Herr Trump's Having a Fascist Freakout

Over a Possible First Indictment in Manhattan

“They’re Killing Our Nation”

The fascist blood-libel QAnon fan and twice-impeached putschist Donald “Take Down the Metal Detectors” Trump last week responded in predictable asinine but lethal fashion to the possibility that he may be indicted by a New York grand jury in lower Manhattan* for violating campaign finance laws. Consistent with his earlier threats claiming that any attempt to prosecute him would provoke civil unrest, he went on his propaganda site “Truth Social” to issue a call for mass resistance -- a call that reminded many political observers of when he urged his cult followers to come to Washington D.C. on January 6.

“THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK,” Trump wrote on his online propaganda site “Truth Social” last Saturday. “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!...WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE…THEY’RE KILLING OUR NATION AS WE SIT BACK & WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA! PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!”

(He left out some key Trump features and what the American people should do in his online rant. Let me try a corrected version: “THE MALIGNANT FASCIST CRIME BOSS WHO TRIED TO OVERTHROW WHAT’S LEFT OF DEMOCRACY AND INSTALL HIMSELF AS DICTATOR-FOR-LIFE MAY SOON BE INDICTED FOR COMMITTING A CAMPAGN FINANCE FELONY SEVEN YEARS AGO. I AM ALSO BEING INVESTIGATED AND MAY BE CHARGED FOR OTHER AND FAR BIGGER AND LESS AMBIGUOUS CRIMES — INCLUDING THE ATTEMPTED SUBVERSION AND OVERTURNING OF THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION — LATER THIS YEAR. I TRIED TO KILL OUR NATION. I’M NOT DONE. WE CANNOT ALLOW ME TO WALK AROUND SPREADING HATE AND MENACING DECENCY AND DEMOCRACY ANY LONGER. MASSES SHOULD COME OUT IN THE STREETS TO DEMAND THAT I BE LOCKED UP FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!”)

Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in New York are preparing for potential violence.  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has had to reassure his staff that “Our law enforcement partners will ensure that any specific or credible threats against the office will be fully investigated and that the proper safeguards are in place so all 1,600 of us have a secure work environment.”

Barricades have been set up outside the Manhattan Criminal Court Building “as New York City braces for potential charges against former president Trump,” The Hill reports.

How Dare “Them” Try to Enforce the Rule of Law on the Dear Leader

But, of course.  As a longtime wannabe fascist strongman, Trump considers himself above the rule of law. In his arch-authoritarian mindset and that of his allies and fans, it is outrageous for Him to be held accountable for any crime.  Legal investigation and prosecution of “the Chosen One” – the maximalist male cult leader of 21st Century Amerikaner neofascism – can only be a “political witch hunt” led by a non-existent “them” that Trump and his ilk like to call “Radical Left Democrats.”

Trump’s fascist snowflake tantrum has found support from other top Republi-fascists. The risible Trump-bootlicker and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who owes his position to the fascists Trump and Marjorie Taylor-Greene, responded to Trump’s “Truth Social” posts by absurdly (and emptily) threatening Bragg with an investigation into whether federal funds were being used for “politically motivated prosecutions.” The Christian white nationalist former US Vice President Mike Pence (who Trump tried to get Capitol Rioters to kill on January 6) preposterously told ABC News that Trump is being subjected to “a politically charged prosecution” by “the radical left.”

Bigger and Better Cases

Beneath all the paranoid-style right-wing hyperbole, the Manhattan case is the least serious and most legally ambiguous case hanging over the head of Herr Trump. The orange malignancy is also being investigated by a special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, for his attempted felonious interference in the 2020 presidential election. He seems likely to be indicted there for this crime – for which there is publicly available slam-dunk evidence – this May.

At the federal level, Trump is being investigated by special prosecutor Jack Smith for trying to overthrow previously normative bourgeois democracy and rule of law. Last December, a bipartisan US House select committee released an 845-page report showing  that Herr Trump and his associates developed “a multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election.” The report demonstrates in far-reaching detail how Trump and his coup circle incited the events that led to the January 6 Capitol Riot. The select committee accused Trump of “insurrection” and “conspiracy to defraud the United States,” among other federal crimes. It referred the orange-hued lizard and some of its dodgy co-conspirators to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.

For nearly five months, Jack Smith’s office has been investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.  As The New York Times reported two weeks ago, this criminal inquiry “build[s] on months of work by other federal prosecutors in Washington…The special counsel’s office has focused its attention on a wide array of schemes that Mr. Trump and his allies used to try to stave off defeat, among them a plan to create false slates of pro-Trump electors in key swing states that were actually won by Mr. Biden. Prosecutors under Mr. Smith have also sought information about Mr. Trump’s main fund-raising operation after the election.”

Smith is also examining the fascist ex-president’s likely commission of three federal felonies – the unauthorized retention of national security secrets (a violation of the Espionage Act),  obstruction, and concealing or destroying government documents – in connection with Trump’s pilfering and keeping of classified documents after he left the White House.

The Georgia case and the federal investigations underway make the Stormy Daniels case look small and legally uncertain by comparison, but if Bragg comes down with a charge (or charges), as seems likely, it will be the first time a former US president has ever been indicted — no small benchmark.

A Gentleman’s Agreement Complicated

The US-American state faces a conundrum with Trump, a puzzle that reflects real divisions within the nation’s ruling class as well as the broader populace. A bipartisan gentleman’s agreement has long excluded ex-presidents from prosecution. This reflects a shared ruling class understanding that the chief executive of the US-American Empire is called upon to commit real and potential war crimes and other crimes against humanity in defense and advance of capitalist-imperialist interests and power at home and (most typically) abroad. This criminal conduct has long included alliance with and sponsorship of dictators and repressive “Third World fascist” regimes around the world. Never before, however, has a US president engaged in a full-on putschist campaign to overthrow bourgeois electoral democracy and rule of law and to install himself as a de facto dictator in the imperial US homeland itself.  Trujillos, Suhartos, Marcoses, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavis, Pinochets, Somozas, el-Sisis, and Saudi Crown Princes are for other US-backed regimes, not for the nation that sponsors them. Even the demented authoritarian Richard Nixon understood the need to resign once he learned that some of his transgressions had made his legal removal from power unavoidable. He made no madcap Trumpo-Bolso calls for his racist and sexist “silent majority” to go all paramilitary and mob violent to assault the judicial and representative branches of government to try to keep him in the White House.

Fascism Matters

I’m no fan of merely bourgeois democracy and rule of law, which cloak the underlying class rule of capital. Still, we must bear in mind the important difference between such badly qualified democracy and rule of law on one hand and the fascist rule of force and men on the other hand.  The former leaves breathing space and onroom for popular mobilization and struggle to bring about real popular sovereignty, social justice, peace, and environmental sanity.  The latter does not: it signals the iron-heeled cancellation of all chances for a decent future; it is class rule with a jackboot on our necks.

Speaking of which: Last  Friday, Herr Trump’s announced what may be his first campaign event after an indictment: a Hate Rally to be held in Waco, Texas, where deadly clashes between federal officials and an extremist right-wing religious sect occurred three decades ago this time of year, on the fascist-celebrated anniversary of Hitler’s birthday. 

*For some unown reason, the “stble genius” claims to know he will be “arrested” today. This is not the case.