Evan Vucci / AP
Former President Donald Trump listens as he speaks with reporters while in flight on his plane after a campaign rally at Waco Regional Airport, in Waco, Texas, Saturday, March 25, 2023, while en route to West Palm Beach, Fla.
Sunday, April 2, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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There is no joy inMar-a-Lago. How can there be?
For the same reason, there should be no joy in the rest of America.
I, of course, agree with the Las Vegas Sun editorial board that even though it’s been reported that the former president, Donald Trump, has been indicted by a New York grand jury, the idea that anyone should find pleasure in a former president heading into the dock is one for which we should all feel some shame, some embarrassment and some concern for this democracy we live in and love to protect.
I remember when Gerald Ford, as one of his very first acts upon becoming president of the United States following the resignation of Richard Nixon, pardoned the disgraced former president over concern for a nation in need. The national nightmare of Watergate had to come to an end before the country could begin to heal from the devastation to the body politic caused by Nixon’s White House burglars and bunglers.
And so, President Ford took the first step — much to the disappointment of a large swath of American citizenry who wanted the person in charge to pay for the Watergate crimes.
That was then.
Now, one can easily argue that many Americans are still living through the national nightmare which Trump has caused by trying to overturn a presidential vote and sowing doubt amongst his followers in the integrity of our elections. They, too, just want it all to stop.
Indicting him for anything, they would argue, prolongs the dangerous and tawdry affair and prevents the healing required for Americans to turn the political page.
I disagree.This is not the same as the Nixon/Ford episode in American history.
Porn stars and payoffs aside, what could be the first indictment for other far more serious crimes to come is essential to restoring in all Americans that quintessential belief that in our democracy, no one is above the law.
Nixon paid a heavy price. He was forced to resign the presidency. He lived the rest of his life knowing that he defiled the office of the president and let the people who supported him down by breaking the trust they had in him and gave to him through their votes.
Trump has paid no measurable price for what he is alleged to have done. Instead of slinking away in shame like any other clouded-up ex-president, he seeks the reward of another term in the Oval Office. And his sycophantic army of political chameleons are at the ready to defend his every ill-motivated move. (Think Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., for starters).
Even the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, weighed in immediately with a promise not to aid in any extradition effort from Florida to New York. As if that were even a suggestion of a problem. DeSantis would be better off trying to figure out how he was just bested by a mouse. And a duck. And Goofy, for God’s sake!
Whether Trump is charged with cooking the books around a tawdry porn star payoff or trying to cook the book of election results in 2020, or inciting his followers to an insurrection which led to the deaths of policemen and others at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, those are crimes for which the responsible party must answer.
In the end, if there is a conviction, many of the most ardent of his MAGA supporters — the people for whom Trump can do no wrong — will ultimately have to admit, at least to themselves, that he did wrong — and by doing so, wronged their country.
So while there should be no joy in Mar-a-Lago because the master has been called to account, there should also be no reason in the rest of the country to celebrate.
Trump was, after all, a duly elected president of the United States.
It is because he held that office, and held the trust the voters placed in him, that we should all be saddened and ashamed for what is now taking place.
At the same time, though, we must all — those who voted for him and those who didn’t — support a justice system that says aman is innocent until proven guilty. And we must be willing to let it play out like any other matter before the criminal bar.
We must also be willing to admit that if he is proven guilty, he is no longer the innocent his followers wish him to be.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
