The most remarkable thing about the news related to the historic indictment of Donald “Take Down the Metal Detectors” Trump by a New York state grand jury in Manhattan last Thursday afternoon so far is the unhinged nature of reaction from the Republi-fascist (Rf) Party. From House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Rf-CA) to House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (Rf-LA), the third-ranking House Republican Elise Stefanik (Rf-NY), Virginia governor Glen Youngkin, Senator Lyndsey Graham [Rf-SC] (who teared up while telling people to send money to “persecuted” Trump Thursday night), Senator Rick Scott (Rf-FL), former Vice President Mike Pence (who Trumpist rioters wanted to hang on January 6, 2021), Florida’s fascist governor Ron DeSantis and countless other leaders in the United States’ Christian white nationalist major party, the response has been clear: the indictment reflects the “political weaponization” of the criminal justice system by “radical Left” Democrats seeking to unfairly punish the (post-republican) Republicans’ 2024 presidential front-runner.
Never mind the unknown nature of the thirty-four counts and the evidence against Trump in the New York “hush money” case. The charges remain sealed. The evidence awaits a trial.
Never mind that there’s nothing remotely “radical” or “left” about the Democratic Party of “Hollow Resistance.”
Look at this tweet from DeSantis, the Republi-fascist presidential contender who has the most to gain from Trump’s legal problems but who wants to attract voters from his rivals’ base:
“The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head. It is un-American. The Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney has consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal misconduct. Yet, now he is stretching the law to target a political opponent. Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda.”
The most remarkable thing about this passage isn’t the dog-whistling antisemitism of (twice) calling New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg “Soros-backed” or the Orwellian absurdity of calling an elementary effort to apply the rule of American law to Trump an “un-American” inversion of the rule of law. It isn’t even the Yale Law School graduate DeSantis’ authoritarian evasion of the fact that the indictment was voted for by a citizen grand jury after reviewing massive amounts of evidence and testimony. It is DeSantis’s open defiance of the US Constitution’s Extradition Clause (Article IV, section 2, clause 2). Advancing lawlessness in the name of law and order is a classic calling card of fascism.
It’s clear that the Republi-fascists think that their orange-tinted Dear Leader and by extension their party should be seen as exempt from basic legal accountability.
Of course, nobody has been more fascistically incendiary in relation to Alvin Bragg and the legal process than Trump himself. Two weeks ago, while falsely predicting that he would be indicted on Tuesday, March 22nd, Trump issued a call that reminded many political observers of when he urged his cult followers to come to Washington D.C. on January 6: “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!…WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE…THEY’RE KILLING OUR NATION AS WE SIT BACK & WATCH.”
There followed a Trump post showing the former president holding a baseball bat aimed at Bragg’s head. Trump warned that an indictment of him would bring “death and destruction” to the nation. In other “Truth Social” posts, Trump called Bragg “a danger to our Country,” said that Bragg “is doing the work of Anarchists and the Devil,” and called Bragg—who is Black—a “racist” and a “Soros backed animal.”
Picking up on Donald “I Am Your Retribution” Trump’s violent and menacing tone, Fatherland/FOX News host Tucker Carlson – the Goebbels of the Republi-fascist Party – said last Thursday night that it is “probably not the best time to give up your AR-15s…The rule of law appears to be suspended tonight — not just for Trump, but for anyone who would consider voting for him,” Carlson added in classic Orwellian fashion.
The far-right dark web is certainly now glowing red with far-right calls for violence against “the deep state.”
Beneath all the paranoid-style right-wing hyperbole, the Manhattan indictment is arguably the least serious and possibly the most prosecution-challenged case hanging over Trump’s head. The orange malignancy is also being investigated by a special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, for his felonious attempted interference in the 2020 presidential election. He seems likely to be indicted there for this crime – for which there is publicly available slam-dunk evidence – this May.
At the federal level, the US Justice Department’s special prosecutor Jack Smith and his team are sifting through mountains of evidence (including this massive report from the US House select committee on January 6th) on the granddaddy of all Trump’s homeland transgressions (rivalled only by the pandemicide he committed): trying to overthrow previously normative bourgeois democracy and rule of law before, during, and after the 2020 presidential election – an effort that culminated in the January 6th Capitol Riot. Trump is also being investigated by Smith for absconding with classified documents and obstructing efforts to get them back.
The US-American state faces a conundrum with Trump, a puzzle that reflects real divisions within the nation’s ruling class as well as the broader populace. A bipartisan gentleman’s agreement has long excluded presidents and ex-presidents from prosecution. This reflects a shared ruling class understanding that the chief executive of the US-American Empire is called upon to commit real and potential war crimes and other crimes against humanity in defense and advance of capitalist-imperialist interests and power at home and (most typically) abroad. This criminal conduct has long included alliance with and sponsorship of dictators and repressive “Third World fascist” regimes around the world. Never before, however, has a US president engaged in a full-on putschist campaign to overthrow bourgeois electoral democracy and rule of law and to install himself as a de facto dictator in the imperial US homeland itself. Trujillos, Suhartos, Marcoses, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavis, Pinochets, Somozas, el-Sisis, and Saudi Crown Princes are for US-backed regimes, not for the Superpower that sponsors, equips, and protects them.
Even the demented authoritarian Richard Nixon (who would likely have been indicted but for the highly unpopular pardon he was granted by his successor Gerald Ford) understood the need to resign once he learned that some of his transgressions had made his legal removal from power unavoidable. He made no madcap calls for his racist and sexist “silent majority” to assault the judicial and representative branches of government to keep him in power.
I’m no fan of merely bourgeois democracy and rule of law, which cloak the underlying class rule of capital. Still, we must bear in mind the important difference between such badly qualified democracy on one hand and the fascist rule of force and men on the other hand. The former leaves breathing space and room for popular mobilization and struggle to bring about real popular sovereignty, social justice, peace, and environmental sanity. The latter does not: it signals the iron-heeled cancellation of all chances for a decent future; it is class rule with a jackboot on our necks.
Will the indictment in New York help or hinder the overdue task of locking up the unmitigated and malignant asshole Trump for breaking as president a myriad of state and federal laws while trying to establish himself as a fascist strongman atop the world’s most powerful and dangerous nation? That remains to be seen. The charges remain sealed and the evidence behind them has yet to be presented.
If nothing else, Alvin Bragg has perhaps taken some pressure off Fulton County, Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis and Jack Smith by going first and helping establish a new norm which says that yes, a former president is not exempt from indictment and prosecution for crimes against domestic US bourgeois democracy and rule of law, such as they are. The mug shot picture to be taken in two days is a very good thing.
The unhinged response to Trump’s indictment from other leading Republi-fascists should remind US-Americans that the fascist menace stalking their country is far bigger than just Trump. Neofascism has swept over most of one of the nation’s two major capitalist-imperialist parties and has hatched an arguably more dedicated and dangerous leader in DeSantis, who is licking his chops to succeed Trump as the top Christian white nationalist dog even while he seems to give Trump cover from prosecution.