The Teeny, Tiny Conviction of Donald J. Trump
I suppose we should talk about Donald Trump.
I really don't want to, though. Not that there's nothing newsworthy about a former president and current presidential candidate being found guilty of a passel of felonies related to falsifying his business records to hide a hush money payment. No, that's important, I guess.
It's just that so little has changed as a result of it.
You either believe justice was served or you don't. And the verdict, polls have shown, is highly unlikely to alter your vote for president. You're either with Trump or you're against him, and the minor matter of a criminal conviction won't be anyone's deciding factor.
Trump's most successful achievement has been making us all profoundly weary of hearing about his many and varied attacks on public decency. We have outrage fatigue.
Unless, that is, you're one of the hopping mad MAGAs who believe that the injustice lies not with Trump for breaking the law but with the prosecutors, judge and jury for holding him accountable for so insignificant a crime.
Now, I'll admit that the hush money case -- unlike the election interference ones that the right-wing-led Supreme Court is successfully delaying until after November, when President-elect Trump can pardon himself -- aren't the most serious accusations Trump faces. I'll grant the MAGAs that Trump, after years of sowing the "lock her up" wind, is now reaping a somewhat politicized whirlwind -- as long as they grant me one thing in return:
A big boo-freaking-hoo.
After all, just because it's a witch hunt doesn't mean Trump's not a witch.
Presidents should, and do, get intense scrutiny. I mean, does anyone really -- even now -- understand why then-President Bill Clinton had to testify about an extramarital affair in relation to a case about a failed land deal?
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