Not With a Bang But a Whimper

 (By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

Not guilty.

    After all the bluster, all the carefully-parsed borderline threats, all the personal attacks on social media, that's what it all came down to. Those two words were reportedly the only ones spoken by Donald Trump at the Manhattan courthouse at his arraignment today. He looked hollow, deflated, like those Chinese spy balloons that were shot down all over the US last February.

     In other words, he looked like most any other defendant that had sat in that very same chair over the years and decades. He was reminded, in what have been a crushing blow to his ego, that he was just like any other defendant in a criminal trial. Just another private citizen, not above the law. They tried to make it dignified for him. The Manhattan DA's office offered him the chance to appear at his arraignment virtually via Zoom but he refused, opting to return, literally, to the scene of the crime, at the very Trump Tower in which he ordered the payment to Stormy Daniels on the 26th floor that had started the investigation and resulted in 34 Class E felony counts, the lowest level felony in New York state law.

     And all for what? So he could merely say "not guilty" and make minimal contact with his supporters across the street?

     He was never placed in handcuffs, never had a mugshot taken and was swaddled with his Secret Service detail almost the entire time. They tried to arraign him as if he was really an ordinary private citizen but they just couldn't manage it because there's nothing even remotely ordinary much less private about Donald Trump, aside from his furtiveness after committing white collar crimes, which was how he got in this mess, to begin with.

     But the important thing was that he was officially arrested, he was arraigned and he's going to trial on 34 criminal counts, unlike all his predecessors. Aside from that, it was all pretty low key, one could even say boring. And the only thing left for us in the world of mortals to decide is whether this is a sad or happy day for America.

     Some Trump haters would say this is a day to celebrate. I'll personally admit, I drank a small bottle of Korbel when news broke last Thursday that Trump was being indicted. I didn't do an Irish jig but I went to bed that night quietly reassured that the wheels of justice, after a few slow, creaky, false starts, were finally turning.

 

Happy or Sad?

 

Others would say it's a sad day for America, not because an innocent victim is being persecuted through prosecution, but because it's sad to see a former president get indicted by a grand jury for hush money payments to a porn star and then covering it up less than two weeks before a presidential election that landed him in the White House.

     But, as with Biden's style of governance, today's proceedings in Manhattan were boring, deliberative and absolutely necessary, "underwhelming", as one legal analyst put it on CNN. After four years of tabloid-style dramatics and theatrics between 2017 and 2021 that climaxed with the worst riot in the Capitol's history, many of us got tired of the constant, churning sturm und drang.

    As expected, there were pro-Trump protesters outside and, carefully separated from them, anti-Trump counter protesters. It was loud, obnoxious (It was New York City, after all. How could it not be?) but ultimately harmless. Thankfully, there were no reported injuries much less deaths. The NYPD played its part well.

    Marjorie Taylor Greene, of course, showed up and, after five minutes, was given a cheer specially imported from the Bronx to Manhattan and was sent scurrying to her waiting SUV. George Santos even made an obligatory cameo appearance.

     And now everyone's going home, their parts played. While Trump claims to have racked up seven million dollars in donations since the indictment's announcement and he's currently enjoying a brief bump in the GOP polls for president, the slow wheels of justice will continue to grind, possibly setting the stage for a trial that will likely happen in 2024 just in time for the general election. And that won't be good for him.

     So, in a way, it's fitting that Trump will likely go down over a tawdry sex scandal and hush money payout that goes back six and a half years. The alleged crimes are old, sleazy and stale. Just like Trump himself.