Two festering sores

Every sentient person in the country—well, in the world, TBH—knows that there are two justice systems in the United States; one for the (White, Christian) rich and one for everyone who doesn’t fit into that category. If you’re White enough, you may not even need to be rich or particularly Christian; cf. Rittenhouse. You can look at news reports, statistics, academic papers, cartoons—every possible perspective gives you the same result.

That’s one of the reasons why a career criminal like Donald Trump has skated for decades and even got elected to the highest office in the land, on which he shat every waking hour. Every time in his life he crossed a legal, ethical or moral line without (negative) consequences just emboldened him to push the envelope farther the next time he wanted instant gratification. In the White House, that translated to wielding the Executive Branch to funnel money into his business purse; swanning around the international stage like a puffed-up popinjay in badly-tailored suits; waving his willie and pissing on our policies and allies with smug disdain; encouraging violent racism, misogyny and antisemitism in his followers; violating the Hatch Act; installing his spawn and other grossly-unqualified toadies in high government positions where they enriched themselves; killing hundreds of thousands of Americans by his disregard of a global pandemic; bullying foreign and domestic governments to further his political career; mishandling and stealing classified materials; and—eventually—inciting a violent coup to retain power.

All without so much as a bleat from the Republican party, a query from the IRS or a knock on the door from the Department of Justice.

Just like he did his entire life.

So I admit to schadenfreuding a bit right now that Cadet Bonespurs is finally being indicted by a grand jury in Manhattan in connection with alleged hush money payments to a porn star in 2016 to stop her telling the world about her first-hand (uh) experience with his tiny dick 10 years earlier (while his third wife was recovering from childbirth). I realize this case has issues and may not end up with a conviction (or, even, a court trial). However, there are much stronger criminal cases being developed even as Captain Caps Lock smashes plates of ketchup on the walls of Mar-a-Lago, cases to do with insurrection and the Presidential Records Act on the federal level, as well as a potential prosecution in the Fulton County, Georgia, court for election interference. And this indictment pierces the perceived barrier to criminally charging a former president, therefore removing that obstacle to them.

True to form, he’s inciting his followers to defend him like they did at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Which is to say—show up (somewhere) armed and insane to overturn the rule of law and prove once again that his “justice” does not involve actual legal consequences. We’re in for an interesting time.

Still, there is that other justice system, and the poet Langston Hughes wrote eloquently about it. So that’s today’s National Poetry Month entry.

“Justice”

That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise:
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes