You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

“This is completely stunning,” said CNN legal analyst Elie Honig.  “I have seen thousands of cases in my career as a federal and state prosecutor.  I have never seen anything like this. It stinks to high hell.  There are all sorts of problems here.  This is not normal.”

“Completely stunning.  Never seen anything like this.  It stinks.  There are all sorts of problems here.  This isn’t normal.”  These words were spoken by Honig after Donald Trump tweeted early Tuesday morning that he thought prosecutors were being too tough on his friend Roger Stone. After the tweet, the Department of Justice, ignoring the recommendations of its own prosecutors in the case, sought a lighter sentence.  All four prosecutors immediately withdrew from the case; one resigning from the DOJ.  Today, Trump is tweeting disparaging remarks about the prosecutors!

Stunning?  Is it anymore stunning than Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman being “escorted” from the White House?  Have we ever seen a president declare that he “certainly” expects the military to discipline Vindman—who was subpoenaed to testify in the impeachment inquiry?  Does it stink any more than Trump firing people for investigating him?  Does it stink any more than “a trial without witnesses” or the blanket rejection of congressional subpoenas?  Is this situation anymore problematic than a president making nearly 6,000 false or misleading claims in his first three years in office? Is it any more abnormal than the president calling congressional Democrats “scum,” “sleaze bags,” “horrible,” “bad,” “vicious and mean,” a “disgrace,” and “bad for our country?”

I think not.  What we are seeing now is what has been going on since the first day Donald J. Trump declared his candidacy.  Unleashed by his acquittal in the impeachment trial, there is much more to come.  You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.  

But then, maybe we don’t want to see, or maybe we are satisfied with what we see at the moment.  Just wait.  Because you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

The bridges are crumbling.  Without bridges, we cannot
cross the chasms that divide us.