"A series of criminal efforts to retain power”: The stench of American politics overwhelms us all

Imagine living in a country dominated by two political parties. 

This imaginary country is ostensibly a representative democracy, though some call it a republic just to be obtuse.

Further, imagine the country’s political climate is horribly divided. Family members, friends and acquaintances live side by side and in a jurisdiction whose motto is “United We Stand. Divided We Fall.” However, in these so-called united territories, the citizens call each other enemies because of political differences. Imagine more than four dozen different provinces constitute the country. Some of these regions are run by one of the main parties while other territories are run by the other – though members of both parties live in each zone.

The two main parties seem to take turns leading the country, but the divisive national politics has taken its toll in the last five decades. There’s been little progress. Cultural stagnation is commonplace. Infrastructure, education, healthcare and common courtesy are all failing. Many of the elected representatives do not represent their districts, but rather the most vocal, well-heeled and easiest-bought members of the district. A great national malaise infects the rest, who rarely, if ever, pay attention to the political forces tearing them apart.

Now imagine a great tragedy befalls one province. Let’s call it an act of God. Millions are suffering, from both parties, but because one side dominates the politics in that region, the other will not give aid to those suffering even though members of its own party are among those in need. “They’re getting what they deserve,” the angry partisans shout. “We won’t help them because they think differently than we do,” they claim – although, again, many living in the affected area are members of the angry minority. 

Further, let’s imagine that party is so morally bankrupt as to place at its titular head a human being convicted of felonious crimes that include cheating, lying and worse. Also, imagine that leader had been rebuked by the legislative branch of the national government not once, but twice and has been charged with trying to undermine the very government that person, after winning a national election, represents.

And to go even further, what if the opposition party, so convinced of its own righteous indignation failed to displace the corrupt leader in a national general election because its own members failed to vote to do even though they outnumber the party whose titular head is a corrupt mountebank, grifter, charlatan and poltroon. 

Imagine a people so distracted by the pursuit of trivial matters and ridiculous entertainment, a nation of people so uneducated as to be unaware of their own form of government, that it accepts corruption in its education, politics, entertainment, media, journalism, business and religion. Imagine the two political parties act as if one has no heart while the other has no head. Citizens on both sides of the political divide wail and gnash their teeth at their collective plight though they are responsible for jumping into the stew in which they boil.

Finally, imagine the nation is one of extreme wealth and destitute poverty, surreptitiously run by a dozen billionaires who collectively control more wealth and capital than many other nations. Imagine that the ignorant of the nation continue to fight with each other over trivial matters of importance made to seem crucial by those billionaires who keep everyone fighting while they run away with more power and cash.

Outlandish, right? Sounds like a “Mad Max” dystopian movie starring Mel Gibson. Maybe that’s exactly what it is, for Mel Gibson has certainly added his own brand of lunacy to explaining our current political climate. Then again, perhaps it is a fever dream induced by LSD. At least that would explain why millions of people spout anti-science propaganda on cell phones made possible by advanced science. Maybe it also explains why some will declare they support free speech until you say something that pisses them off. But the truth remains that if you consider how uninformed the average person is, as George Carlin reminded us, half of them are worse than that. (Actually, that would be the median person, but I’m splitting hairs. Stupid is as stupid does.) 

I still don’t think that explains special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Donald Trump released this week. Smith and his team said they believed they could have secured a conviction against Trump over his attempt to subvert the 2020 election — describing Trump’s actions as “criminal efforts to retain power.”

First — no kidding. No prosecutor who filed charges would ever think they’re not going to win. They simply wouldn’t file the charges if they thought they couldn’t win. And while the Supreme Court quickly moved in a partisan fashion, giving Trump unlimited immunity for any “official act” that only they can determine to be official, the DOJ also dragged its feet in pursuing Trump. It’s almost like they underestimated Trump and thought they could take their sweet time prosecuting him.

The report itself is, in Trump parlance, a bit of a “nothing burger.”  Nothing in the 130-page report was a surprise. Hell, most everything, except for some of the nuance, was well-known and well-reported years ago. Smith did produce a nice narrative, however.

Finally, it only provided fuel for the fire. Trump came out and screamed more about “lawfare” and how everyone is out to get him, blah, blah blah. Trump called Smith “Desperate.” Trump eats it up. He can rail and blather about how somehow prosecuting him is actually prosecuting you and he’s going to stand up for you. It empowers his base. I must wonder at this point if Smith is as irretrievably stupid or simply a Trumper in disguise.

“Until Mr. Trump obstructed it, this democratic process had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years,” Smith wrote, referring to Congress’ certification of the Electoral College results, under the Electoral Count Act of 1887.

Again, we know this. And yet one party of anti-vaxxers, miscreants, racists, climate change deniers, radical Christians of the “Six Flags Over Jesus” church of the holy finger pointing, and hypocrisy don’t care. While separately these strange minorities have little influence because they’ve been marginalized since the Age of Enlightenment, Trump has welded the MAGA party into some kind of mythical medieval sword that makes the Democrats look like they’re hunting with spears. 

The point of course is that here in the age of post-enlightenment, where we hunt with automatic weapons and nuclear weapons, and reason as if we’re still cavemen, both sides have failed us miserably. So, we seem to be caught up in a downward-spiraling series of angry viral social media posts; cartoonish, yes, but still potentially fatal.  

So, in the imaginary country, what would you do if your representatives failed to represent you in a representative democracy? Would you stop and look around and see that those who vehemently disagree with you share much more in common with you than your differences? Could you? 

In the imaginary country, what would happen if both sides just kept screaming at the top of their lungs that the other side was wrong? Both sides, equally convinced they were right and equally determined to survive and rule, could end up ruling over nothing but scorched earth — literally.

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Donald Trump will take office in less than a week. For the second time, this dangerous grifter and polarizing cultural thief will be centerstage on the bully pulpit. He has demonstrated no ability to unite – only the ability to tear us asunder and millions of American voters from both sides of the aisle are riding along for the thrill of the carnage. 

Part of the problem in reading the report from Jack Smith was how many times he used the word “I” to describe his investigation and his choice to prosecute Trump. Sure, he wants to take responsibility – perhaps saving the dozens or hundreds of people who worked on the Trump investigation from being belittled, fired or prosecuted by Trump. But, it still plays into Trump’s hands. He can, has and will continue to paint Smith as part of some deep state effort as well as a rogue who had it in for Trump. Instead, the DOJ and the Democrats should show a little backbone and unity. It isn’t a small number of people who believe Trump to be corrupt; it’s millions. And the evidence has been in plain sight all along.

Nothing is more chilling than this statement from the report; “As set forth in the original and superseding indictments, when it became clear that Mr. Trump had lost the election and that lawful means of challenging the election results had failed, he resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power,” the report states.

In our imaginary country where logic might prevail, how best would the country proceed from this obvious revelation — even years after the self-evident truth was printed and distributed?

Who will counter the intellectual and political hustler who leads this imaginary country and cares nothing for anyone else? Who will step up to the leader who is aided and abetted by a ruling class of billionaires who wants to “come get some?” Who can communicate to the millions of stunted citizens who either cannot or do not want to understand that their long-term survival is being sacrificed for their short-term gain of being able to angrily shout, “We are right” while those in the know mumble “might doesn’t make right?”

President Joe Biden slouched off to Bethlehem in his best William Butler Yeats fashion Wednesday night, speaking to the American people for the last time as president. He spoke of the truth being smothered by lies while taking credit for the things he’d done as president. His closing address for America warned of the dangers of oligarchs and their potentially dangerous abuses of power being buried under “an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation.”

“Now it’s your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keeper of the flame. May you keep the faith,” he ended. 

Gloom, doom and hope. You laughed. You cried. It had everything.

For those reasons, while hope springs eternal and as James Baldwin noted “Love makes it all happen,” including every bit of our enduring civilization, I’d love to have a bit more hope than what Biden left us with. However, I am extremely disappointed in both political parties. The Democrats couldn’t even beat a convicted felon, and the Republicans couldn’t find a better candidate than a convicted felon.

The stench of American politics is overwhelming.