Senator Lindsay Graham, the on-again-off-again toady, foresees “riots in the streets” if Trump is prosecuted for stealing classified documents. Graham reflects a Republican party increasingly legitimizing, even romanticizing, political violence. Evoking South Africa 2021 — when corrupt ex-President Zuma was ordered jailed for defying court orders, and resulting riots killed at least 72, with massive property destruction.
We’ve been learning more about the importance of the documents Trump improperly took, how much that endangered national security, and hence the seriousness of his crime. If searching an ex-president’s home was “unprecedented,” so was the reason for it.
Why did he do it? Why not, as soon as an issue was raised, simply hand over everything? In fact he resisted and lied to government officials. It makes no sense. But the explanation has long been evident. Trump is insane. Literally, clinically, insane.
Judging from the crazed outcry at the mere search, Graham may be shamefully right about violence if Trump is actually prosecuted. Making a decision to do so epically fraught. But this criminal case against him would seem open-and-shut; the crimes are very serious; and if he isn’t held accountable, that would be a scandal. Showing Trump is indeed “above the law,” become a Death Star exerting a dark gravity that warps our whole civic justice system.
The Trumpian smear of the FBI includes alleging a “double standard” because Hillary Clinton was not prosecuted for her email issues.* That’s absurd whataboutism. In fact Hillary was thoroughly investigated, and no criminal offenses were found. Her exoneration doesn’t mean a different person, in a different case, should not be charged.
Yet his cultists (calling themselves patriots) will (like South Africa’s Zuma fans) defend him even unto violence. This is the us-against-them tribal war gone berserk. The eternal narrative is Trump as the (heroic) tribune of the people beset by evil elites determined to bring him down, by any means necessary. Graham said, “Most Republicans, including me, believe that when it comes to Trump, there is no law . . . It’s all about getting him.”
How many times have we gone through this? It might indeed seem “there is no law,” given Trump’s consistent history of evading it. How many criminal travesties must he commit before his followers will entertain the thought that maybe — just maybe — he might have actually done something rotten?
But no. That will never happen. Facts and realities and irrelevant. The deranged war must be fought to the bitter end. God help us.
* Double standard? The FBI publicized its investigation of Hillary, hurting her campaign, while keeping mom its investigation of Trump’s for Russia collusion.
