In case you haven’t heard, a
jury convicted Donald Trump on all 34 felony
counts in the famed New York hush money trial.
And today is a good day.
Although we don’t know what will
happen next, between the inevitable appeal
process and the upcoming presidential
election, we do know what has gone down up
until this point. The conviction of Trump who,
ironically, as a convicted felon, will be
unable to vote in his home state of Florida as
he has sought to undermine Black voters -
means many things and reminds us of many
things.
Trump’s conviction reminds us
that in any other country, a president who led
a coup attempt would have been imprisoned
under the jail or forced to flee into exile in
another country.
Trump is a reminder of the
mediocrity, corruption and narcissism of our
political leadership, and the gullibility of
voters who have bad political options and are
known to make unwise decisions at the ballot
box. Wealthy men in high places with the
complexion for the connection (white, that is,
and orange in Trump’s case) rarely face
consequences for their actions. No
comeuppance. The Donald is by no means the
first or only criminal U.S. president - we see
you Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon, you too
George W. Bush - but he is the first convicted
felon president, so there you go.
And the ex-president’s
conviction reminds us of the cold-bloodedness
with which he treated young Black men. Let’s
go back to 1989, when the Central Park Five,
five Black and Latino teen boys were
wrongfully convicted for the brutal rape and
beating of a white woman jogger. At the time,
Trump placed a full-page
ad in the New York Times
calling for the death penalty for the five
teens. After spending many years behind bars
for a crime they did not commit, they were
exonerated, and one of them is now a New York
City councilmember.
So now the former president -
who has criminalized Black and Brown, Muslim
and Latinx people for votes, media exposure
and for cash money - now has a criminal
record. In a nation where darker folks have
been locked up for nothing at all, or for
something as inconsequential as allegedly
stealing a candy bar, voting or a possessing a
dime
bag of weed, powerful people such as Trump
commit the real crimes. Stealing a whole
actual country, stealing trillions of dollars,
scheming to become a dictator for life - these
are true crimes, to be sure. But usually, the
crimes of the rich and powerful are not on the
books, in a system with laws designed to
protect them. And in any case, punishment is
reserved for the poor and powerless.
Trump is a reminder that a
racist man with a low mentality and no
accomplishments beyond his inheritance can use
the media to manufacture an image of a
successful real estate mogul and titan of
business, when in reality he was a two-bit
hustler and a crook. No one asked New Yorkers,
who knew this from day one. The media
executives who greenlighted The Apprentice and boosted their ratings
– and Trump’s electoral prospects - by
centering him in their news coverage and
programming must take some of the blame for
this Frankenstein monster.
Finally, the Trump conviction
reminds us that despite the jury verdict,
Trump remains a viable candidate for
president, and America cannot afford to make
the same mistake twice. And a system where
that is possible is itself criminal.
