his kind of strong-man, fascistic leadership, and thus support Trump’s continual assault on America’s constitutional order;
- and the “don’t know” people, who, despite being intelligent, somehow believe Trump’s lies even though truth is blatantly staring them in the face.
As the base goes, so go the Republican politicians. Trump has intimidated the Party “leaders” who have witnessed how Trump’s weaponization of his support in the base can inflict political death on anyone in the Party who opposes him. (“Leadership” like Kevin McCarthy’s is really a followership, as McCarthy showed in the aftermath of the insurrection when he discovered that the base would punish anyone who chose the truth and the Constitution over serving as accomplices to Trump’s crimes.)
So we’ve got Trump – whose ugly criminality and morally depraved nature will be irrefutably shown in these trials – and we’ve got the base, which seems unshakably attached to Trump regardless of what’s shown, and in between we have a Party of opportunists who learn the Liz Cheney Lesson, that the price of integrity in a Party dominated by Trump is being thrown out of power.
Between “don’t care” and “don’t know,” both the Republican politicians and the Republican base seem unlikely to withdraw their support from Trump – no matter how completely the facts prove that Donald Trump has profoundly violated the constitutional order he took an oath to protect and defend.
Some things are moving away from Trump:
- Two of the Republican candidates for President – Will Hurd and Chris Christie – are speaking some important truths to the Republican world.
- But Hurd was booed when he told Iowans that Trump is running for no one’s good but his own, to keep himself out of prison.
- And Chris Christie – skilled prosecutor -- has been rightly called a kamikaze candidate.
- Now also there’s Mike Pence, who has at last begun to testify about how Trump insisted that Pence violate his oath of office to help Trump seize power.
And in addition to these cracks in the solid wall of Trumpian intimidation in the Party, there is the wider American electorate: polls show that the percentages of Americans
- who say Trump committed crimes, and
- who support the bringing of charges,
have been increasing as the public absorbs the ugly picture the indictments reveal. The movement of the American majority – evident in the past three elections (2018, 2020, 2022) – to reject the Spirit of Trump thus seems to be continuing.
Hence, the mixed picture as the Trump-world drifts away from the American mainland:
- In the Republican world, the domination of the Party by Trump will erode, but not enough to deny Trump the Republican nomination for President.
- But a growing American majority is lining up to defend American democracy and support the Rule of Law.
So it appears that part of America will continue to choose Trump’s lawless ways of wielding power. But also that the American majority will pass the test, proving that enough Americans will reject the fascistic Spirit that Trump has shown -- in that ugly crime-wave abundantly proven in our courts of law -- to seize power the people had chosen to give to someone else.
Passing that test means protecting and defending the constitutional democratic order our Founders bequeathed to us.