Enigma

The Dump* Enigma

Now that Dump has his four indictments on 91 counts, and four upcoming criminal trials in four courts with four judges, we still have a problem.

From all the living former presidents – Carter, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama – we hear barely a peep, but Dump is in the news in a big way on a daily basis. Why is that?

Dump is unique as having left the presidency in an age of the overuse of X (formerly Twitter), and became accustomed to using it in a way that no previous president had. All the previous presidents (of the cell phone era) were required to trade in their personal cell phones for highly secure Blackberrys, and none of them communicated on them with anyone outside government so they could not be tracked – an important requirement of the Secret Service. But Dump, having NO knowledge of the way the government is run, and contrary to the Secret Service recommendation, opted to keep his cell phone and to tweet out his every thought every second of every day. In other words, it was more important for him to remain in the public eye than to abide by common sense security requirements.

Now that Dump has been out of office for over three years, he still seems to think that people want to hear from him every day. Not true, but he is so enamored of himself, that that is what he chooses to believe. And the only brief respite we had was when Twitter briefly cut him off based on his rants, racism and calls for violence. Until he formed his own service – False Social – we had blessed relief from his daily nonsense, and I don’t think many Americans realized at the time how quiet and seemingly normal things had become. President Biden feels no need to tweet or X or whatever on a daily basis, preferring formal press conferences as his way to communicate with us.

Anyway, the issues here are that Dump never ceases. He is up at all hours posting nonsense, his daily lies about what is going on in government, international relations, the economy, and accusations of President Biden’s family being engaged in criminal enterprises, which is really no more than projection on his part. His family has actually been credibly accused of criminal activities and he and they are in court because of them, yet he points his finger at someone else’s family. Typical Dump. It’s always someone else who was or is doing what he himself has been accused of doing. I just know he did the same thing when he was a kid:  backed up against a wall in the kitchen with one parent or the other pointing a finger at him, and he stood there accusing another sibling of his own misdeeds, barely escaping a trip to the woodshed. So this is a lifelong M.O.

Additionally, of course, are the other things he says, accusing all of his court cases of being political witch hunts, even though the government, and President Biden in particular, have steered clear of the proceedings. There was sufficient evidence on each of the charges that four separate grand juries brought in four separate indictments against him, and that should be that. But having never been punished for any of his wrongdoings in life – except for the $25 million fine Dump University was forced to pay for having scammed its students – he is not going to let some simple indictments brought by federal and state grand juries go by without a fight.

And since his indictments, three of the four judges have warned him about what he can and can’t say, and one state court judge has also threatened him, and even fined him, and yet he is allowed to continue to post his lies and invective on False Social and in impromtu press conferences on courthouse steps, and during interviews and campaign events.

I know so many of us have had issues with this. Why would these judges let this behavior pass?

And I have the answer. The answer is the First Amendment to the Constitution. And it is not so simple as the actual prohibition of government censorship of “free speech;” it is that if the government, in the guise of these judges, were to stop him from saying these things, he would have his lawyers barking at the doors of the Supreme Court itself, challenging the First Amendment, and now is simply not the time to do that.

It is unfortunate that this is the case, because Dump’s constant lies, invective, incitement to violence, and other oral meanderings are dangerous. They are dangerous for public servants, potential jurors, potential witnesses, and for all Americans since they not so subtly call upon his violent extremist followers to act violently against those of us who want to protect America’s Democracy.

The interesting thing to see is what will happen when his first guilty verdict is handed down. He has engaged in criminal activities, and the juries will find him guilty, but will the judge(s) remand him to jail, or let him remain free pending appeal? I hope it is the former. And I hope it takes place before the Republican National Convention, because, as he seems to be the only viable republican candidate still running, he would normally have to be at the Convention to be formally nominated. And this would leave the delegates at the Convention in a bind because the only viable candidate would be a convicted criminal who was currently serving time in jail. The RNC could not remain a credible organization should it attempt to nominate a convicted felon. Hmmm. Rona McDaniels is stepping down at exactly the right time, so this won’t be something she’ll have to deal with when the time comes. She’s been spending all this time enjoying being in power and allegedly misusing campaign funds, but she hasn’t realized yet that her alleged abuses have helped her to leave office before what could be the worst career nightmare on the planet.

Back, however, to Dump. As the federal appeals court has decided unanimously that on January 20, 2021, Dump officially metamorphosed from President Dump to Citizen Dump, that means that he has no special privileges except for his Secret Service detail. And that means that he gets no special treatment in jail. Sure, they could permit his Secret Service detail into the prison to keep him from being assassinated or bullied by other prisoners, but he would not have access to telephones, computers, the media, nor would he be able to attend campaign rallies. He could claim that all of this infringed upon his First Amendment rights, and the government could claim right back that it did so no more than for the other prisoners. After all, being in prison, of necessity, abrogates some of the rights people have before they are imprisoned. That is why people don’t want to be in prison. He could also claim election interference – or, at least, interference with his campaign – but what will that matter if the RNC decides that they’d rather not have the nomination go to an imprisoned felon? His campaign would then have come to a screeching halt.

So the unfortunate consequence of all this is that, at least for the immediate future, we will be subject to Dump’s Daily Rants, and what we need to do is remain hyper-vigilant against any threats he may make, contacting law enforcement regarding any credible threats or acts of violence in our own neck of the woods, and agreeing to serve as anonymous jurors on his cases if we are called to do so. The best way we can protect our democracy is by using it, serving it, upholding it to the fullest extent possible. Allowing Dump’s brand of lawlessness to enter our consciousness is not the way to go, nor we will descend into anarchy – which, by the way, is exactly what Steve “Rasputin” Bannon is hoping for. He and Roger Stone and Putin have been whispering sour nothings into Dump’s ears for years now, and we can’t let our great democratic republic fall into their hands.

* A serendipitous contraction of the first letter of his first name and the last three letters of his last name.