Clarity About the Conviction

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I would rather not write anything about Donald Trump, nor even mention his name.

But I feel compelled to write on the subject of his recent felony conviction, only because I believe a critical question is being missed in the blizzard of commentary about it. 

What is worse for America? Trump falsifying business records in order to withhold embarrassing information from voters in the 2016 election – which is a felony?  Or Trump repeatedly denying the results of the free, fair, and decisive 2016 and 2020 presidential elections - which is perfectly legal free speech?

"I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally," he claimed in 2016, after having lost the popular vote by nearly 3,000,000 ballots.  And we all know of his constant denial of the unquestionable fact that he lost the 2020 election by over 7,000,000 votes.

We need to be clear: it is legal for Donald Trump to destroy democracy in America.  It is not a criminal offense to knock the foundation out from underneath our constitutional order.  He can’t be charged with a felony for doing so.  But it is constitutional to declare his behavior to be a “high crime and misdemeanor” against the Constitution itself, and be removed and disqualified from public office. For his 2016 denialism, he should have been impeached by the Congress on the first day of his presidency.

We’ve gotten so lost in the thicket of Trump’s felonious behavior that we have trouble remembering his worst behavior of all. Democracy = voting = public acceptance of free and fair elections.  Trump is intentionally and very effectively undermining that public acceptance, and he has badly damaged our democracy as a result.  This is much, much more awful than falsifying business records or stashing classified documents in his closets at Mar-a-Lago. I’d go further to say that his election denial is worse than his incitement of the January 6, 2021, insurrection and his effort to manipulate the Electoral College vote.  Without his vociferous denial of the election results, there would have been no “Stop the Steal” movement, nor would so many of his minions have gone along with his fake elector schemes.

The damage he’s done to this country is severe, but it is also insidiously hard to visualize or measure.  He has infected the minds of tens of millions of our citizens with outlandish nonsense.  He has bashed the informal norms of civic behavior upon which our legally codified norms are dependent.  But traffic still moves on our roads, hamburgers continue to be flipped, and baseball season still starts on time.  There’s still free speech in America, and people can say all the outrageous stuff they please – Trump included.  “Trump’s just being Trump,” folks say – normalizing what is completely unacceptable.

There are actions by people that are a whole lot worse than most of those that can earn a felony conviction in a court of law.  Trump’s assault on democracy fits that category. 

Let’s tell it like it is:  anyone who denies the result of a free, fair, and decisive election is an enemy of the Constitution of the United States and should be disqualified for holding any public office.  Until we get our message straight, we’ll be stumbling in the dust that Trump and his enablers have stirred up in order to have their way with America.