Cold Sunshine
The pig is in the poke and the poke is currently a split-screen on MSNBC with a bunch of law enforcement folks (presumably federal, state and City) hanging around the exit to the courthouse in Lower Manhattan with the other side of the screen a still shot of Donald Trump sitting tentatively and with cowed anticipation at a defendant’s table in the courtroom flanked by two high-paid attorneys on each side, waiting for the arraignment proceedings to proceed. What exactly is a pig in a poke? This is an expression about the practice in the Southern U.S. states of selling a tender suckling pig at market by placing it in a burlap sack such that the buyer cannot see exactly what he is buying, even by glancing into the dark sack. The rural expression for such a sack was to call it a poke. Apparently, it was common practice to sell these suckling pigs already skinned and that gets messy enough to justify putting it in a poke. But suckling pigs were a specialty item of scarce and great value. Much easier to come by were skinned cats, which were about the same size and once skinned, were hard to differentiate from a skinned suckling pig if it is placed inside that burlap poke. Thus, the advice to the uninitiated buyer of fresh meat is that they should invoke the rules of caveat emptor (buyer beware) and not buy a pig in a poke, least they find themselves in possession of a skinned cat in a bag rather than a suckling pig in a poke.
The arraignment of Donald Trump has been shrouded in secrecy, presumably to reduce the risks to everyone involved and make the circus less circus-like. Now that the arraignment has been held, the indictment is released to the public and the cat or pig or whatever is out of the poke and lying in a bloody heap on the table for all of us to see and consider. The defense attorneys are already giving interviews to the media denigrating the indictment and the lack of details that are in the indictment document. That is their job. They are, as expected, trash-talking the case on the basis of all their belief that the two-cushion shot of creating a set of 34 felony indictments on the theory that falsifying business documents and engaging in a conspiracy is simply not a precedented legal approach (a “novel” case) that attempts to connect local and federal statutes in a manner that is untested. It is certainly sometimes the case that prosecutorial enthusiasm gets out of hand and efforts and arguments are stretched to make a case where none can be made. However, that sentiment is belied by the repercussions that would be faced by the Manhattan District Attorney and his office if it were determined that they pushed the edge of the judicial envelope to bring forth this indictment. The countervailing legal pundit arguments are that rather than a combination of misdemeanors and felonies, as was expected, were displaced by just felonies. The conclusion of that is that the evidence must be even stronger than expected to put no misdemeanors into the indictment. Furthermore, they make the point that there is nothing terribly “novel” about the indictment, either in its lack of detailed evidence (which is generally not necessary at the arraignment stage), or in the legal path it is choosing to take. That view is that This indictment is even stronger than what had been expected by legal experts. Time will tell, but dare I say it? Now that the cat is out of the bag, we have to deal with the bloody reality that this all represents. It does cause me to wonder if that cat is the same cat that got put into the poke for the pig.
Today dawned as a very sunny day, which is a real pleasure with all the cloud cover we have had lately. It all looked so very inviting and I wanted to grab my shorts and Olukai’s and go out for the warmth of the day. I was jaundiced enough by the past few months that I bothered to check my weather app before getting dressed. Boy, am I glad I did that since it declared that at 9am it was 39 degrees on the hilltop. Before this year, if you asked me if it ever got down that low here, I would have answered that it could, but that on a normal year it wouldn’t. I think of the mid-40’s as the low and even that is usually while the dark of night is still upon the hillside. But that is not the year we are having. In fact, I drove downtown yesterday on my smaller “cafe racer” motorcycle that has no fairing (wind protection) and it was 42 degrees, cold enough to make my open face hurt from the cold wind. Today is April 4th, and this is neither the dead of night nor the middle of winter. This is well into spring. Baseball season is starting this week. It is supposed to be both sunny AND warming. But what we are getting is pure cold sunshine and I don’t really know how I feel about it. I know I like the sun, and I know I like it better when its not too hot out, but cold and sunny is just not as much fun as I expect of the San Diego weather.
The concept of cold sunshine is a good analogy for what I feel about the indictment and arraignment of Donald Trump this week. On the one hand, I like the fact that the rule of law is prevailing and that the man is finally being held to task. That all feels good to me. That is the sunshine coming into our collective morning. But along with the sunshine comes the cold chill and that cold chill brings us back to earth. That chill is caused by the realization that there are still a goodly number of people in this country who believe that Trump is being unjustly being put upon. And of course, the entirety of the Republican Party (with the exception of Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who has declared his presidential ambitions) has decided to go all-in on Trump no matter what seems to happen to him in terms of this or future indictments. Why is that chilling? It chills me because of what it says about the frustration of that portion of the population that will throw over logic and good values because of their dissatisfaction with the path of liberal democracy. It also chills me that the Republican Party is so desperate with its prospects that they will put their entire Party at risk for the sake of supporting the beloved of the Trump base. The slippery slope that clearly lies ahead of Trump with the other criminal and civil litigation he faces is more than a train coming around a curve, it is a train that is now barreling down a straightaway directly in front of Trump and visible to all of these supporters. None of these supporters seem to want to acknowledge this reality and the inevitability that there is a very big train wreck in their near future.
The even more chilling possibility, which seems far fetched, but so much of what has transpired politically since 2015 that has seemed far fetched has surprisingly come to pass, is that if that train does crash into Donald Trump and his team and the base and the Party remain loyal to him nonetheless, we are in a surreal world where no amount of sunshine will make up for the chill wind that will be blowing up the skirt of America.
I long for warmer weather and fully sunny days. I dislike the clouds of winter we have had, but find the cold sunshine that now prevails feels more dangerous for our country. I pray for warmth and that the poke of politics has less rather than more cat hair about it.