American Politics

They Have Him Dead to Rights and it Might Not Matter

It’s the greatest goof of all time.

You might remember a film in 1997 called The Devil’s Advocate starring Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves. But also, you might not. It did well at the box office at the time, but is not a film that is today widely remembered, except for one particular monologue, delivered by Pacino in a way that only he can. He was mid-career at the time, in full stride and to no one’s surprise, playing the Devil.

In this scene, the Devil describes what he sees as the evil in the way that God has twisted his human creation into knots by giving Man instincts and free will, but then,

“What does he do? I swear for his own amusement, for his own private cosmic gag reel, he set the rules of in opposition. It’s the goof of all time. Look…but don’t touch. Touch…but don’t taste. Taste…but don’t swallow. Hahaha. And while you’re jumping from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He’s laughing his sick, fucking ass off. He’s a tight ass, he’s a sadist. He’s an absentee landlord. Worship that? Never.”

But there are people who still believe in God. Always have been, probably always will be. This, despite all evidence that would seem to point reasonable, rational, logical people to draw a different conclusion about the existence ofthis entity.

The same goes for Donald Trump and everything surrounding the January 6 hearings. Everything that preceded this process, everything that has come to light in it and everything that is going to happen after it shows that Trump still controls everything about the Grand Old Party. Anyone with any hope of getting elected must hop from one foot to the other before kissing the Ring of the Big Lie.

And they have to really mean it, otherwise they will be branded a RINO and that is the kiss of death these days for anyone with aspirations of political office. That particular turn of phrase has suddenly taken on a more literal meaning of late.

He has pulled off the greatest goof of all time, on par with the one Pacino alludes to in the clip. An orange man from a golden tower in Manhattan convinced a North Carolina pig farmer that he cared about him, so he got his vote and maybe some of his money. The Orange Man didn’t say too much about the pig farmer’s economic circumstance, he didn’t have to. He made it so that other things were much more front of mind for the pig farmer.

He proved time and time again that he didn’t care a single jot about the pig farmer or anyone else for that matter, and yet the pig farmer happily voted for him again. And when that Orange Man lost and said that the election had been stolen, the pig farmer went to the Capitol, despite the potential pain of death or at least arrest, trial and conviction and did the kind of dirty work that the Orange Man would never dream of doing himself. And he would probably gladly do it again, if his leader suggested it, nevermind insisted on it.

Trump lost the popular vote twice. He lost every legal attempt to block the results of an election and so he resorted to illegal means. He lost that too.

You don’t hear of too many politicians with such a record of complete and dismal incompetence in front of the people that support him get a second, third or fourth chance. He is an abject failure at everything he has done in his life.

And it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter to people who are impervious to facts.

He is still the leader. He is still talking. And people are still listening. The money is still coming in. It’s hard to tell how many of them there are, those that are still in thrall. Maybe they are smaller in numbers than we know. Maybe they are bigger. Maybe Republicans won’t retake the House and the Senate in November. Maybe they will. If they do, maybe they won’t exact revenge on those behind these hearings. Maybe they will.

We do know that the foot soldiers — the North Carolina pig farmers that would actually put on their ball caps and tactical gear — have shown that they’ve moved beyond tiki torches and now have zap straps in their back pockets.

But they have him dead to rights, you say. Don’t they? Anyone can see that, surely. Anyone can see the way that the rats are scurrying off the ship that appears to refuse to sink. Anyone can see that they are not doing it for any other reason than to save their own rodent skins. The very real threat of arrest, indictment, trial, conviction and prison time has a strange yet predictable way of creating the appropriate motivation in human behaviour.

The amount of anxiety this must be repeatedly causing the part of the American population that still believes in the rule of law must be mind boggling. To know that despite everything that so glaringly points to a criminal conspiracy to overthrow the elected government (and make money while doing it), he might still get away with it. He has skated through his whole life without ever having to take responsibility or face consequences. It’s reasonable to ask, why would anyone believe this time it’s going to be any different?

But the Department of Justice has to act, right? Right???? It will act. Right???

What if it doesn’t? What if despite the overwhelming evidence of criminality on the part of Trump and his entire administration, it does not find sufficient grounds to pursue charges? What then? Well, I’ll tell you what then. The end of democracy in America and a guarantee that the Biden Administration will be a blip of calm before the real storm comes in 2024.

What if it does? Then, a significant percentage of the population, already aggrieved, impervious to facts and stoked by the flames of an endless supply of crackpot conspiracy theories, to say nothing of incredibly well armed, will be ready to take action. Action that this time, it can be reasonably assumed, will make January 6th the controlled visit of tourists that Republicans and Fox News desperately want to make it out to be.

It is not a good place to be right now, the United States. Literally and figuratively. If we hurry up, Al Pacino still has some good years left and we can get him to play Trump in the movie version of the collapse of American democracy. What he does with some of these speeches will be the Greatest Goof of all time.

A bit more reading on this and other topics of American politics from earlier in the month

I really do hope that you like what you have just read. If you want unlimited access to thousands of writers, consider a subscription to Medium. It will set you back $5 a month and if you use this link, then I get a slice of that and I will be able to take the day off the day of the sentencing of the Orange Menace.