Only voters can convict Trump of his worst crime

Give us an hour, and you’ll understand why Trump's narcissism gave him no choice but to join Putin’s attack against our democracy.

After a life of fraud that began at age eight, Donald Trump has finally suffered a criminal consequence.

Whether that consequence leads to an actual undoing or the realization of his greatest dictatorial ambitions depends on us. The jury has done its job.

That makes the jury braver and more committed to the rule of law than our Supreme Court, nearly all the Republicans in Congress, and the entire Republican Party, which is about to nominate this fraud for the third time.

We don’t yet know, but based on the freak flags flying outside the Supreme Court, we must assume that this is the only criminal consequence that Trump will face before November’s election. You know he also faces charges for his efforts to steal Georgia’s electoral votes, violently obstructing the certification of the candidate who beat him, and stealing America’s national security secrets.

What we also know for sure is that Donald Trump will never even face criminal charges for the worst, most unpatriotic thing that he or any American president has ever done. He solicited, joined, and helped cover up the most successful attack on our democracy by a foreign power in American history.

The first full episode of Ball of Thread is now up, and in one hour, it puts this attack into a context that every American needs to understand. Putin attacked our democracy with the goal of dividing us and undermining any global constraints on his fascist ambitions. Donald Trump was a target of this attack. Then, Donald Trump was willingly lured into the attack by his narcissism and shared ambitions. They grabbed him and America by our nuts. 

The attack was wildly successful, likely beyond Putin’s ambitions, because Trump, when faced with a choice between his country and siding with Putin, chose Putin just about every time. This is because he believes in dividing us and undermining any global constraints on fascist ambitions as much as Putin.

And it was because he felt trapped.

The somewhat consensual bind Putin put Trump in resembles in almost every way the bind Trump has on the Republican Party, which is why he has turned the party and much of our judicial system against the rule of law itself. Understanding that this is a process more than a plot is key to defeating it.

If you listen to the first full episode of Ball of Thread, you’ll understand Russia’s attack on our 2016 elections in the way future history books* (*if they exist) will. And you’ll begin to feel how this process works and is working.

This is why I believe this project I’m working on with emptywheel’s Marcy Wheeler is the most important thing I’ve ever done. By joining the Ball of Thread Patreon, you can support this work and receive a members-only Q&A episode for as little as $1 a month.

You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Audible or Podcast Addict, which sounds bad.