The New York Election Disaster

      "Democrats are the party that says government can make things better. That gives us the responsibility of being good at governing."

          Ted Kulongoski, governor of Oregon, circa 2006

          

The New York election mess feeds a dangerous idea at a dangerous time.

Ted Kulongoski

I put the words of then-governor Kulongoski in quotation marks, but it probably isn't an exact quote. It is the gist of what he said in my living room in a campaign visit with supporters. Democrats, he said, make an implied promise to voters. Elect us and we will tackle problems; we are competent to fix them, and will do so. We break that promise when we screw up. Republicans have the easy path, he said. When they run things, and government screws up, it just proves their point. We have the hard job, he said. We have to perform.

The 2020 election campaign started off with a debacle in Iowa. Memories fade, but readers who think that only Republicans get crazy-deep in conspiracy nonsense are mistaken. Democrats, too, can believe the impossible if it fits a desired outcome. On election night in Iowa we saw a showdown between Bernie Sanders and an array of candidates who were Bernie-influenced, but more moderate in tone and policy. Bernie was the adamant change agent; Elizabeth Warren was more traditional, saying she was a capitalist reformer and not a socialist. Pete Buttigieg had a moderate message--keep your health insurance if you were happy with it. Biden was an afterthought.

The Atlantic, February, 2020

The software failed on election night. Precinct leaders who tried a telephone work-around were on endless hold. News people had no story to present other than of election night frustration and Democratic incompetence. 

There was an easy, visible, way to see approximately what the vote would be because the crowds at the Sanders and Buttigieg gathering spots were the largest and were approximately equal. In the long night of frustrating uncertainty Buttigieg went to the TV cameras, and declared his joy at his apparent win. 

He what? He claimed victory? Outrage!!!

We saw an eruption of conspiracy theories voiced by Sanders' supporters. The election mess must have been planned. Buttigieg knew he would tie Sanders, so he, in league with Hillary, the DNC, and the Iowa Democratic Party, secretly arranged with the computer company for the application to fail. Hundreds of people were in on it. They predicted Sanders would be slower to claim victory in a moment of ambiguity than would Buttigieg. The conspiracy's complexity just showed how clever and diabolical Buttigieg could be. 

I wrote about this in my blog in February, 2020. Click: Iowa Cluster****   Eric Trump weighed in. He agreed that Democrats rigged this. Click: Rigging  In this post I quote from Sanders' support groups. I quote "Marie": 

The DNC allowed this Bull. They knew about the App that Buttigieg's company made and Hillary's people worked, What kind of App only counts Pete Buttigieg. We are still Bernie or Bust period.

The comment of "Thanatos" is an early warning: 

It's time to declare the election illegitimate and boycott it. The US can either give us a new fair election, or we can make Bernie president by force.

The Iowa mess reminds us that election losers look for external causes for an election loss. The Trump Big Lie is unique not for existing, but because his claim of a landslide win became political orthodoxy within his party. It is possible because Trump continues to claim it despite evidence to the contrary, because friendly media echoes it, and because Republican officeholders and civic leaders give it silent consent. Within the tight circles of Sanders' supporters, it was unthinkable that a candidate they considered an unqualified corporate suck-up could beat their beloved Bernie Sanders. It had to be rigged. Trump was so polarizing a figure, that a critical mass of Trump supporters simply cannot believe that a man they consider a senile socialist puppet like Biden could possibly get seven million more legitimate votes than Trump. 

New York handed election skeptics confirmation. Republicans jumped on it. Tom Cotton called it "a corrupt scam" and "a disaster." Donald Trump spoke at an event in Texas:

We had an election where we did much better than we did the first time, and amazingly, we lost. Check out the New York election today, by the way. They just realized it's a disaster. They're unable to count the votes. Did you see it? It just came out. Their missing 135,000 votes. They put 135,000 make-believe votes in. Our elections are a disaster.

We are at a dangerous point in America, where Republicans are open to the idea that elections are not dispositive, not when a result is disappointing. After all, they are run by error-prone government.

Democrats messed up an election in New York. It was a bad mistake at a bad time. Ted Kulongoski warned us.

                                                    ---   ---

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America: Exceptional and Imperfect

We have nothing to fear by learning and teaching American history. 

"This land is stolen land and Black people still aren’t free."

          Cory Bush, U.S. Rep. (D) Missouri

     "Hateful, divisive lies. The Left hates America."

               Senator Ted Cruz, (R) Texas.

It is easier to reshape the history than to reshape the future.

Senator Cruz found a sweet spot in political messaging: Criticize Democrats, especially Black ones, who don't seem patriotic enough. Cruz's Tweet in response to the Tweet by Cory Bush included criticism of Colin Kaepernick, saying he, too "spread the same lies on July 4" two years prior.

1619 Project

The occasion of our national holiday brought new focus on American history. The Critical Race Theory debate lost connection to the CRT of academic analysis. It became oversimplified down to whether American history is the ascendancy of a great, good nation dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal, or whether we failed to live up to that foundational goal. The political left says we haven't. The political right accuses the left of saying we haven't, and they want the good, patriotic people of America to stop the left from telling that vicious, unpatriotic lie. 

I think it is possible simultaneously to be a proud, patriotic citizen while accepting that racism has been a constant element shaping public policy in our country. How else to read the words of defenders of slavery, from the first settlements in America through the Civil War? How else to understand Jim Crow and the opposition to the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s? How else to understand America's treatment of Indians? How else to understand the Chinese Exclusion Act?

How else to read our own Declaration of Independence, which justifies our rebellion in part because King George "excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages. . .?" The "domestic insurrections" referred to the British offering freedom to enslaved persons. "Indian savages" refers to the conflicts occasioned by colonists' failure to obey the British effort to maintain peace with the indigenous people by prohibiting settlement west of the Appalachians. 

A college classmate, Frank Raines, sent me this comment on patriotism and history. Frank led the Office of Management and Budget during a time America was in budget surplus and we were paying down the national debt. He later became CEO of Fannie Mae.

I am always puzzled by the general inability to keep two concepts in mind at the same time. First, the USA is an exceptional country with admirable features like elections, the rule of law and generous sacrifice for others less rich or powerful. Second, the USA has a deplorable record when it comes to its treatment of African Americans and Native Americans over the past 400 years up to today. One does not have to choose between these narratives or be defensive about them. They are what they are.

During my public school education sixty years ago, I learned a whitewashed history of happy, well-treated slaves--almost part of the owners' families--and Indians happily offering a warm welcome to White settlers, from Thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation west to the Oregon Trail. It wasn't a total fairy tale; the Gone With the Wind history shared the stage with Huckleberry Finn. The most important element of the education was the invisibility of Black and Native Americans from the history. Native Americans were a nuisance to be discarded, like the bison or the passenger pigeon. We memorized Oregon's state song in third grade, a land "conquered and held by free men, fairest and the best." We celebrated the removal of Indians and the exclusion of Blacks. 

American history wasn't about them. Blacks, Indians, people already here from Hispanic Mexico, then Chinese workers were briefly-mentioned victims and extras in the American drama. The history I learned in Medford's public schools was the history of the people who mattered, White Americans. 

Cruz understands that White Americans consider the past to be someone else's responsibility, and a point of reference marking the condition before. This is after. Things are good now, and that is the real story of American history. Cruz teases at a lurking fear that someone is calling in an unpaid debt we are reluctant to repay through reparations, affirmative action, minority set-asides, scholarships, public benefits, and this new talk about equity. Aren't we all starting from the same place? A majority of Republican voters tell pollsters they think that White Americans face more adverse discrimination than do Black ones. We are the victims here, Cruz tells us. Don't let the left guilt-trip us. 

If one is disinclined to change anything, it makes sense to start  with the premise there was never anything that needed much changing, and anything that did is fixed now. Anyone who says anything different must hate America.

Stark raving crazy. He has a following.

 Pastor Greg Locke has 2.2 million followers on Facebook. 

     "Donald Trump is the legitimate president of the United States of America!"

     "Fraudulent Sleep Joe. He's a sex-trafficking, demon-possessed mongrel."

     "Mike Pence is Judas."

     "Do you honestly believe, Pastor Locke, that the military uncovered tunnels underneath the Capitol building and the White House. . . do you really believe they found kids?--Yeah. Both live ones and dead ones, and if you disagree with that. . . you're just as complicit as Hunter Biden and the rest of them crack-smoking perverts."

     "God's about to bring the whole house down, ladies and gentlemen. These bunch of sex-traffickers are about to be exposed."

Click: One minute, 38 seconds

Pastor Greg Locke is an outlier. 

He isn't a typical example of Christian Nationalist preaching. He knows he is extreme and he jokes about being thought "crazy." I include two clips of him so readers can experience what is out there in the American political and religious atmosphere. 

Locke represents the angry "burn the house down" theme of Christian Nationalism voiced in some churches, a political impulse Trump solidified for the GOP. Trump linked themes of Christians under siege by the secular left; White people enduring prejudice; globalism and diversity being celebrated at the expense of the traditional social order that existed before Black Civil Rights and Women's Liberation; and resentment at the financial and cultural hegemony of elites. 

The GOP and conservative media are now downplaying themes of income distribution and jobs sent overseas. Democrats are better at distributing money than are Republicans, and are proud of it, not reluctant. The culture war is a better battleground, and Locke is part of it. The themes dominating conservative media are about borders, cancel culture, disrespect for the flag, transgenders taking advantage, and the indoctrination of children by Critical Race Theory. Non-college working people are the new GOP base voter and they are being told their religion, values, and political majority are at risk. For Locke, "mongrel" is an insult. Democrats aren't fellow citizens he disagrees with. They are perverts.

Locke is one point of the spear--the most extreme voice--in political/religious condemnation of modern culture. Armed militant groups are another spear, saying aloud proudly what more moderate voices cannot, that "the people" have the right and responsibility to take up arms against the government.

Spokespeople at the "point of the spear" understand their roles. They are sincere. They say the unsayable. Locke can call Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey perverts and pedophiles, but Trump cannot and need not. Locke does it for him. Spear-points hope to move the boundary lines of plausible, acceptable debate, what political scientists call "The Overton Window." Someone says the un-sayable, which moves that idea from impossible to extreme, and then sometimes to acceptable, then mainstream, then popular policy. The political left has its own version of spear-points, especially in universities.

Locke is a showman. Time and again in American history people with this kind of high-emotion oratory have moved public opinion. Viewers who think this is so crazy as to be irrelevant or counterproductive under-estimate his appeal and misunderstand his role. Locke and people like him help make Trump and his rallies possible. In the context of Pastor Locke, Trump is a moderate.

Click: 12 minutes

July Fourth Flag Waving

     "Hate your next door neighbor but don't forget to say grace."

          From Eve of Destruction, 1964 protest song

Donald Trump was trying to overturn the election to stay in power. He was serious and literal.

It was a failed coup d'état. About one third of Americans are OK with that.

Former Attorney General William Barr is giving context to the behavior of the Justice Department in the aftermath of the 2020 election. He said they did their own investigations, looking for evidence of election fraud, and said so publicly. Barr said he had no reason to try to cover up election errors, if any were present. He says he thought it unlikely they would find much but it was a good thing to say they looked. They didn't find anything meaningful. In December he said so publicly. Donald Trump was furious with him.

Barr says he told Trump in he Oval Office that his claims were all "bullshit." Barr now joined the other targets of Trump's disdain and threats. There is a pattern. If a Republican refuses to go along with Trump's claims of a stolen election, Trump erupts in fury and threatens revenge.

On June 28, Trump issued this statement.

Had Mitch McConnell fought for the Presidency, like he should have, there would right now be Presidential Vetoes on all of the phased Legislation that he has proven to be incapable of stopping. Not to mention, he lost two Senatorial seats in Georgia, making the Republicans the Minority in the Senate. He never fought for the White House and blew it for the Country. Too bad I backed him in Kentucky, he would have been primaried and lost! Based on press reports he convinced his buddy, Bill Barr, to get the corrupt (based on massive amounts of evidence that the Fake News refuses to mention!) election done, over with, and sealed for Biden, ASAP!

 A Legislative Oversight Committee led by Republicans in Michigan looked closely at the Michigan election and reported that the claims of irregularities in Michigan were examined closely and found to be untrue. Trump called their investigation "a cover up, and a method for getting out of a Forensic Audit for the examination of the Presidential contest." Trump published the office phones of the GOP senators who issued the report and urged people to "call those two Senators now and get them to do the right thing, or vote them the hell out of office!"

Former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has been critical of Republican efforts to overturn Biden's election, calling it "anti-democratic and anti-conservative." Trump responded by issuing a statement saying,

Paul Ryan has been a curse to the Republican Party. He has no clue as to what needs to be done for our Country, was a weak and ineffective leader, and spends all of his time fighting Republicans as opposed to Democrats who are destroying our Country.

Trump's telephone calls to the Arizona Governor and the Georgia Secretary of State are on the record. We saw him cajole leaders of the Michigan and Pennsylvania legislatures urging that they simply ignore the popular vote and name their own slate of electors. Trump issued a statement saying 

The PEOPLE of Georgia should SUE the State, and their elected officials for running a CORRUPT AND RIGGED 2929 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

In Tweets, in speeches in Georgia prior to the January 6 Congressional vote certification, and in D.C. immediately prior to the insurrection riot, Trump called on Mike Pence to refuse to accept electoral votes cast for Biden. If Pence "does the right thing, we win this election" he told the "Stop the Steal" crowd.

American have been advised to take Trump seriously, but not literally. One could imagine Trump doesn't mean any of this. The word in punditry circles is "performative," with Trump doing the current version of his schtick, a tycoon political rock star doing material that keeps crowds cheering. In a serious-but-not-literal paradigm, Americans have a giant excuse for letting Trump be Trump: It's just an act.

In that understanding of Trump, there wasn't a coup d'état, not really. It was and is a gesture, a symbol of frustration. Our democracy was never at risk any more than it is in a movie about an invasion of space aliens.

Trump's private Oval Office fury with his Attorney General makes clear that this isn't a game. In his real-life role as the president, Trump expected Republicans to help him void the election to stay in power.  Americans need to confront that reality. Key people at key times refused him, but this was a failure, not a false alarm. Trump's wrath at people who defied him is serious and literal, too. It is ongoing and it shapes public policy today. People who might oppose Trump are lying low. Silence is consent.

They need to speak up. It isn't enough to defend democracy by waving a big flag. 

Smoking "Weed" in Oregon

Oregon is in the news again. 

A star athlete smoked marijuana in Oregon, then tested positive for it. Olympic rules call it a performance enhancer and she is ineligible to compete.

Performance enhancer? What a joke.

The laws in Oregon are inconsistent with federal law, with the laws in most other states, and with Olympic rules. It creates a mess. Sha'Carri Richardson is the current victim.

Note to the Olympics: Marijuana is not a performance enhancer for anything except snacking, sitting on a sofa watching TV, dreamy sex, or coming to the realization that the entire universe exists in a freckle on the back of one's finger. I have never run a timed 100 meter race, but I have in the past smoked marijuana, so I speak from authority: Marijuana isn't a performance enhancer for a sprinter. 

Oregon has essentially legalized for adults the purchase and use of cannabis, including cannabis with THC, the ingredient that makes one "high." Some other states have not, including Idaho. This means that people shipping cannabis with CBD--the state and federally legal medical product that does not provide a "high"--gets stopped if it travels east out of Oregon through Idaho. Idaho seizes the crop and the truck, and charges the driver with a felony. Can they do that? They do it. 

Cannabis is legal in Oregon, but is a Schedule One drug under federal law. Banks are afraid of running afoul federal regulators, so land with cannabis in its various forms cannot be financed. Insurance companies exclude cannabis from claims involving accidents, loss, or liability. Title companies won't serve as escrow agents for land growing it. The industry copes by using cash, which encourages under-reporting of employee wages and transactions. Oregon and the federal government want their taxes paid--that part is "on the books." The situation is inconsistent and hypocritical.

Two years ago I tried to register myself as a medical grower of six plants for my own use. I filed the paperwork on the first day of eligibility, November 1, 2018, with the window for filing paperwork ending May 1, 2019. In my filing paperwork I attached a note in large font to my $100 check, requesting the Oregon authorities to tell me promptly if there was any problem or deficiency in my filing. I gave the street address, the legal description of tax lot, section, and township, plus the GPS coordinates, all as required. On April 29 at 4:00 p.m. I received an email and phone call from the Oregon regulatory authority telling me my filing was incomplete because my detailed address shared a driveway with other growers, the rural lots distinguished by a tax lot number and GPS, plus physical distance of 2,000 feet, but not street address. This is rural property and most rural lots are identified by tax lot, not street number, unless there is a separate house and separate houses are prohibited by zoning. Not OK, the state regulators told me. I would need to get a separate street address from the county, a process that takes six weeks to six months.

I said, "Now you tell me? You had five months to tell me there was a problem, and you waited until it was impossible for me to fix this."

"Yeah, well, sorry," they said. I withdrew my application.

Last fall thieves raided a neighbor's property in the middle of the night and stole a substantial portion of his crop. They entered without headlights and one vehicle in the group ran off the farm road into a ditch. I posted this memorable photo of the abandoned stuck vehicle. 

As I reported in that earlier blog post, the local sheriff department said that the vehicle's owner lived six miles away and that the stolen property might be readily available and identifiable, but they do not investigate cannabis crimes. But this is a legal grow-site, the plants numbered and monitored, taxes paid at every step, operating under the burdens of the law. Don't we then get the law's protection?

"No. Sorry," they said.

Cannabis operates under laws and rules that are inconsistent, poorly administered, and based an inaccurate understanding of marijuana's effects. Some people are serving long prison sentences for the same acts that other people are openly earning money and paying taxes for doing. It is unfair and unjust. Inconsistent administration undermines the legitimacy of laws generally. If the regulators don't do their work so that people can comply, and if the sheriff doesn't consider theft of an agricultural crop worthy of investigation, why should citizens care more about legality than do the people administering and enforcing the laws? Bad enforcement sends a bad message.

The legitimacy of government rests on a foundation of laws seeming reasonable to people living under them, and to people seeing that laws are consistently enforced. Then social norms are in sync with the law. Currently, they are not.

[Note: I don't use marijuana, nor alcohol. I like a clear head. I have enough experience with both alcohol and marijuana to see the attraction each have, and to compare them. Alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana, in my experience.]

Deferred maintenance

How did the Florida condo crumble?

Gradually. Then suddenly.

"The observable damage such as in the garage has gotten significantly worse since the initial inspection. . . .concrete deterioration is accelerating. 

       Letter from Champlain Towers South Condominium Board to residents, April, 2020

The Surfside, Florida condominium collapse is a warning light flashing red. The metaphor is so obvious surely Americans will see it. Won't they? 

The Surfside condo is America. The condominium collapsed after years of deferred maintenance. 

Condominium boards are self-government. They have a serious job to do--provide for the general welfare of the building and its occupants--and they serve at the pleasure of their fellow homeowners. People disagree on what needs to be done. People have different capacities to pay. People disagree on whose responsibly it is to fix things. People wonder if there isn't somebody to sue who should be paying for repairs instead of them. There was contention, leading to turnover on the Board of Directors. 

Delays and deterioration raised the proposed costs from $9 million to $15 million, to be spread among the condominium's residents. The allocation of assessments was contentious. One-bedroom apartments were to pay $80,000; the four-bedroom penthouse apartment was to pay $336,000.

The building was sagging 2 millimeters a year--over two inches a decade. The building was approaching 40 years in age. Waterproofing to protect the concrete and the steel re-bar inside it had failed. Steel, not concrete, holds up a tall building. The extent of the rust problem was hidden inside the cracked concrete. 

Five different lawsuits have already been filed against the condo Board of Directors, saying they were negligent. They should have ignored the griping and second-guessing and made us fix the building. The condo board has already hired a crisis legal team to defend it against these lawsuits, plus a public relations firm to manage the politics and their reputations.

Everyone is pointing fingers. Maybe the construction company 40 years ago should have built it differently. Maybe the building architects should have designed more slant into horizontal slabs so salty water drained off faster so the re-bar would not have corroded. The city inspectors gave warnings, but should have been more alarmed and urgent. The 40-year re-certification schedule isn't adequate.

Meanwhile, Congress debates an infrastructure bill. How much is really, really necessary? One does not need to be an engineer to see that America's public infrastructure is under-maintained. Travel to China and compare. We are living off the investments made by our grandparents. The busiest bridge in America, the George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey and New York was finished 90 years ago. The Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River leaks.

Raising the gasoline tax to pay for infrastructure is a non-starter; officeholders made a no-tax pledge. Condominium boards and members of Congress serve with the consent of the governed. Paying for things is contentious.

Projects themselves are contentious, too. In Oregon another bridge across the Columbia River is near-universally understood to be far overdue. Oregon officeholders want any new bridge to accommodate a commuter rail system that would link Vancouver, Washington to the Portland system. Voters and legislators in the Vancouver area oppose mass transit and insist a new bridge be vehicle traffic only. Result: Do nothing. 

Whether on a condo board or in Congress, the problems and incentives are the same. One can complain about the cost or some aspect of a project, do little or nothing, and hope one can get away with it. Then, if a major failure happens, blame someone. Hire a lawyer and a P.R. firm or their equivalent.

The parallel to the infrastructure debate is so direct I suspect the American public will see it. The Florida disaster may move the public opinion needle enough that Biden's shrunk-down infrastructure proposal will get through, even if it gives Biden a political "win."

The problem for America is that the broader metaphor of the Champlain Tower South collapse is our failure to address all the big deferred-maintenance problems facing America: CO2 emissions, Income Distribution that provides a pathway out of poverty for working people, Immigration reform, Racial justice. We have problems our current political system is unable to address. Problems fester. Sometimes we see cracks in the wall in the form of George Floyd's murder, the frustrations of working class Americans, or the insurrection at the Capitol. They signal rot within the system. We can ignore those cracks.

The steel corrodes.

 

Trump Organization Indicted

This is bad news for Trump.

Or maybe not.

Democrats shouldn't be too quick to rejoice over the Trump Organization indictment. Trump may turn this into a positive.

The news today is an unusually stark reminder of the media silos that shape today's political environment. The headline news and top story in every media outlet that I would characterize as "mainstream"--CBS, NBC, ABC, and the major newspapers with national circulation, including the Wall Street Journal--all lead with the news that the Manhattan District Attorney filed criminal indictments against the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg.

It was different at Fox.

Fox News consumers are learning that the most important thing happening in America is a black female athlete who won third place in the hammer throw event turned her back when the national anthem played. What an outrage! The story is an iteration of the one big overarching message at Fox News: White cultural grievance. They disrespect you, hate you, want to take the country from you. Who are they? People who aren't your kind of people--Black people, foreign people, elitist snob Democrats who don't pray to Jesus and respect the flag. Stories last night:

***Black teenagers attack a postal employee.
***Dangerous aliens at the border.
***More dangerous aliens at the border.
***Biden allowing a "tire fire" of chaos at the border.
***Trump at the border saying Biden is the worst president ever.
***Confederate hero statues removed from the Capitol
***National disgrace: Poll showing many Americans aren't proud of the country.

Fox News tells viewers how they should feel about this: blood-boiling angry.

Fox is making a subtle shift. It is de-Trumpifying. Prior to the election it glorified Trump. They had a mutually productive marriage. Trump brought audience; Fox brought adoration. The marriage endured a betrayal on election-night 2020 when Fox made an early announcement that Biden would win in Arizona. The foundation of Trump's election-fraud position was that there was no way Biden could win battleground states, and since a Biden victory was impossible any purported victory must be fraudulent. Trump and Fox have never fully reconciled.

Fox defends its Trump-supporting audience from erosion by doubling down on Trump's ethno-nationalistic populism. It is Trump-ism without so much Trump. Newsmax and One America Network, however, are not hedging their bets. They are Trump all the way. On the day that the Trump Organization is indicted Newsmax and One America portray Trump as heroic protector on the border and don't mention the indictment.

Giddy

Democrats on cable news seem giddy at the news of the criminal indictment. This may be a political dud. The Trump financial officer may decide to stay mum. Even if he flips and blames Trump, Trump may thrive. We already know that Trump is a financial finagler. Of course he cheats on his taxes. He is "smart." Trump never pretended to be an "Ask what you can do for your country" sort of person, nor a turn-your-cheek, walk-a-second-mile example of Christian charity. He is a winner, a tough guy who takes what is on the table. He reflects warrior virtues.

Journalists may think the correct news judgement is a criminal indictment of Trump's business. That makes sense; it is hard news. A disrespectful act by a little-known athlete is not. But the indictment does not mean this is the beginning of the end for Trump. He will hide under the skirts of ignorance of his complicated taxes. He relied on experts. It is a plausible argument. Everyone who files complicated taxes relies on experts. No one understands wealthy people's taxes, including wealthy people. 

Possibly indictment will help Trump--and I indeed expect that. Cheating on taxes is on-brand for Trump. It would be news to learn that Trump was scrupulous and overpaid out of caution or generosity. He survived politically in his direct assault on democracy in trying to void an election. Compared to that, this seems like a minor point, a back-door way to get at Trump, a form of prosecutorial finagling. It is entirely likely that a year from now the primary narrative and meaning of this indictment is disapproval of the DA for a political prosecution. The story will be that Trump just did what anyone else would have done with his taxes and he is unapologetic, that the real guilt lies with the tax code and prosecutors. Trump will be described as heroic and sacrificial, nailed to the cross of Democratic Trump derangement as a way to punish the millions of Trump supporters. They are out to get you, and Trump endured that cross on our behalf.

Thank God for Trump.