The Excitement of having a Felon for a President
Trump was found guilty on all 34 charges brought against him in a New York court this past week. It’s all anyone seems to have been able to talk about, all excited about the fact that this is the first time that a (former) president has been charged with a felony. While he’s far from the first president who should have been charged with a crime, and while we can hope that he won’t be the last, what will be more impressive will be when he achieves the distinction of being the first convicted felon to win a presidential election.
Now that will be exciting.
Not so much the second presidency of Trump. That will be as dangerous and as much of an aggravating clusterfuck as the first time he did it. What will be exciting will be what happens after, thanks to the precedent this will set.
Just think of how this will break down barriers for other criminals that want to be president.
In this sense, Trump is a pioneer. Plenty of criminals have become president, and plenty became criminals while being president, but none of them were ever officially charged and convicted. And while there have been a handful of felons who tried running for office, none of them ever made it or even got very far. Leave it to Trump to break that glass ceiling. He’s showing all the hopeful, starry-eyed young crooks and con men that they too can rise above the misfortune of having been made legally responsible for their unlawful actions and become the most powerful person in service to the most powerful corporate oligarchs in the world.
Before now, many folks were under the false notion that the infallible Constitution of the United States must have some clause or footnote specifying that criminals are not allowed to be president. Those with a little more legal and political savvy might’ve known that while a felon technically could be president, they didn’t think that it actually would happen. The assumption would be that the voting population wouldn’t be stupid enough to support a convicted felon and believe that they actually have their, or the country’s, best interests in mind. Well, those wonks didn’t reckon with the shameless narcissism of Donald Trump or the profound stupidity and pathetically cultish obeisance of his voter base.
Once Trump and his zombie horde demonstrate that they can overcome adversity and install a literal legally confirmed criminal administration, we’ll be set to have more and better criminal presidencies follow. Because, we all have to be honest, Trump’s crimes are relatively boring. They’re as boring, stupid, sloppy, and gross as he is. Imagine electing a president who committed a really juicy crime. Like a murderer. Say what you want about murder, you can’t deny that having an open murderer as president would be interesting. Or what about a terrorist, someone who likes blowing shit up or setting stuff on fire? An arsonist president would be thrilling. Or a serial killer? That would be a roller coaster presidency if ever there was one. None of these sad old sleazy perv crimes. Imagine knowing that the president of the United States has killed before and has a compulsive need to kill again. Imagine the news stories and speculation every time a staffer hasn’t been seen for a while, and the breathless coverage when pieces of their body are found wrapped in plastic and stuffed in a suitcase in a dumpster behind the White House. Now that will be real political drama.
That is the future that we have to look forward to, thanks to Trump and his thralls. That is the future of American politics, and we have him and his hapless gaggle of jackasses to thank for it.