We all supposed to learn from failure.
Our mistakes become the bridge to our successes, teaching us what works and what doesn’t, so that the next time we muster the will to try, we’ll succeed.
But nefarious actors can also learn from failure. And that, unfortunately, is where we find ourselves with Donald Trump. His entire foray into politics has in my opinion been one of testing the fences for weaknesses. Every time a fence has failed, he has been encouraged. He has become a better political predator. With the conclusion of this series of hearings about the January 6 insurrection, it has become ever clearer to that Trump should be charged with multiple crimes. But I’m not a prosecutor. I’m not part of the Department of Justice. That agency will obviously make the final decision on federal charges. The questions before the Justice Department are in my opinion not only whether there is convincing evidence that Trump committed the crimes he is accused of but also whether the country could sustain the stain of a criminal prosecution of a former president. I would turn the latter question around completely: Can the country afford not to prosecute Trump if it wants to reserve justice and more importantly democracy? I certainly believe the answer is no.
Trump has learned from his failures and is now more dangerous than ever before. He has learned that the political system is incapable of holding him accountable. He can try to extort a foreign nation for political gain and not be removed from office. He can attempt a coup and not be removed from office.
Come on, really?!
He has learned that many of his supporters have almost complete contempt for woman. It doesn’t matter how many woman accuse you of sexual misconduct; your base, including some of your female supporters, will brush it away.
You can even be caught on tape boasting about sexually assaulting women, and your followers will discount it.
He has learned that the presidency is the greatest gift of his life. For decades, he has sold gilded glamour to suckers – hawking hotels and golf courses, steaks and vodka – but with the presidency, he needed to sell them only lies that affirmed their white nationalism and justified their white nationalism and justified their fragility, and they would give him happily millions of dollars. Why erect a building when you could simply erect a myth? Trump in my opinion will never willingly walk away from this.
Now with the investigation into his involvement in the insurrection and his attempts to steal the election, he is learning once again from his failures. He is learning that his loyalty tests have to be even more severe. He is learning that his attempts to grab power must come at the beginning of his presidency, not the end. He is learning that it is possible to break the US political system. Not only does Trump apparently want to run again for president, which he might announce any day, partly to shield himself “from a stream of damaging revelations” emerging from investigations into his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election.
Trump of course isn’t articulating any fully fleshed – out policy objectives he hopes to accomplish for the country, but that in my opinion should come as no surprise. His desire to power has absolutely nothing to do with the well-being of his country or any other country. His quest is in my opinion brazenly self – interested. He wants to retake the presidency because its power is a much needed shield for him against accountability and a mechanism through which to funnel money. Should his re – election bid prove successful, Trump’s second term will most likely be far worse than his first. He would tighten the grip on all those near him. Remember, Mike Pence was a loyalist but in the end wouldn’t fully how tow to him. The same in my opinion can be said about Bill Barr. Trump will not again make the same mistake of surrounding himself with people who would question his authority.
Some of the people who demonstrated more loyalty to the country of the US than they did to Trump during these investigations were mostly lower – level staff members. For the former president, they, too, present an obstacle. But he might have a fix for that as well.
Trump’s top allies are in my opinion already preparing to radically reshape the federal government if he is re – elected, purging potentially thousands of civil servants and filling career posts with loyalists to him and his ‘America First’ ideology.
Perhaps most dangerous, though, is in my opinion that Trump will have learned that while presidents aren’t too big to fail, they are too big to jail. If a president in the US can operate with impunity, the presidency invites corruption, and it defies the ideals of this democracy. Therefore a Trump free of prosecution is a Trump free to rampage.
Some could argue that prosecuting a former president of the US would forever alter US presidential politics. But I would counter that not prosecuting Trump threatens the collapse not only of the entire US political ecosystem and therefore the entire country, but also to our democracy.