4 April 2023 - My Interesting Day at the Courthouse

Seeing as I live in Manhattan, I couldn't resist making my way down to the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse at 100 Centre Street to be a witness to history. That is exactly what I did to the extent that I could judging by the crowds, blocked streets, police presence and the barricades. Luckily, I was able to get inside Collect Pond Park and to within 50 yards of the Courthouse's main entrance. By the time I got there it was already 11:30 in the morning and the very short and apparently ineffectual Marjorie Taylor Greene show was already over. Did it ever really get going at all? Seems that our gal from the hills of Northwest Georgia had already skedaddled and retreated to who knows where after, for all the hype, a surprisingly short performance. Needless to say, it wouldn't be long before the star of today's impromptu reality show, Donald J. Trump, would himself be late to his own gig. Luckily the crowds were largely well behaved, the worst of the day being nothing more than opponents screaming at the top of their lungs at each other across a DMZ patrolled by the police. I had originally dressed in a plaid flannel shirt with my LSU hat on as I'm still celebrating the Bayou Barbie's NCAA college basketball victory. However, my wife said I looked like a Trumper, which might be hazardous to my health in liberal New York City so a change was in order. She suggested I wear one of my old USCG jackets but I doubt the Commandant or the local command wanted that kind of advertising on a day like today so I said no to that. I settled on a safer FDNY shirt and a Binghamton University hat that my niece gave me. I however, did not heed my wife's suggestion that I leave my pepper spray behind, lest I be totally unarmed if things sank to the level of a riot which mercifully, they did not. I was also pleasantly surprised to make the acquaintance of Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC after he stood next to me and I introduced myself. We had a great conversation which lasted about twenty minutes when thereafter he took his leave and disappeared into the crowd. In many ways today is a sad day seeing that the country has come to this, but it's also a great day because it shows the system is working to rid the body politic of a sickness; in this case Donald Trump's ill-conceived efforts to subvert democracy. What also makes today a great day is that D.A. Alvin Bragg had the courage to indict a former president, a fact that, in the long run, may have as much impact as this particular case does in and of itself. Now even if this case doesn't rise to the level of criminality that interfering with the election in Georgia does, or the January 6 insurrection does, or the classified documents case may, it opens the floodgates for those behind the 18 other cases pending against Trump to bring their cases forward. For them, there's now no need to worry about bringing forth an indictment or the public fallout that attaches to being the first person to charge a former president with criminal conduct. The Rubicon has been crossed and now the attorneys behind the other 18 cases can come forward with one big hurdle eliminated for them and the question of the viability of indicting a former president behind them as well. Yes, today is both a sad day and at the same time a great day for democracy in America. Why, because the system of justice still seems to be working. It was a great day because political opponents could face off against each other without it devolving into the disgrace that we all witnessed on January 6 of 2021. It's also a great day for an American who has the courage of his convictions to do the right thing no matter the cost and risk to himself and even his family and that is what Alvin Bragg did today when he moved to indict Donald J. Trump. The late Mark Sheilds who was for years a fixture on the Friday Night PBS News Hour, once said that there's a reason why John F. Kennedy's book, Profiles in Courage, is less than a half an inch thick. The reason for that is that in reality not all that many American leaders have ever had the courage to do the right thing when their decisions were made in an intensely dangerous political environment. Whether or not Bragg's decision rises to the level of historical decision and risk that John Adams took when he defended the British soldiers who participated in the Boston Massacre is beyond my pay grade to answer. That said, few objective observers today would dispute the fact that Alvin Bragg displayed great personal courage in his decision to go forward with the indictment of Donald J. Trump. Steven J. Gulitti New York City 4 April 2023