"WNEN WILL THE TIDE TURN? OR WILL IT TURN?"

 “WHEN WILL THE TIDE TURN? OR WILL IT TURN?”

Thursday’s conviction of Donald Trump on all 34 counts of improperly influencing the 2016 election is still reverberating, and we won’t really know how it will influence voters until the November elections.  In past times, such a turn of events would automatically eliminate Trump as the Republican candidate, but these are not ordinary times.  Trump understood better than most of us how deep the white grievance is, especially white male grievance.  And, he predicted correctly that his base would follow him no matter what he did, or what he was convicted of.

Perhaps this conviction (and his sentencing on July 11) will turn some independent voters to vote for Biden, thus denying the election of Trump.  Perhaps this will turn the tide on Trump, and we can leave him behind in the dust of the 3 trials left to come.  If they do not, then God help us.  For Trump seems hellbent on bending the American system of government so that it serves him and him alone.  He has already attacked the criminal legal system, which admittedly is skewed towards people like Trump.  As President Trump, he will fill the benches with Eileen Cannons all over the country.  If the Republicans continue to control Congress after the November elections, we face the prospect of their refusing to certify the election results if Trump does not win.  So, Trump has already bent two branches of government – the judicial and the legislative – leaving only the Presidency to go.

If he wins in November, Trump intends to move the Presidency towards the imperium similar to Hungary, and unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise soon, he will not be held accountable for such moves.  For all their talk of being “originalists” in regard to the Constitution, the reigning SCOTUS conservative majority seems to have forgotten that the Constitution was formed to be a bulwark against a President like Trump.  Their decision on presidential immunity, which will be announced soon, will be a huge one.  Roberts, Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch hold the fate of democracy in their hands.

This is a grim rambling, but I do believe that we stand on the threshold of moving towards fascism if Trump is elected.  As I have written earlier, I am so sorry that Biden chose to run again – a strong Democratic candidate (which he is not), would give me much more cause for optimism.  Yet, it is what it is, and our calling is to get ready to work as hard as we can to elect Joe Biden as President and to make sure that the Democrats control the House after the November elections.  

And, perhaps, there is some hope.  Twelve New York citizens did their duty in the trial in Manhattan last week, seeing through all the hype to the truth of Trump’s lifelong campaign of lies and flight from accountability.  District Attorney Alvin Bragg had the guts to bring the case. Though he was excoriated by many for bringing such a “weak” case, it looks like his case will be the only one that will go to trial before the election.  Perhaps Judge Chutkan will allow Jack Smith to bring forward the January 6 case, depending on the SCOTUS ruling.  

So, we are in perilous times – Trump scares me more than anyone who has run for President in my life time, even more than Barry Goldwater.  Perhaps my fear is rooted also in my own childhood – I grew up under fascist governments in the South.  They favored me as someone classified as “white,” but they were fascist towards those classified as “Black.” I believed in this fascist power, though none of us called it that, because it benefitted me and answered the longings of my heart for order.  As I note in my forthcoming book “She Made A Way,” fascism in the South was maintained by good and loving white people.  I do not want to return to those times.  Please lift up our country and our democracy in these next 6 months – it will be quite a dangerous ride.  And, of course, practice what you pray.