What's That Sound?

 That awful creaking and snapping sound you heard late last week was that of the arc of history splintering under the weight of attempting to bend toward justice. The felon who would be "president" finally received his sentence for the thirty-four convictions he received for falsifying business records to cover up that he had his fixers pay porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her from talking about their sexual encounters prior to the 2016 election. 

Eight years later, dirty laundry and all, the only man who has served as president after being impeached twice will be sworn into office next week, making history once again by becoming the only convicted felon to be confused as being worthy of that position. 

And now, a musical interlude: "He's never gonna be president now," sings the chorus in Hamilton during the song that recounts The Reynolds Pamphlet, an essay that Alexander Hamilton wrote to clear his name in connection to a series of payments that it turns out were made not in attempt to embezzle treasury funds but rather to pay off the husband of the woman with whom he had an extra-marital affair. Back in 1797 it seems that such conduct was thought to make even those in the highest tier of government to be unworthy of moving still higher. 

Two hundred some years later, this kind of thing gets pushed to the side and a sentence of "unconditional discharge" was handed down to the former game show host, sounding more like a side effect of erectile dysfunction medication than a legal precedent. That wave that so many of us back in May and even before that which we hoped would bring about the landslide of judgement against this adjudicated rapist and TV pitchman. All of those decisions that we might have imagined that would disqualify him from becoming dog catcher in Mayberry let alone President of the United States have just disappeared. 

"Find me 11,000 votes?" Gone. The rally in front of an angry mob on January 6, 2021 in which he exhorted those frothing minions to "fight like hell?" Gone. He's immune now, and seemingly forever. The next in a series of increasingly unstable moves will no doubt continue to be looked at askance and then passed along as the United States attempts to absorb sovereign nations and Make America Insane Again. 

Someday, maybe they'll write a musical about this one. But for now it reads like a tragedy.