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Impunity spawns carelessness, the time for accountability is nigh

Donald Trump and his minions are shocked. New York State has indicted the Trump Organization for tax fraud. A Federal grand jury has indicted about 500 of the people who stormed The Capitol on Trump’s instructions January 6. There is now a real possibility that they and their leader will be held accountable for their criminal behavior. How did this happen?

The January 6 rioters have mostly indicted themselves. Their own cell phone videos and social media communications will constitute a lot of the evidence presented at trial. They felt they were immune from prosecution. After all, they were following the President’s instructions and defending their version of democracy, in which the votes of black people and immigrants don’t count. Some thought they were entitled to arrest members of Congress for certifying the electoral votes of the 50 states. Such “citizens arrests” are legal in DC during commission of a felony, though it is not clear to me that applies on The Capitol grounds. I’d be astonished if it were permitted for members of Congress. Only people intoxicated with the impunity that white privilege bestows could imagine they would get away with it.

The Trump Organization is similar. It apparently kept detailed records of the off-the-books perqs with which it compensated selected employees, who didn’t pay taxes on the implicit income. New York State alleges they got away with it for 15 years, but I imagine it is closer to 50. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The prosecutors have filed these charges in part to turn the CFO of the organzation into a cooperating witness. If ever they succeed, there will be far more tax fraud revealed. Even without that, Trump’s gaming of the value of his properties–high for the banks when seeking a loan but low for the tax authorities–is sure to get the company, if not Trump himself, into big trouble. The impunity white privilege bestows is beginning to evaporate.

It will not be hard to show that Donald Trump approved the tax returns of the Trump Organization, just as it is easy to show that he approved and even encouraged the storming of The Capitol on January 6. But showing that he intended to commit tax fraud and intended the demonstration to turn violent will be harder. Trump has always avoided written communications. His style is that of organized crime groups: everything is done orally, and often implicitly rather than explicitly. Trump did not explicitly tell the rioters to be violent, only to “stop the steal.” He also stood by and watched on TV while they entered and trashed The Capitol, but that only implies intent.

Still there will be consequences for Trump personally. What bank would be interested in renewing his loans, hundreds of millions of which are coming due soon? Who would want his name attached to their property? The value of much of his own real estate has likely declined during the epidemic and may not recover for years. He can of course use bankruptcy as a shelter, but this time around it may be his personal bankruptcy rather than his all too often used corporate bankruptcy. This man is in financial trouble.

Trump’s supporters remain fervent, but there is growing evidence they are a fraction of the Republican Party. A declining percentage of Americans is identifying as Republican or independents leaning Republican. Trump has still managed to hold on to his leadership in the Party, largely by raising a lot of money and threatening those who don’t toe his line with primary competition. But the Democrats are also raising a lot of money and winning primaries doesn’t necessarily get you a seat in Congress. The Democrats have only a thin majority in both Houses right now, and it will not be easy to expand it. But Trump’s strength in the Republican Party will help them with independents and disenchanged Republicans.

The best hope of the Republicans is to limit the number of people, especially the poor and minorities, who can vote. They are pursuing that objective brazenly, and with support from the Republican majority on the Supreme Court, by imposing restrictions on voting in the states they control. That works because of the over-representation of those states in the Senate and in the Electoral College. This strategy too is careless, as success requires that people don’t react by coming out in even greater numbers to vote. They appear to have done that in the 2020 election.

This is where the Democrats need to find a solution, by reducing barriers to voting and the gerrymandering of Congressional districts, as well as admitting at least two new states to the Union. The Douglas Commonwealth (aka DC) and Puerto Rico as states would help to offset the gross inequity of representation in Congress, where the Democratic Senators represent tens of millions more people than the Republican Senators and House seats are engineered by state legislatures to favor Republican candidates.

2022 will be a crucial year for Trump, his organization, and his supporters. If they are all held accountable and the Democrats retain control of the Congress, accountability really will be night.