It’s the middle of the night as I write this, and I’m deeply troubled by Trump’s conviction. Why? Perhaps I’m hyper-partisan, perhaps not. I know I’ll never forget where I was when I heard about his conviction. I knew I’d remember it forever, just as I did when I first heard about 9/11, Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, President Kennedy’s assassination or the Soviet Union breathing its last. They were all moments when the clock stood still. The world was never quite the same afterward, and the question, always, was what comes next.
My friends who believe either that what happened to Trump was not such a big deal or that the rule of law is not yet totally corrupted because Trump is likely to prevail on appeal miss the point. Anarchy at this level in America is outside of any of our experiences. Even those who dislike Trump recognize injustice in the same way that Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart recognized pornography: “I know it when I see it.” Trump’s conviction is a metaphor for pornography.
I have watched a man who does not need us, even though we need him, dragged through the streets of New York in an almost medieval manner. All that was missing was either tar and feathering him by breathless spectators or cries of “hang him.”