Yesterday's huge news

Donald J. Trump at Dordt University, January 23, 2017

I didn't see the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001. Let me take that back--I didn't see the collapse until hours later. No matter, really. When I did, the world was still stunned into silence.

No single building was attacked yesterday. The Washington Monument--and Lincoln and the Vietnam War Memorial--all the commemorative spots in the nation's Capital are in one piece this morning. Nothing happened yesterday to compare with what happened on September 11, 2001, a day those who were awake to the events have imprinted on their memories.

But I'm interrupting a series of posts about the sad goings-on at Sioux Center Christian Reformed Church because I'm convinced that what happened yesterday in this nation is just as significant a event as the catastrophic fall, under attack, of the Twin Towers in New York City. It demands our close attention: a former President of these United States was indicted by a grand jury who had listened to evidence provided to them by Special Council Jack Smith, a Department of Justice attorney. 

Yes, it wasn't Trump's first indictment--it was his third, to be exact, and yet another is expected as soon as this week. More than a few news outlets led with this line: "Trump Indicted Again. .  ." It's almost impossible to read that line, the last word especially, and not roll your eyes, a perfectly human reaction because ever since he and his wife descended that Trump Tower elevator to announce his candidacy for the Presidency of these United States, Donald J. Trump has totally obliterated any other newsmaker, just as his candidacy and his Presidency totally dominated news coverage. Nothing about him is small; nothing he does originates from an unplugged mic. 

Here's the lay of the land. A former President of the United States has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the nation "by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit to obstruct the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election"; by conspiracy to impede the Jan. 6 congressional proceeding; by a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have that vote counted; and by obstruction of, and attempt to obstruct and impede, the certification of the electoral vote.

That's what happened yesterday. That's where we are this morning, a place the American people have never, ever been before. We are living through an astounding moment in American history, something that not only rivals but exceeds 9/11 in its gravity and danger to our way of life, to democracy itself. 

I turned to Fox News yesterday, where the commentators were making claims that what the DOJ was doing was charging the former President with behavior that falls firmly under the aegis of his First Amendment rights, the right to free speech, intimating that it was clear to them that the charges would not hold up in court because they were merely a matter of politics, Trump being the clear front-runner in the 2024 Republican Presidential sweepstakes. The only reason they're going after him, Fox's people say, is because he's winning. 

And more. Fox's hosts and guests are convinced that the very same U. S. Department of Justice has fabricated these charges to cover up the much more heinous behavior of one Joe Biden, who along with his drug-addled, criminal son Hunter, undertook and accomplished an immense grift, millions of dollars in bribes and payoffs. 

According to Fox, the compelling story yesterday was not what Donald J. Trump might have done, but what a corrupt government in Washington had already done to keep the Donald from free speech--speech in which he claimed he'd won in a landslide in 2020, as he is fond of saying. 

The sides are well-established and fortified. You either buy the goods Jack Smith is selling, or you buy the truths Fox markets. Either way, in juxtaposing those two notions of the truth, it's impossible not to see that the U. S. of A. is abysmally divided--and that's immensely dangerous right now.

And he's done it--Trump has. Americans on both sides of the political divide find it difficult to believe that what happened yesterday was as momentous as anything in this nation's history--a President of these United States has been accused of attempting to erase the votes of the vast majority who oppose him (seven million votes separated the two of them in popular count). A President of the United States was accused of trying to alter the truth in order to stay in power. 

That's what happened yesterday. 

One of the most rightly famous Donald J. Trump lines was uttered right here in northwest Iowa, at the college where I graduated, where I taught for almost 40 years, Dordt University, in Sioux Center. No one has forgotten the line. It went like this: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters." 

And then he said, "It's incredible." I can't help thinking that Trump himself was shocked at the loyalty his candidacy had almost mystically created. He was himself surprised, stupefied. Understanding the Trump phenom is complex and mysterious, and Trump's own way of holding on to the immense power he still has is by flattening everything into an either/or position. You're either for him or you're a commie or fascist--you're someone who hates America. Make it easy, he thinks, and then say it a thousand times because eventually people will believe it, including 80% of my neighbors.

The Dordt appearance was January of 2017, six years ago, when he was running for the nomination of the Republican Party. Nothing's changed. At this moment, only one legitimate contender is registering enough popular appeal to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination, and that man, Florida's Gov De Santos, is sinking in lead boots he put on his own feet. Yet, even though DeSantos has no problem determining who is his opposition, he's scared stiff of saying anything negative because Donald J. Trump could stand in the BJ Haan chapel and shoot somebody and not lose any voters.

Yesterday was for the history books, but most people, I can't help but think, simply scratch it up to politics. It wasn't "just politics." No single phenomenon could be as injurious to the nation and its culture than a slapdash shrug of the shoulders to yesterday's Trump indictments. Yet, that's how we all--me too!--react. So far has he hardened us to his treachery and falsehoods. We've become accustomed to it, but nothing else in our nation's history comes near to flattening America's own moral compass.

They're serious, and he's serious. Yesterday was huge. Huge. So much of what we are is at stake here.