The Wichita Eagle – Opinion
Donald Trump’s indicted. But in Kansas, we’ve got a bigger Trump problem. | Opinion
Dion Lefler – April 4, 2023
Donald Trump’s been indicted.
Big deal.
He probably did all kinds of fun things with adult-entertainment performer Stormy Daniels. And he probably did pay her hush money. And he probably didn’t list “paying off porn star to keep her quiet” in his business records.
Again, big deal.
I guess we’re supposed to be impressed by the historicness of it all — the first time a former U.S. president’s been indicted on criminal charges. As I’m flipping through the cable-news networks, MSNBC just called it “a critical moment in this country’s democracy.”
I’m not feeling it.
A “critical moment in this country’s democracy” was when Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and pressured him to “find” 11,780 votes to win Trump a state he obviously, if narrowly, lost. Fortunately, Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, courageously told Trump to pound sand, knowing he’d be targeted by Trump and his “Stop the Steal” army.
Another “critical moment in this country’s democracy” was Trump and his organization whipping up the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, attempting to intimidate Vice President Mike Pence into overthrowing the election, and with it, our constitutional republic. I wish I could say that Kansas’ congressional delegation followed Raffensperger’s example and stood tall. But two-thirds of our members — Sen. Roger Marshall and Reps. Ron Estes, Jake LaTurner and Tracey Mann — were too scared of pro-Trump voters back home and sided with him and his QAnon clown show.
If you want to indict Trump for something, indict him for those egregious violations of our nation’s most sacred political rights. Stormy’s a side show.
Speaking of critical moments for democracy, the Stop the Steal circus is currently playing an extended run right here in Kansas.
MAGA Republicans at the Statehouse are doing their best to steal your voting rights by making it harder to vote, closing down drop boxes and ending the three-day grace period for the Post Office to deliver ballots that are postmarked by election day.
My strong advice to Kansas voters would be to focus on that instead of Donald and Stormy’s soap opera. It affects you a lot more.
Democrats will no doubt get a few chuckles out of Trump having to get mug-shotted, fingerprinted and weighed at the jail. But the Republicans will probably get the last laugh.
There are two possible outcomes, either Trump is found guilty or he isn’t.
If he’s found guilty, he’ll probably get fined — the usual outcome for white-collar crime, first offense. But he’ll gain more power and influence as a martyr of the right than he has now.
If he’s acquitted or there’s a hung jury, Republicans will raise truckloads of money by claiming he, and they, are all innocent victims of political persecution by a system run amok.
In fact, the Kansas Republican Party’s already hard at it.
In their Friday File newsletter/fund-raising appeal, they called the indictment “another partisan attack where the Democrats are weaponizing the justice system against their enemies.”
They go on at some length, with the usual whataboutism references to Hunter Biden’s laptop, Hillary Clinton’s e-mail, Jeffrey Epstein’s black book, COVID vaccines and Benghazi, which they spell “Behgazi.”
They claim prosecuting Trump “puts America on the slippery slope where banana republics languish.”
That part’s actually kind of funny because offhand, it’s hard to imagine anything more “banana republic” than asking an election official to “find” votes, trying to decertify an honest election, or suppressing political opponents’ votes — which by every word and deed the state GOP’s indicated they don’t have a problem with as long as it’s their side doing it.
They wrap up with this somewhat ominous statement: “As Republicans we have a duty to protect the USA because Democrats simply refuse. Elections are the only civil and nonviolent remedy to change our government. But are our elections truly secure?”
Seems like we’ve heard that before — right around Jan. 6, 2021.