Donald Trump faces four indictments, 91 criminal charges and hundreds of years of maximum prison time combined.

This is a former president who — according to the latest grand jury indictment in Fulton County, Georgia — participated in a “criminal enterprise.” Trump and 18 co-defendants are accused of trying “to unlawfully change the outcome of the election” in 2020. Among the 13 felony charges he faces is one count of violating the Georgia RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act and two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery.

Most of those charges are related to a fake elector scheme by the Trump campaign in which a slate of “alternate” electors in Georgia would cast electoral votes for Trump instead of Joe Biden. The president of the most powerful democracy in the world allegedly tried to steal an election.

We can’t say it often enough: This is serious. Americans cannot shrug this off or normalize it, no matter how many times Trump gets indicted. Yet it feels like business as usual. Not only is Trump favored to win the GOP presidential nomination, he’s also neck and neck with President Biden in the 2024 general election, according to a July poll by the New York Times/Siena Poll.

MORE THAN A CULT

Trump’s support cannot only be explained as the product of the cult-like power he has over his MAGA base, which accounts for roughly 40% of Republican voters who believe those indictments are nothing but a conspiracy against him.

more: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article278265068.html

    • vividspecter@lemm.ee
      383·
      1 year ago

      “Americans” also includes the subset that cry “both sides are the same” or are too apathetic to vote. If you don’t vote against the Republican party, then you are supporting what is happening.

            • wagesj45@kbin.social
              52·
              1 year ago

              I didn’t invent our voting system. I just do the best I can within the system. I vote for the best person running in the primary, then I vote for the best person left running in the general election. “Best” is relative, but it is what it is.

    • atfergs@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      1 year ago

      It appears to be a very large subset that’s prepared to vote him in for a second term.

      • Jordan Lund@lemmy.oneEnglish
        153·
        1 year ago

        It’s smaller than you think… keep in mind, the Republican party has been distilling down to a pure crazy base for years now…

        So remember, when you see polls like “70% of registered Republicans think… x”, that’s what’s left after 20 years of rational conservatives leaving the party.

        This isn’t the party of George Will or William F. Buckly, Jr. The academic conservatives are long gone now.

        • Zoboomafoo@yiffit.net
          13·
          1 year ago

          It sure seems like those objectors leaving the party are good at holding their nose in the voting booth

    • Nougat@kbin.social
      112·
      1 year ago

      The other side of that is that lots of us have been calling for him to be held responsible for years. He never has been. Forgive me if I’m less than perfecly hopeful this time.

      • Jordan Lund@lemmy.oneEnglish
        14·
        1 year ago

        4 indictments and 91 felonies is farther than we’ve gotten with any other Republican President in my lifetime.

        Nixon - Watergate
        Ford - Mostly Harmless
        Reagan - October Surprise/Iran-Contra
        Bush Sr. - Iran-Contra
        Bush Jr. - Abu Ghraib war crimes

        So I’ll take it!

        • chaogomu@kbin.social
          9·
          1 year ago

          Ford was the corrupt deal to pardon Nixon, and Nixon also sabotaged the 1968 Paris Peace talks with the help of Henry Kissinger to extend the Vietnam War. The two also bombed Cambodia.

          The two of them committed a lot of war crimes.

          Nixon also started the war on drugs specifically as a way to harm the anti-war left and black people.

          • PickTheStick@lemmy.world
            3·
            1 year ago

            Yeah, I think the Nixon and Bush Jr. examples could have been way stronger than those. It seems they were chosen for their recognition rather than their severity. Abu Ghraib was not good, but blaming Bush for that rather than the whole war?