Paul Signac:
In the Time of Harmony:
the Golden Age is not in the Past,
it is in the Future (1893-95)

"The road to wherever we're going …"

Yesterday, our Justice Department indicted our former president on conspiracy charges. A man who swore to defend our constitution conspired to undermine it. He'll be arraigned tomorrow, and his actual trial might not begin until a year from now. Most commentators contend that it will only end after he exhausts all of his appeals, which might take years. Still, I feel relieved that the indictment's finally public. After the string of House January 6th Committee hearings, completed seven full months ago, many wondered if Justice would ever carry out the committee's recommendations and indict at least the ex-president. Six unindicted co-conspirators were also mentioned in the indictment, not because they will not be indicted, but apparently to keep this indictment simple enough to allow clean litigation. The ex-president has already proven that he'll employ any means to delay prosecution. Courts have been actively denying his frivolous motions since his first indictment. This latest string of accusations seems the most serious and might take precedent over his many other charges, moving this set to the head of an ever-lengthening line. Nobody sees any end to this.

I slept the sleep of the satisfied last night, even though I know yesterday was more like the start than any end of anything. These indictments will prove complicating. Our ex-president has shown no scruples toward lying about anything he chooses to misrepresent, and he's already managed to misrepresent many of the legitimate functions of our government, a system he adequately proved he never understood when he was still pretending to be our President. He accused his government of doing what he's doing, what he's done, a transparently false tactic popular among our more conservative brethren. Defensive, but without a defense, the hopeless go on the offensive regardless of how offensive it might leave them appearing. They're putting up appearances, playing to a specific audience, the twenty percent who long ago proved that they would swallow anything he proposed. He specializes in Pyrrhic victories because they're the only kind still available to him.

Why did I name this story Harmony? Because this event serves as a perfect example of how we go about creating Harmony here. Indicting a disgraceful former President helps us continue forming an ever-more perfect union. The pathway there never travels through its destination; it’s just headed in that general direction. We have not yet achieved the Harmony we seek and might never achieve it. Still, we're better off when we're actively heading in that direction. Indicting a former President amounts to an act of grace that renews and amplifies our too-often tacit intentions and our faith in ourselves as worthy inheritors of our prouder traditions. The Repuglicans became a malign influence on our republic, distinctly anti-Democratic. I'd say they were unAmerican, except the American melting pot has demonstrated remarkable versatility in how many forms its citizen's passions can take. E Pluribus includes every imaginable variation and a few unimaginable ones. The Unum seems more theoretical than actual.

I believe this world will be a better place if our disgraced former President ends up spending the rest of his miserable life in jail. He's certainly earned a Victor Hugo-quality retirement. I expect that the less reputable Repugs will plot a typically ham-fisted response, which might alienate almost all of the remaining voters to prove a point hardly worth mentioning, let alone proving. Some renegade Supreme Court faction might intrude upon impartial justice to assert unequal protection under the law. We've seen that before. It seldom results in outright civil war. Every war in the history of this world so far was also hopeful of inducing Harmony. The road to wherever we're going never runs through its destination on the way.

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Honing, #PureSchmaltz