A grand jury in Georgia has come back with a staggering RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) indictment featuring 19 criminal defendants and 41 felony charges. Donald Trump is the main defendant listed in this indictment, but others include his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, and his former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
There is a lot of detail in this indictment, which is 98 whopping pages long. More will be said in the days and weeks to come from legal scholars, political pundits, and average people around the country, but there were a few things from Georgia DA Fani Willis’ press conference that really stood out to me as I was listening. The most disturbing part was realizing that prosecutors are actually considering this a “criminal enterprise,” as she described.
Many of us have been calling Trump and his allies criminals (among other things) for years. For Trump’s entire life, he has been gaming the system. I mean, Trump has always been a sketchy creep, to say the least, yet people voted for him anyway, in droves. That is already bad enough, but with the 2020 election and the time since, we have seen just how many people would be willing to go down with Trump, not just down in the gutter politically, but actually follow him to prison.
Now we are seeing that there were a lot of co-conspirators, now 18 of them named, that may be serving real time for following their leader and his illegal wants and wishes. More are on social media or TV spewing his talking points for him—everyone from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene to Senator and former Trump Rival, Ted Cruz.
This leads me to my main point: The facts of the matter have to be clear because Trump and those in his orbit are so criminal in nature that it may be hard for the average person to follow. But plainly, here goes:
Trump is a baby and couldn’t accept defeat. He and his allies tried every tool that they thought they had at their disposal, legal AND illegal, to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The federal case brought by Jack Smith, and then the Georgia case, are related to criminal acts allegedly perpetrated by Trump and others to try to steal a fair and free election. We have yet to see what the outcome of the trial will be, but from what we all saw for ourselves publicly in addition to the damning evidence revealed in these cases so far, this is treasonous behavior.
There! That wasn’t too hard!
Democracy is a fundamental tenet of the American experiment. It is something that has to be fought for and that can be taken from us. We came closer to losing it than many realize or are willing to admit. This is something that is becoming clearer as the evidence in all of Trump’s indictments comes to light, but people often speak about democracy as some theory, as some intangible force.
In a Democracy, people matter. Even for Trump loyalists, they must envision an alternate scenario. I have not seen reporters present this alternative to them, though. What if Hillary Clinton, who actually received more popular votes in 2016, had done what Trump did? What if she refused to concede? What if she pushed forward lie after lie about how the election was stolen? One of Trump supporters’ favorite rebuttals to holding him accountable for everything he’s done in the wake of the 2020 election has been that Clinton and other Democrats have called Trump an illegitimate president—so, his supporters argue, what is the difference between that and Trump’s 2020 election reactions?
But despite that many of the reasons for those statements were proven facts, unlike Team Trump’s intentional lies, neither she, nor then-president Barack Obama, encouraged her supporters to disrupt the official certification of the election. They didn’t seek illegal access to voting systems in the pursuit of “proving” claims they knew to be false. They didn’t watch rioters attack a federal building, destroying property and injuring/killing people, while choosing not to do everything in their power to stop it. They didn’t disenfranchise millions of Trump voters, essentially saying that their votes were irrelevant.
What if Trump supporters had to live under that tyranny and there was nothing that could be done? Trump supporters too often do not have to consider anyone else. Their reality has been so warped that they cannot see what horrible precedents Trump’s behaviors have set and how they’re not the same as those of his opponents.
Democracy matters because, on some level, we do not want to accept that people can take power by any means necessary. People from all political stripes—right, left, and everything in between—must realize that an abuse of power, even if it is perpetrated by people that they align with politically, is not good in the long run. I have seen some of my friends call for actions, by liberal politicians, that would amount to dictatorial overreach. They do this because they want what they want when they want it, but I ask them to think, what about when Conservatives try and do the same? If this is allowed, what will stop them then? One of the worst things about Trump’s behavior has been the precedents he has set. I cannot stress this enough. Yes, he and his ideas and policies are repugnant, but his authoritarian methods must be rejected regardless of politics.
So, as we move further into the 2024 elections, with many people already announcing their run for the presidency, we must hold every single person’s feet to the fire: either you are in support of democracy or you are in support of Donald Trump. You cannot claim both—point blank, period. We cannot let people off the hook who say that they care about the welfare of the American people but will support Trump if he’s the nominee. That is not good enough.
Too many public officials and wannabes have tried to have it both ways, not condemning Trump outright but not supporting him either. The Republican primary debates will be starting soon. In the midst of them will be criminal proceedings for their frontrunner. This is not normal, and they must face that head-on. What do they believe?! We, rational people, have to all stand in support of our country and its freedoms and make sure that Trump and his cultists face the consequences of their actions. Anything less would mean that certain people are above the law, and not just for minor crimes, but for trying to overturn democracy itself.
(featured image: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
