Television commentators and late night hosts have wondered how it is possible that the DOJ is just discovering, thanks to the Jan. 6 Committee, that it’s possible Trump may have committed crimes. How can that be when we’ve all been watching him commit them publicly in broad daylight, on national television?
I think the answer is twofold. First, unlike you and me, the DOJ has to have a case so airtight even a gnat couldn’t get out. It takes time. Second, both law enforcement and Congress are accustomed to ferreting out crimes and criminals who try to hide all from discovery. They don’t know what to do with someone who brazenly boasts about planning them, then commits them on the public stage, and brags about having done them, while pointing fingers at the innocent as the true miscreants. They keep looking for the hidden among the obvious. It may also explain why his hard core followers are unlikely to abandon him, no matter what. They love the way he does what they only talk about privately over too many beers. They have a grudge of some kind against the authority others exercise over their lives, and how the elite get away with what lesser folk get punished for: or would get punished for if they had the guts to actually do what they constantly threaten to do. And there’s Trump, speaking as if he was one of their kind doing everything they’ve ever dreamed of doing, and doing it to the extreme right out in public view. He’s their hero. He may go down in flames, but to them they will be flames of glory. Like a demented Greek tragedy.
With that said, it’s likely the DOJ will file criminal charges against many senior White House advisors, probably some members of Congress and even a Supreme Court Justice, or at least his wife. Will they get Trump? It’s possible.
Will it end Trumpism? No! Trumpism is an ideology that now dominates the former Republican Party, and has taken on a life of its own. Ron DeSantis can hardly wait to become the new flag bearer. If he can contribute to Trump’s demise, he probably will. He’s learned from the master: throwing old friends under the bus is how any good mobster wrests control from the has-been old guard. Trumpists are ardent believers in an authoritarian form of “democracy” that can impose its agenda on an unwilling but passive public. They’ve been working up to this moment since Goldwater, and believe the time is now. Keep in mind, Trump is a crude but practiced street fighter whose only goal is to be the final winner of the brawl. DeSantis is a very intelligent strategist and political tactician who knows how to steer a movement.
Sadly, Trumpism is vigorously opposed by equally authoritarian radical leftists. Taken together, both groups represent many millions, yet they are a tiny minority of the voting age population. What gives either of them power is the passive complacency of sixty to seventy percent of the voting age public who favor American liberal democracy They number in the hundreds of millions, but count for nothing if they don’t assume the responsibility of citizenship. Indeed, the ideal of citizenship has drifted into the forgotten mist of middle school civics.
The radical left is loud, but very small, lacking critical mass. Trumpism has the critical mass its leaders think they need and must act boldly to seize the moment. They must be more boldly condemned. There can be no equivocation about a false equivalency with the weak radical left. Failing that, the tyranny of the minority may become ours to live with. Erstwhile libertarians who have supported Trumpists will discover their treasured freedoms to be gone in an instant.