Hope springs from a jury room
A New York jury offered a tonic to the American soul last week when it convicted Donald Trump of 34 felony charges for trying to cover up hush-money payments to a porn star immediately before the 2016 election.
Nobody is above the law, not even a former president. The truth prevails.
Again and again, the American way has stood up to the assault against our values: Voters rejected Trump in 2020 and 2022. State and federal election officials and courts dismissed Trump’s many claims that the vote was stolen. Juries found that he falsified bank records and that he sexually assaulted a woman. One way or another, Trump will be held accountable for sparking the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection that resulted in hundreds of criminal prosecutions.
The system has held.
That’s something to celebrate.
Who cares what the sentence is? The verdict is good enough alone. A jury of his peers — and Trump is nothing if not a creature of Manhattan — found beyond a reasonable doubt that he is a felon. One could understand that the judge might want to hang him after Trump called him corrupt for the umpteenth time. One also can appreciate the impracticalities of delivering the convict to prison in a motorcade of black limos.
Trump has built his own prison at Mar-A-Lago. He is a loser, and he can barely live with that. He is a slug and a thug. A punk and a pervert. The jury believed Stormy Daniels, not Trump. He is a fraud, certified by seven men and five women.
It will have an impact. Polls before the verdict suggested that Trump could lose 7% of his base support with a conviction, and a larger percentage of Nikki Haley supporters said they would not vote for Trump as a felon. They might not vote at all. They may go for RFK2 or the Libertarian. Independents who decide swing states will not be impressed.
Trump probably will win Iowa regardless. The state’s Republican politicians chanted “sham” in unison — even Gov. Kim Reynolds, whom Trump had disenfranchised for supporting Ron DeSantis. Such is his devious hold over the Grand Old Party. His base grows tighter with each indictment or conviction.
Trump calls himself a political prisoner, and fools soon part with their money when he blurts it out. His base alone is not enough.
Most Americans are tired of his show.
Black and Brown voters are said to be not as enthusiastic about President Biden this time around. Younger voters, too. As Biden might suggest, what are the alternatives for an Arab in Michigan who sees Gaza as a genocide? Trump? Cornel West? Get real, man. Trump said immigrants are poisoning our blood. Are Mexican Americans really okay with that?
Are you okay with a convicted felon as the president?
Most of us are not.
We are frustrated. We have lost a lot of trust. But we have not given up on democracy or justice. Facts still matter in court. What is right still matters. Joe Biden was duly sworn in. The Republican secretary of state in Georgia was courageous under Trump’s fire. The jury in Manhattan found that he used fraud to influence the 2016 election. Intimidation did not work. The process did work. It will continue to work.
Trump will appeal. Nothing can erase the verdict from the public record. Biden will cheerfully call Trump a loser and criminal from Phoenix to the Philly suburbs. Were we better off four years ago? Certainly not.
We’ve dealt with this kind from the days of Benedict Arnold through Jefferson Davis. It’s amazing how resilient the Republic remains. Justice was served by an independently elected local prosecutor willing to put up with the abuse. Democracy will be served when Trump loses again in November and the Republican Party comes back to its senses. This verdict was a huge step in that direction. The center is holding. Celebrate the brilliance and fortitude of America, always in the process of self-correction.
Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this column appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.
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Your words are a light in what sometimes seems like a dark tunnel (witness the WSJ’s focus on Biden’s age). Even with an assault on the union by so many Republican politicians, whom we should be able to trust as our elected leaders, the republic holds at the grassroots level. Thanks for your encouraging voice this morning, Art.
Thanks for the healthy dose of optimism, Art! We need that!