Tennessee WordSmith: A Liberal Dose, June 6, 2024: Donald Trump: Now and Forever, a Convicted Felon"

A Liberal Dose

June 6, 2024

“Donald Trump: Now and Forever a Convicted Felon”

Troy D. Smith

I am temporarily interrupting my attempt to outline the history of Israel and Palestine, important as I think that is, to address the historic events of last week.

For the first time in our nation’s history, a former president of the United States has been convicted of felonies in a court of law. 34 counts. Simultaneously, for the first time in the history of our country a convicted felon is the presumptive presidential candidate for one of the two major political parties. Of course, we’ve had a lot of firsts with this particular criminal. There’s never been a president who was impeached twice (in fact, this president has had half of all the impeachments in presidential history). There’s never been a former president even indicted for crimes. There’s never been a former president found liable in civil court for fraud and sexual assault. There’s never been a president who incited, encouraged, and cheered on a civil insurrection that involved an assault on the Capitol and efforts to kill his own vice-president.

A lot of people voted for this criminal in 2016 because they said he didn’t act like a politician, and boy were they right about that. None of us guessed then just how much worse than a regular politician a carnival huckster could be.

I know that many people in America are disappointed in this verdict, and even angry about it. That is understandable; people usually want their hero to win, and Donald Trump is a hero to a lot of people. Many of those people are saying the trial was a sham, a rigged process, an effort by Democrats to take down a challenger to the incumbent from their party. I understand their feeling that way -but they are wrong. This verdict came from twelve jurors made up of the defendant’s peers, after hearing all the evidence and weighing it in their minds -even though some of them lean very conservative. This is how our system works. This is how our system is SUPPOSED to work. If his other three trials ever get before a jury, THAT will be justice, no matter which way that jury decides after presentation of the evidence.

I posit that the injustice in this whole process is not that the conviction happened in a state that leans much more liberal than many other states; the federal government and the Democratic Party had nothing to do with the trial. The injustice is with those other three trials, which have been delayed and delayed by judges appointed by Trump, in hopes of pushing them past the election so they won’t affect his chances of winning and so if he does win he can call them off because he is president. A jury needs to decide those cases, and the public should have a chance to know what that jury decides BEFORE any votes are cast.

But we do know what happened in this one. Donald Trump was convicted on all counts. Now and forever, he is a convicted felon. Not that long ago, that would have permanently ended a politician’s career… but a lot has changed since the criminal first rode down that golden escalator to announce his candidacy. Well, maybe nothing has changed, but a lot more has become apparent about America and who we are, who we want to be, and who we are willing to be.

I’ve seen people comparing Trump, yet again, to Jesus -saying Jesus was also convicted in a sham trial but they still follow him. This strikes me as blatant idolatry- but not any more than all the other Trump-is-Jesus memes that floated around before this. It’s worth noting, though, that Jesus told his followers to lay down their weapons when he was arrested. Trump does the opposite, and in fact judges, attorneys, reporters, Democratic officials, and just known liberals have been receiving physical threats from Trump supporters. I know pearls are being clutched tightly as I say this, amid cries of “fake news.”

But I believe the felon will lose the upcoming election, and will not be able to permanently stymie those other, federal, investigations. The evidence will be presented, and jurors will evaluate it. I believe we will watch it happen in the next year or two, and the felony convictions will keep piling up.

None of this will matter to some people. But it will matter to just enough voters to change their minds on election day. The end is in sight for Donald Trump.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE