By Ken Zino
If you think four agonizing years of Trump mis-administration was enough to endure, or if you want four more years, history was made today. For the first time in our imperfect union, we the people must deal with a former president who now stands accused of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in Manhattan, which is part of New York, known, ironically, as the Empire State on its license plates.
Trump remains a citizen of the United States. Moreover, under our law with presumed innocence, the State of New York must now prove its case because Trump pleaded not guilty on all 34 counts. Trump’s contempt for our democracy and law without doubt will be displayed in the latest iteration of his latest presidential campaign -- aka, egotistical grievances and flouting of laws to gain and hold power. He is a stellar example, in my view, of how absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It is true that other presidents and politicians have broken the law. This time our entire democracy is at stake as a result of this corruption. Sadly, today is just an overture playing while cable TV audiences are seated. Whether Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis or the United States of America, as portrayed by Special Counsel Jack Smith are the second and third acts, or vice versa, remains to be seen. Eventually, the juries will be seated.
Thomas Payne, who cautioned us in 1776 that now is not the time for sunshine soldiers or summer patriots, is a reminder that we are what we were.
"Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other." [Emphasis added, of course.]
There are no secret supplications in my beating heart today. I will listen to the evidence as more of it unfolds ad nauseum in social media and cable news, but insurrection and the violent and fraudulent elector attempts to stop the peaceful transfer of power to a duly elected president remain against the law in the United States of America.
“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value,” Payne wrote. An ancestor of mine was in the militia during the Revolutionary war. Today, we all need to play such a supporting role here.