The Closet Professor

The picture above has no relation to this post except I thought his facial expression fit the subject.

People in the United States were mostly either happy, sad, or angry when the guilty verdicts of 34 counts of falsifying business records was announced. I am mostly in the sad camp, not because I don’t think Trump is guilty ( I think the man is a fraud, a cheat, a liar, and has no regard for the rule of law), but I’m sad that a former American president was convicted of not just one felony but of 34 felonies. It was a dark day in American history. A former American president and the current Republican nominee for president (officially he won’t be the nominee until after the Republican National Convention) was convicted of 34 felonies.

November 8, 2016, when a minority of Americans and a majority of the Electoral College was chosen to elect this fraud of a man president. January 6, 2021 was an even darker day when he called on his followers to try to stop the Democratic process from certifying that he’d lost the 2020 presidential election. In the past eight years, Donald Trump has been the cause of many dark days in American history.

A lot of Republicans will claim that Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts is/was politically motivated. However, I want us to keep in mind that the New York district attorney took these charges to a grand jury who indicted Trump, a grand jury made up of ordinary Americans who were doing their civic duty. Then, during the trial, a jury agreed upon by both the prosecution and defense heard the evidence presented and the district attorney and a defense put forth by Trump’s lawyers found Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony counts. 

Whatever anyone might believe about political motivations, a jury doing their sworn civic duty found him guilty because the prosecution’s case, the testimony of witnesses, and evidence of crimes was convincing and the defense’s refutation, the defense of these crimes, and the repeated claims of innocence was not convincing. This was the American judicial process at work, not a kangaroo court or a show trial, but the justice system in the State of New York working as it should.

Is this conviction likely to sway Republican opinions about Trump or cause them to admit he committed crimes? No, at least for the majority of Republicans, it won’t. As both Biden and Trump said yesterday, the true judgement will come on November 5, 2024. The ultimate judgement will come in how history remembers this period of American history.

Republicans have said over and over that the Biden administration is using the courts as a weapon. The Biden administration had nothing to do with this conviction. Furthermore, for the past four years Donald Trump has proclaimed that he would use the courts as a weapon to punish those he sees as his enemies. He has repeatedly said he would get retribution and revenge against those who have not supported his political witch hunts against his enemies, have not supported his criminal activities, or his fascist rhetoric.

November 5, 2024 will decide whether America is a democracy or if  people would rather see this country turn to fascism. I pray that the majority of Americans choose Democracy. We can only do that by exercising our civic duty and voting!

P.S. Possibly only two other American president have committed crimes that could have led to convictions: Warren G. Harding and Richard M. Nixon (both were Republicans). Harding had the good grace to die of a heart attack before his involvement with the Teapot Dome scandal and the “Ohio Gang” could be fully investigated. Nixon was pardoned by another Republican president, Gerald Ford, of any possible crimes he might have committed during the events surrounding the Watergate scandal. Harding and Nixon never faced a trial. Donald Trump has, and he has been convicted. Like Trump, Harding’s and Nixon’s criminal associates have been convicted of numerous crimes.

Because politics can leave a nasty taste in your mouth, I give you a beautiful palate cleanser, Isabella pic of the week:

Even she knows she’s beautiful. Before I put my collection of DVDs in this cabinet, she would spend a lot of time looking at her reflection in the glass. Granted, she kept walking around the cabinet trying to find the cat staring back at her, but she knows she’s a queen.