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Trump Indicted … That’s Not the Story that Matters
Reflections on the American Experiment in Democracy — #5
Finally.
After confessing, before a television camera, to groping women just because … well, just because he could; and after repeated racist dog whistles, conveniently ignored by his followers; and after not one but two impeachment trials; and after summoning a mob to storm the Capitol — a mob blinded by the vehemence of his lies and their own visceral enjoyment of the anger that they were nursing …
… Donald Trump has been indicted.
If you have watched the past six years with astonishment, as I have, wondering what has happened to our country, or how people that you have always known to be caring, decent and fair-minded could be taken in by such an obvious, mean-spirited huckster, you may be forgiven for spontaneously fist bumping a friend and shouting “Lock ‘im up!”
We are, as the saying goes, only human — primates with flexible fingers and wardrobe problems. But now, let’s get back to reality … assuming that you, unlike Kellyanne Conway, still believe in a world where there are actual facts. And let’s look at a few of those facts.
The first fact is that an indictment is not a conviction. We are not going to watch the former president…
