Not Without Incident: Questioning Big Brother's Platitudes

Thus, with the constitutional imaginary eroded, what Wolin warned would result in a complete shift to inverted totalitarianism has occurred. It is no longer a specter looming over the US, it has consumed it, and it looms over us in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and across the Western world, and we are marching straight into its abyss.

“Athens showed and the United States of the twenty-first century confirmed, imperialism undercuts democracy by furthering inequalities among its citizens.”[i]– Sheldon Wolin

“Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds expression in the anonymity of the Corporate State. It purports to cherish democracy, patriotism, and the Constitution while manipulating internal levers.”[ii]– Chris Hedges

The case being pursued against Trump by New York DA Alvin Bragg is not only overtly political, but also, in the words of lawyer Jonothan Turley, “legally pathetic”.[iii] The E. Jean Carroll civil case which resulted in Trump being held liable for sexual assault, but not rape, is also overtly political. The statue of limitations in New York was lifted for a year to apparently allow victims of sexual assault years ago to speak up, but it was evidently intended to get Trump.[iv]

Bragg’s indictment against Trump was unsealed and judging by its contents, if the judge has any sense, he’ll throw it out. Even in a Manhattan court against a jury of his peers, who are inevitably Democratic voters, a conviction of Trump is unlikely. The case relies on the application of a novel legal theory, and it is such a longshot that anyone, even people who despise Trump, can see that the law is being distorted to target him specifically.

Case after case against him has failed, and in the court of public opinion, certainly among the Republican base, Trump remains popular and is the frontrunner for the 2024 presidential nomination, and his margin over Ron DeSantis has only widened in his favor.[v] Even at outlets like Politico and CNN, there is admission that the case against Trump, as outlined in Bragg’s indictment, is brittle.[vi] As I argued previously, this is an attempt to take out Trump not for breaking any laws, but for breaking the sacred norms upheld by all previous presidents with little dissent. These are the norms of the imperial presidency, the unbridled power of the monarchical executive and all its secretive, sinister branches, who all violate the constitution daily.

America is no longer held to the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the US constitution, it is more aptly held to what Bertram Gross refers as to the Bill of Frights.[vii] The rights of American citizens, not just the rights of Trump, are secondary to the interests of the permanent regime in Washington, who had no issue with Obama, Bush, or Clinton, as they played along and understood who holds true power in Washington. Why did Obama never shut down Guantanamo Bay? Why isn’t Biden despite reversing Trump’s executive order that called for it to be open indefinitely? The simple answer is that the permanent regime demands it stay open, thus it remains open, a stain on America’s legacy and alleged commitment to human rights and democracy around the world.

Torture facilities were set up outside of the US to circumvent the US constitution, and they were set up in secret, hence the term blacksites, to circumvent international law. The CIA and other now revered institutions were not outraged when Trump signed the earlier mentioned executive order, which reversed a policy signed by Obama in his first week in office in 2009. The lack of outrage reveals the true nature of Washington. It is not one of enlightenment or morality, it is one of brutality and amorality, and to pretend that Trump is somehow more criminal or more immoral than his predecessors and those who served in their and his cabinets is preposterous. To take a notable example, Avril Haines, Biden’s National Security Adviser, hailed as the first woman to serve in the position, is one of the principal architects of Obama’s strategy for justifying drone strikes and providing criteria for when they were to be carried out.[viii]

Haines also decided against bringing criminal cases against CIA officials who hacked into computers of staffers on the Senate Intelligence Committee who were compiling the torture report, and she oversaw the redactions of the torture report, which resulted in only 525 of the 6700 total pages being released to the public.[ix] As well as her being the first woman fulfilling the position of US national security adviser, she is a part of the permanent regime. That is why she is celebrated.

That so little of the torture report is available to the public is itself a grave injustice. From what is available the Bush administration engaged in war crimes and grave violations of human rights violations, meriting an investigation and indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC), if it wasn’t a joke and shambles of an institution. Biden may celebrate his cabinet’s diversity, but diversity of superficial characteristics is not a serious accomplishment.

The criminality US officials from both major parties have engaged in is equal to what Trump engaged in as president. Even factoring in his shady business dealings spanning the entirety of his career in real estate, which are plentiful, in terms of morality, are people like Haines, Blinken, and Bolton Trump’s moral betters?

When watching the media circus around Trump’s arrest, as well as the pundits and commentators who, in their bloodthirsty hatred for Trump are grinning ear to ear at the thought of him sitting stewing in a prison cell, it is worth considering what sort of system makes Trump a viable candidate still, after his outrageous behavior in his 2016 and 2020 campaigns, two impeachment hearings, the Russiagate investigation, the events since the 2020 election, especially January 6^th, and his continuing lies about the 2020 election, he is still the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. That is the truly significant indictment.

The indictment of Trump may be the latest move by the Democratic party, at the behest of the permanent regime, to erase Trump from electoral politics, but his continuing popularity are an indictment of the broken American political system. There is still a bitter refusal to reconcile Trump’s popularity with what allowed his rise. It is not Trump on trial right now, it is any form of dissent from the permanent regime in Washington. Trump and his movement may be a clownish, despotic form of dissent, but a movement more palatable to a wider swathe of voters will suffer the same fate as Trump. We already saw Sanders get shafted by the Democratic party not once, but twice.

Biden and his ilk, the illiberal liberal class, are not better than Trump, nor is he better than them- he is less horrible. Their records speak for themselves. The records of people like Madeline Albright and Henry Kissinger do as well. These people are thought of fondly and with admiration, not disdain.

What I’m advocating for is less a defense of Trump and is more of a defense of the right to dissent, which is vanishing before our eyes, to the cheers of many. These same dullards who hold hands and applaud the arrest of Trump do not realize that they are cheering their rights away, and that by the time they realize it, it will be too late.

As Tom Slater argues, Trump’s opposition has always been more dangerous than him.[x] Just like we are becoming more like China and Russia to stop them, we are becoming what we proclaim Trump is to stop the rise of fascism. What we are walking into is friendly fascism. Big Brother is watching, and he will smile as he robs you of your human rights, promising that he must limit freedoms to guarantee fundamental freedoms, which will eventually be dissolved completely.

The case against Trump is consequential not for Trump, but for what he represents to the permanent regime. What he represents are the deplorables, the uncouth, the plebs, those who do not understand world affairs or the need for maintaining a vast empire becoming aware of the actual behavior and nature of the permanent regime. To wipe this awareness, they will do whatever they have to do. Presently that is extinguishing Trump from politics. In the future, it will be other targets, right, left, doesn’t matter, the ideology driving this regime is Western exceptionalism and the fundamentalists who propagate this ideology are as dogmatic and craven as they claim Trump and his America First supporters are. Trump violated their doctrine; thus, he must be purged.

This all-out assault on civil liberties and those who dissent from the permanent regime proves that the supposed ‘democracy’ that late night comedians and news panelists cry is in jeopardy nightly is already long gone. In its place is what Sheldon Wolin called inverted totalitarianism.[xi] In other Western countries we jeer and scoff at the US, as we presume to be much more sophisticated and stable, however, this is not the case. We are not far behind America. Across the West the corrosion of fragmented democracies is giving rise to clownish demagogues like Trump, who, despite those who doubt, has a real chance of becoming president again in 2024. The illiberal liberal class, through its abuses of power during the Covid-19 pandemic and media hoaxes like Russiagate, knows that it can con us and get away with it.

We are willing dupes, smiling, and sedated by lies as we have our rights stripped from us. When enough realize the depths of the con job being played on us, it will be too late.

The Failure of the Illiberal Liberal Class

“You do your job, you keep your job. Do it well, you get a better job.”[xii]– Donald Trump

The revelations of the Durham report, which prove the US security state and the permanent regime worked together with their corporate media lackeys to derail and sabotage first the 2016 election, and then Trump’s presidency, are proof that anyone deemed a threat to US empire is to be undermined and taken out.[xiii] If this happened to anyone but Trump, it would be considered an outrage by more than a few independent journalists and outlets.

Just like Wolin and many other scholars are largely excluded from academia and university syllabuses, journalists like Matt Taibbi and Julian Assange are excluded from the sacred circle of professional ‘journalists’, who are little more than servants of the permanent regime. The White House correspondent’s dinner was the epitome of their servility, and not only was Assange’s name not mentioned once, but Biden joked that he delivers his mumbling speeches, then turns away, refusing to answer any questions, and the room erupted with laughter.[xiv] Biden and his authoritarian cabinet commit their grotesquerie and contempt for democracy out in the open, in front of the very people who are tasked with the role of journalist, which is supposed to entail holding the powerful accountable, and all these self-proclaimed journalists can do is laugh and worship the executive.

They know that if they dissent from this cultish adoration, they will end up like Simon Ateba the African journalist who sat for months in the White House briefing room without being called on for a single question, and when he did, he was chastised by other journalists, who strangely argued that he was undermining press freedom.[xv] Worse, they may end up like Assange, imprisoned and awaiting almost certain extradition to the US for exposing the crimes of the permanent regime. Biden is not a fighter for democracy, he is not even a fighter, he is a rickety puppet of the permanent regime. They will simply replace him with another puppet. Trump is difficult to control, defying the puppet masters even if it’s mainly through his loose and unfiltered rhetoric.

US politics is as Wolin describes it, politics without politics, as civic participation has been erased and Americans are instead participants in elaborate, money saturated stage performances.[xvi] 2024 will be a spectacle, not a momentous political event. It is for the amusement of the permanent regime, who watch on as the gladiators’ pummel and slash each other, often in underhanded ways. At the end of the fight, it matters not who wins, as the leader of the empire is still the emperor, not the people. The people are lulled by the spectacle of violence and bloodlust.

Similarly, it matters not who wins in 2024, the leadership in America is unchanged. The fact that the permanent regime sees Trump as a threat to their rule, as he failed to act on many of his promises, like draining the swamp or ending endless wars, shows that even exposing them is alarming, even if with that exposure there is little change.

Trump’s challengers have little prospects for beating him and winning the nomination, even DeSantis, who is marketed as ‘Trumpism without Trump’. Beyond DeSanti’s catastrophic campaign launch on Twitter Spaces, he is not equipped for what the fight with Trump entails. Conservative commentators like Ben Shapiro insist that he is the better option because of policy and substance, however, that is not where the fight is, as Trump’s early attacks on DeSantis indicate, the fight is over who is the better entertainer and who can resonate most with Trump’s core base.

Trump is also coming after DeSantis from the left on key issues, like social security. Although DeSantis is disgusted by this and he thinks it works in his favor, it does not, it works in Trump’s favor, as this is how he beat first his primary opponents in 2015-16 by breaking the bubble that is the Iraq war narrative and the legacy of the Bush administration, and then in the campaign against Clinton, criticizing free trade deals like NAFTA and the TPP and calling for a reinstatement of the Glass Steagall Act. This is how Trump appeals to those economically dislocated by decades of economic globalization, the displaced class, which is not a traditional ideological class, it is a class defined by economic identity.

DeSantis insisting that he is the better option because of his interest in fighting for conservatism and coming at Trump from the right, is a huge mistake. Trump’s opposition fails the most when they attack Trump from the right, whether it’s Democrats telling him to be more militaristic in Syria or other Republicans telling him he’s ‘soft on crime’, when he enacts policies like the First Step Act.

Above all else, Trump is a far more effective entertainer than DeSantis and all his challengers. The more that enter the race, the higher Trump’s chances. What drives Trump and his political movement transcends ideological and party lines. Until enough people understand this, it will be up to opportunistic conmen like Trump to exploit the growing culture of despair in the US.

Conclusion

“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.”[xvii]– Aldous Huxley

The 2024 US presidential election will be declared a contest between democracy and autocracy- this is a fantasy. 2024 will be a contest between who gets to sign the same executive orders and approvals for military action. It will be a contest between who is the face of American empire.

Little has changed under Biden’s presidency. Although he withdrew US troops from Afghanistan and he signed the Child Tax Credit, he also put troops back into Somalia after Trump withdrew them at the end of his presidency, he has not signed a single free trade deal, nor has he rescinded the tariffs as he promised he would, the US continues to undermine the WTO, with Biden’s main trade adviser, Katherine Tai, sounding more like Robert Lighthizer than a move back to unfettered free trade.[xviii]

Biden, through his ‘foreign policy for the middle class’, has continued Trump’s America First agenda, spooking allies in Europe and Asia, and there has been no significant move to renegotiate the TPP, another promise he made, same with the Iran Nuclear Deal.[xix] Many in Biden’s cabinet are more hawkish on Iran than even Trump, especially during violent protests against the Iranian government. The US, along with China, is an impediment to UN proposals to ban the use of killer robots.[xx] Biden pulled out of the QUAD as well, stunning allies and mirroring Trump, though Biden claims he withdrew to focus on the debt ceiling fight.[xxi] The US continues to illegally occupy a third of Syria, stealing oil and interfering in the civil war, aggravating tensions instead of easing them.[xxii]

The Biden administration has taken the baton on China from Trump and has pursued an all-out economic war with them, as the stated intent of policies like the CHIPS act is to keep China behind the US economically. It is likely that if China does take control of Taiwan, then Taiwanese semiconductor factories will suffer from mysterious gas leaks, as the US empire would rather implode Taiwan’s economy than risk China overtaking them.[xxiii]

These are not just failures and the horrors of the Biden administration; they are failures and horrors of the permanent regime. Everything that Trump was supposed to do is being done under Biden. Many people will likely be unpersuaded by frantic news hosts warning them of the dangers of Trump becoming president again. People are desperate, just as before in 2016, and Biden may assume that he beat Trump once, he can do it again, however, the Democratic party has another thing coming if it continues to ride on this assumption. Their criminality and brutality, as proven in the Russiagate fiction and the actions of the Biden administration, will be the death of everyone, not just them.

At times I have wondered whether Trump is hopeless or not. While many who say he will get crushed in a general election raise fair points, people are in an even greater state of despair and anger than before, and such a volatile environment favors Trump. With Biden deteriorating mentally and physically, and the next in line for leadership being the grating, inept Kamal Harris, the Democratic party is incredibly vulnerable. Trump could easily get 46 percent of the popular vote, carrying the right states to an electoral college victory, especially if there is low turnout on election day.

Underneath this political charade is a corroded democracy, a brittle shell of its former self. The despair that is rife in the US is prevalent in pockets across the West, for example areas in Great Britain are ravaged by addiction and poverty. The power imaginary that we have become enamored with, that there is a far-right populist movement threatening our noble liberal democracies, has led to a complete destruction of the constitutional imaginary.

Thus, with the constitutional imaginary eroded, what Wolin warned would result in a complete shift to inverted totalitarianism has occurred. It is no longer a specter looming over the US, it has consumed it, and it looms over us in Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and across the Western world, and we are marching straight into its abyss.

---

[i] Wolin, Sheldon S. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017.

[ii] Hedges, Chris. Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. New York: Nation Books, 2010.

[iii] Carnahan, Ashley. “Unprecedented Trump Indictment Eviscerated as ‘Legally Pathetic.’” Fox News, March 30, 2023. https://www.foxnews.com/media/unprecedented-trump-indictment-eviscerated-legally-pathetic.

[iv] Orden, Erica. “Your Guide to the Trial: E. Jean Carroll v. Donald Trump.” POLITICO, April 24, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/24/trump-rape-trial-what-to-know-00093537.

[v] Quinnipiac. “Trump Doubles Lead over DeSantis in 2024 GOP Primary Race, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; 65% of Voters Think Biden Is Too Old for Second Term | Quinnipiac University Poll.” poll.qu.edu, May 24, 2023. https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3872.

[vi] Mariotti, Renato. “Opinion | the Gaping Hole in the Middle of the Trump Indictment.” POLITICO, April 5, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/05/gaping-hole-trump-indictment-00090701., and Zakaria, Fareed. “Opinion: The Problem with Trump’s Indictment.” CNN, April 2, 2023. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/02/opinions/donald-trump-indictment-gps-fareed-zakaria/index.html.

[vii] Gross, Bertram. Friendly Fascism. Black Rose Books Limited, 1985.

[viii] Benjamin, Medea. “Biden’s Pick for Intelligence Chief, Avril Haines, Is Tainted by Drones and Torture.” Salon, December 30, 2020. https://www.salon.com/2020/12/30/bidens-pick-for-intelligence-chief-avril-haines-is-tainted-by-drones-and-torture/.

[ix] Borger, Julian. “Avril Haines’s Unusual Backstory Makes Her an Unlikely Chief of US Intelligence.” The Guardian, January 26, 2021, sec. US news. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/26/avril-haines-director-of-national-intelligence.

[x] Slater, Tom. “Why the Resistance Is (Still) so Much Worse than Trump.” http://www.spiked-online.com, April 5, 2023. https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/04/05/why-the-resistance-is-still-so-much-worse-than-trump/.

[xi] Wolin. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism.

[xii] Trump, Donald J. Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again. New York: Threshold Editions, 2016.

[xiii] U.S Department of Justice. “Special Counsel John Durham’s Office | Special Counsel John Durham.” http://www.justice.gov, June 16, 2022. https://www.justice.gov/sco-durham.

[xiv] Geraghty, Jim. “Opinion | Guess What, White House Correspondents: Biden’s Joke Was on You.” Washington Post, May 3, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/02/biden-avoids-interviews-news-conferences/.

[xv] Farhi, Paul. “New White House Rules: Reporters Can Be Kicked out If Not ‘Professional.’” Washington Post, May 9, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/05/09/white-house-press-rules-simon-ateba/.

[xvi] Wolin. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism.

[xvii] Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932.

[xviii] Anne Aarup, Sarah. “Brussels Incensed as US Spurns Global Trade Rules (yet Again).” POLITICO, December 20, 2022. https://www.politico.eu/article/brussels-incensed-as-us-spurns-global-trade-rules-yet-again/.

[xix] Mousavian, Seyed Hossein. “Biden’s ‘No Iran Deal, No Crisis’ Policy Is Unsustainable.” Responsible Statecraft, May 12, 2023. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/05/12/bidens-no-iran-deal-no-crisis-policy-is-unsustainable/#:~:text=In%20May%202018%2C%20Donald%20Trump.

[xx] Geneva, AFP in. “US Rejects Calls for Regulating or Banning ‘Killer Robots.’” the Guardian, December 2, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/02/us-rejects-calls-regulating-banning-killer-robots.

[xxi] Remeikis, Amy. “Quad Summit Cancelled after Joe Biden Calls off Trip to Australia.” The Guardian, May 17, 2023, sec. World news. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/17/quad-summit-meeting-cancelled-joe-biden-calls-off-australia-trip.

[xxii] Van Auken, Bill. “US Bombs Syria in Defense of Its Illegal Occupation.” World Socialist Web Site, March 25, 2023. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/03/25/mfbz-m25.html.

[xxiii] Mann, Tobias. “The US Would See TSMC Fabs Burn than Let China Have Them.” http://www.theregister.com, March 14, 2023. https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/14/us_china_tsmc_taiwan/.

Bibliography

Anne Aarup, Sarah. “Brussels Incensed as US Spurns Global Trade Rules (yet Again).” POLITICO, December 20, 2022. https://www.politico.eu/article/brussels-incensed-as-us-spurns-global-trade-rules-yet-again/.

Benjamin, Medea. “Biden’s Pick for Intelligence Chief, Avril Haines, Is Tainted by Drones and Torture.” Salon, December 30, 2020. https://www.salon.com/2020/12/30/bidens-pick-for-intelligence-chief-avril-haines-is-tainted-by-drones-and-torture/.

Borger, Julian. “Avril Haines’s Unusual Backstory Makes Her an Unlikely Chief of US Intelligence.” The Guardian, January 26, 2021, sec. US news. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/26/avril-haines-director-of-national-intelligence.

Carnahan, Ashley. “Unprecedented Trump Indictment Eviscerated as ‘Legally Pathetic.’” Fox News, March 30, 2023. https://www.foxnews.com/media/unprecedented-trump-indictment-eviscerated-legally-pathetic.

Farhi, Paul. “New White House Rules: Reporters Can Be Kicked out If Not ‘Professional.’” Washington Post, May 9, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/05/09/white-house-press-rules-simon-ateba/.

Geneva, AFP in. “US Rejects Calls for Regulating or Banning ‘Killer Robots.’” the Guardian, December 2, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/02/us-rejects-calls-regulating-banning-killer-robots.

Geraghty, Jim. “Opinion | Guess What, White House Correspondents: Biden’s Joke Was on You.” Washington Post, May 3, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/02/biden-avoids-interviews-news-conferences/.

Gross, Bertram. Friendly Fascism. Black Rose Books Limited, 1985.

Hedges, Chris. Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. New York: Nation Books, 2010.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932.

Mann, Tobias. “The US Would See TSMC Fabs Burn than Let China Have Them.” http://www.theregister.com, March 14, 2023. https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/14/us_china_tsmc_taiwan/.

Mariotti, Renato. “Opinion | the Gaping Hole in the Middle of the Trump Indictment.” POLITICO, April 5, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/05/gaping-hole-trump-indictment-00090701.

Mousavian, Seyed Hossein. “Biden’s ‘No Iran Deal, No Crisis’ Policy Is Unsustainable.” Responsible Statecraft, May 12, 2023. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/05/12/bidens-no-iran-deal-no-crisis-policy-is-unsustainable/#:~:text=In%20May%202018%2C%20Donald%20Trump.

Orden, Erica. “Your Guide to the Trial: E. Jean Carroll v. Donald Trump.” POLITICO, April 24, 2023. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/24/trump-rape-trial-what-to-know-00093537.

Quinnipiac. “Trump Doubles Lead over DeSantis in 2024 GOP Primary Race, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; 65% of Voters Think Biden Is Too Old for Second Term | Quinnipiac University Poll.” poll.qu.edu, May 24, 2023. https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3872.

Remeikis, Amy. “Quad Summit Cancelled after Joe Biden Calls off Trip to Australia.” The Guardian, May 17, 2023, sec. World news. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/17/quad-summit-meeting-cancelled-joe-biden-calls-off-australia-trip.

Slater, Tom. “Why the Resistance Is (Still) so Much Worse than Trump.” http://www.spiked-online.com, April 5, 2023. https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/04/05/why-the-resistance-is-still-so-much-worse-than-trump/.

Trump, Donald J. Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again. New York: Threshold Editions, 2016.

U.S Department of Justice. “Special Counsel John Durham’s Office | Special Counsel John Durham.” http://www.justice.gov, June 16, 2022. https://www.justice.gov/sco-durham.

Van Auken, Bill. “US Bombs Syria in Defense of Its Illegal Occupation.” World Socialist Web Site, March 25, 2023. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/03/25/mfbz-m25.html.

Wolin, Sheldon S. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017.

Zakaria, Fareed. “Opinion: The Problem with Trump’s Indictment.” CNN, April 2, 2023. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/02/opinions/donald-trump-indictment-gps-fareed-zakaria/index.html.