The Witness Chronicles June 10, 2023
The Trump federal indictments, smoke, and anger in America
I write about politics on Medium.com and these are recent stories from my recent writing. It’s actually a pivotal point in the American Democratic experiment after the serious federal indictment of a former President, an unprecedented event. I had an immediate visceral reaction and wrote about it. The most important fact about this indictment? The DOJ almost never loses a case and we can be sure they have carefully verified their evidence until it was inevitable that they must bring it to court.
No one is above the law. Now, be civil. We’re all in this together.
Make Jail Great Again: Reality Catches Up With Don
This isn’t fake, in fact it tells us the Constitution is solid
Ok, we just heard about the indictments last night and the info is spotty, but it looks as bad as we all knew it would likely be. Seven serious charges that carry serious time in prison.
We are about to enter a debate that could create chaos and potential domestic terrorism, as his rabid followers once again react to Trump’s inevitable calls for resistance to what he calls a political witch-hunt. It’s not, it’s the Department of Justice of the United States enforcing the law, law that no one is above.
This will be a test of this man’s monumental narcissism that says he is untouchable and far above any oversight. In case you have missed it he is willing to risk the lives of American citizens to protect himself.
He simply does not care about others. Not even his own family. In a bizarre turn we are hearing his daughter Ivanka wants to change her name so she can distance herself from her father.
And we thought Succession displayed a dysfunctional family with immense power.
The Republican Party is now facing an existential crisis they have been dreading and pretending was not a big deal. This is a big deal, a very big deal, the biggest I have have seen in my lifetime. Given that we have a half dozen or so competitive candidates for the Republican candidacy, watching their reactions will be our version of the Hunger Games.
We know Chris Christy will go for the throat, which should be entertaining. But the rest are basically milquetoast wimps scared to death of offending the Base, a mythological force in American politics that are, in fact, a minority of voters.
The reality is that no President or former President has been indicted for felony federal crimes, including espionage-related charges. And no DOJ Special Investigator would bring these charges without rock solid evidence. And no Grand Jury would indict without absolute certainty that Trump is likely guilty.
We’ve also seen Trump’s revolving door cast of attorneys trying every stalling tactic, no matter how absurd, with exactly no effect. They were trying to run the clock out to get closer and closer to the election so they could claim election interference with more conviction.
It is possible that some of those attorneys could be charged with obstruction of justice. There’s no other word for it, this entire thing is a shitshow. And we are witnessing a major event in the history of our country, a turning point.
The question is, are there Republican leaders who will finally disavow this grifter and liar who they have worshiped for years? The Senate GOP leadership has been noticeably quiet, but they serve in six year terms, which means they have a longer term perspective. House members, by nature, have a short term perspective, which encourages nutcases to find their way there.
Voters typically are more careful about who we send to the Senate. The beauty of our constitution is that it created a system of checks and balances in DC that so far has held up, despite Trump’s blatant attempts to co-opt it.
Fortunately for us, the Constitution is a rock solid contract that is very difficult to break. The charges we are seeing today, if they are upheld, are proof that our democracy can survive even the most difficult attacks by a man who, it turns out, may be nothing more than a common criminal.
Living in the House of Smoke
I can’t go outside
Yesterday morning those of us who live in the northeastern US were warned that even healthy people should not go outside because of potential toxic smoke from wildfires far up in northern Canada, a thousand miles away.
Our air quality index was above 300, which means very bad, dangerously bad (lower numbers are better, we should be at 50). New York City yesterday had the worst air quality on the planet, even worse than major cities in India and China where bad air kills thousands.
Here’s what the New York Times had to say this morning:
“New York City was filled with reddish haze yesterday, with its worst air quality on record. A Broadway matinee was interrupted when its star had difficulty breathing, and some nighttime shows were canceled. Pro sports teams in both New York and Philadelphia postponed their games. In Binghamton, N.Y., a meteorologist said that the area around him “looks like Mars” and “smells like cigars.” In Toronto, residents awoke this week to find a thick layer of ash near open windows.”
This is not like the smoky haze we’ve seen in recent years. That was high in the atmosphere where it made for cool sunsets. This stuff is different. It stinks. It’s like being downwind from a smoky campfire. Your eyes smart and wearing a mask starts to look like a very good idea.
This morning it has spread south and will affect the DC area, hopefully reminding climate denying congress members that something is very wrong and it is not just a thing in Florida. Not that it will do any good, those folks are bought and paid for by big oil.
I predict that this will be the summer where everyone in our country will experience the dire effects of climate change on a daily basis. My part of the country, western NY, has largely avoided fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, and the rest of the calamities. And we have lots of fresh, clean water.
But these past few days the sun has been an apocalyptic red orb seen through a thick brown haze, not unlike the suns in Star Wars movies. It’s pretty weird.
None of this is news to those on the west coast where air quality emergencies have become a seasonal thing. Northern Quebec, where these particular fires are raging, is not thought of as a big fire area. It’s usually a little too wet and cool. But unrestricted growth of underbrush from poor forest management combined with dry temps has turned those woods into the same firetraps we see in the West.
On top of this, in my area we are on our eighteenth day without rain, a record. The grass is drying out, a common late summer thing but it is still spring, when things are typically a lush green and we are surrounded by the sounds of lawnmowers and string trimmers.
Readers who have read my typical climate pieces know I am usually talking about Florida or CA and playing up my region as a climate island, a notion that is increasingly looking unrealistic.
No place escapes this stuff. And most of us are not doing much about it. Right now, around here, it is still a novelty, just crazy weather. But staying inside in June is going to get tired fast.
I wonder if our right wing politicians care. No, I actually don’t wonder. I know they don’t. It’s far more profitable to pretend that this is perfectly normal.
It’s not.
The Anger Merchants: Why is Everyone Mad As Hell?
The right burns with manufactured righteousness
Look at the daily portraits of the new GOP campaign trail. Every face seems contorted in a crazed look of fear combined with vindictiveness. Now, ask yourself, when is the last time you or anyone you know looked like that?
You know, mouth open, eyes burning holes in the world, snarls emitting from somewhere deep inside.
What the hell are they so angry about, all the time? After all, they are governors, House members, ex-Presidents, ultra wealthy, and floating on top of the attention pyramid. I can think of one face so dark I cannot imagine him smiling.
That happens to Stephen Miller, the craziest Trumper of them all, the guy who literally hates everyone. His own family won’t have anything to do with him. And he is as close to the extreme right in American politics as anyone can get. Behind the scenes of course.
This is a guy you really don’t want to feature in a campaign. I’m guessing he has been punched in the face more than once.
The leader in this portrait gallery of fake indignation is of course Donald Trump, who is simultaneously the eternal victim and the indomitable ruling force of the Universe. At least in his mind.
He has his snarl down. And he pulls it out at every photo op.
Except when some guy gets a picture of him when he is not aware he is being observed. Then we see a worn overweight pale-faced guy who looks like he could simply drop dead at any moment.
That’s the would-be leader of the free world. A tired old man who can still pull his anger out when needed, typically in ALL CAPS. But he has a legion of followers, not enough to win anything, who drank the koolaid and no longer have the ability to think for themselves.
Because if they did it would be like waking up from a nightmare and realizing you narrowly escaped doom.
Then there are the always angry but not very logical ones. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Matt Gaetz. Comer. Jordan. You get the picture. Oh, and George Santos who lied his way into the limelight but left a trail of deceit so glaring that he now faces jail time. His expression is faintly obstinate but obviously layered with fear.
Who am I leaving out from this gallery of faces I would love to never set eyes on again? Ron DeSantis of course, a man I despise for his love of repression for its own sake. He has the fake angry face and O-shaped mouth but it is his weirdly squeaky voice that grates like fingers on a chalkboard.
How did that robot get elected to anything?
This is the state of the Republican Party right now. A Party of anger, fear and vindictiveness based on…nothing real. Woke? Trans? Drag queens? Those are not things that represent a threat to anyone, much less the fabric of our society.
They are manufactured fears. Intentionally manufactured fears targeted at weak minds. At minds that don’t question the absurdity of reality TV or who find jokes about abused women funny while railing about something called grooming that they seem to think is the goal of all gay people.
Fact: gay people are not out to recruit or convert straight people to their cause. Or children. Find me one example of a person who can claim they were converted.
You can’t because it doesn’t happen. Yes, I know there are pedophiles but they are certifiably mentally ill.
The point of all this is that the fear and anger is not real. It is a lame strategy by the Republican Party to build a base by frightening the American people into distrust of their neighbors and anyone who does not look or act exactly like them.
Pundits, and sometimes I am one, read the daily tea leaves of politics and culture to try and find trends. They pay attention to things like polls on an election that is too far away to predict. They look at the favorability ratings of men and women vying for power and declare them to mean something.
Consider this: a 40% favorability rating is pretty good if no one ranks higher than 45%.
What those numbers tell us is that we, as a whole, don’t like any of them very much.
The Republican Party has decided that the way to change that is to make some of us hate and fear the rest, not to unify or create compassion for others who we share this planet and lifetime with.
It’s a disgusting and petty strategy to gain power. Anger met with anger never works out well for either party. We’re seeing that in places like Russia and Sudan where thousands are dying because someone in power wants more.
Humans in general are good. Put us one on one and we will eventually bond. It’s our nature.
Not those twisted artificial masks of anger we see daily in the media. Those are fake and designed to turn us to the dark side of ourselves. Be wary. Question beliefs. Trust others. Be civil. That’s all.
Unfortunately the anger I write about may be poised to explode, just as we enter a long, hot, and smoky summer. As a political observer there is a lot to keep up with. And now we hear that Ukraine has launched a long planned counter offensive utilizing a flood of modern weaponry, much of it American.
Russia has already started flooding us with misinformation. On top of this, Republican primary candidate Ron DeSantis released an AI-generated picture of Trump embracing Dr. Fauci, a disgusting example of that man’s willingness to alter reality to fit his own fantasies.
There is going to be a torrent of this, but I promise that every word I send you was written by a human, for better or worse!
Did you write today?
Martin Edic, actual human writer
2300 words
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