Donald Trump spent his entire presidency humiliating women, immigrants, people of color, and even those with disabilities, but today he’s the one squirming in shame.
As a journalist covering the Trump administration, I spent a lot of time pondering what it would feel like when this man would finally be held accountable for his actions. I’ll admit that on some days, I thought this day would never come. But here we are. Nothing will ever be the same for Donald Trump. He has been indicted. This has never happened in the history of the United States. The former president is facing criminal charges and because they are sealed, it’s unclear what they are. So in the indelible words of Natasha Bedingfield, the rest if still unwritten. But what’s clear is if you’re alive, and you’re reading these words, you are part of history.
As I said almost exactly five years ago on MSNBC, the Stormy Daniels story was never about sex, it was always about power and corruption. While the media mostly focused on the affair and salacious parts of the story, the best case scenario was that Donald Trump was a cheating pig (something I also said on air). The worst case scenario on the other hand, is what we have a front row seat to right now. If the former president is found guilty of what Stormy Daniels is accusing him of (using campaign funds as hush money to silence the affair) Donald Trump will be a convicted felon. He will be fingerprinted, get his mug shots taken and could face jail time. While he was the first president to lose the popular vote twice, be impeached twice, and call for an insurrection, he is also the first president to ever be indicted…because of an adult film actress that he tried to destroy and smear, no less.
Donald Trump spent his entire campaign and presidency degrading women and Black folks, and it shouldn’t be lost on us, that those are the very people who brought him to justice today. Alvin Bragg, who is the first African-American Manhattan District Attorney, has indicted a white man who launched his political career on a virulent racist attack on the first Black president. And any day now, Donald Trump will be entering the same walls that the Central Park Five did 34 years ago, after he took our a page in the New York Times, demanding their unlawful arrest. That same newspaper, the New York Times, the one Donald Trump spent years trying to shut down, is the one that broke the news of his own indictment. And Stormy Daniels, the woman he tried to silence into submission, will go down in history as the patriot who took down the most openly misogynistic president in American history. What a way to go out.
While Donald Trump was a cruel reminder of the most repulsive parts of America, justice is triumphantly being carried out by the most tenaciously virtuous parts of it. After spending years trying to erode the social fabric of this country, Donald Trump has finally succumbed to the reality that even the most resolute iron fist, couldn’t break it. He could weaken institutions, but he couldn’t weaken us. Did it take far too long for him to face consequences? Sure. But the best things in life are best enjoyed in small sips, rather than big gulps. The last few years have felt so fast, so let yourself slow down, and indulge in this one. You deserve to savor this moment. Today was a good day. And you my friend, were a really big part of it.
Trump is vile but I think you are too quick to celebrate. He is not in our rearview mirror yet. I don’t think an indictment will slow him down or his supporters. How many scandals has he somehow slipped through without serious consequence? Democrats need to get real and get a candidate that can defeat him. And it is not Joe Biden.
Despite all of the bad things he has done, Donald Trump is still very popular amongst Republicans. He's still the GOP frontrunner for 2024 - by a huge margin, too.
I used to be a Republican, but I can no longer support the GOP. They have gone completely off the rails. I don't like everything the Democrats do, but they are by far the lesser of two evils.