Global Courant
Shortly after the United States Constitutional Convention ended on September 17, 1787, Dr. Benjamin Franklin stepped out of what is today known as Independence Hall in Philadelphia into the summer sun.
For four months, Franklin and the other 54 delegates in attendance had negotiated a four-page constitution that formed the United States government from the disparate threads of 12 of the original 13 states.
A woman approached Franklin. “Well, doctor, what do we have – a republic or a monarchy?”
“A republic, if you can keep it,” Franklin replied.
Franklin’s remark was simultaneously a celebration and a warning. A fragile federation had emerged, bound by a newly drafted constitution.
Franklin inevitably suggested that that bond be put to the test. In those difficult circumstances, the vigilance of all would be vital to keep the republic intact.
More than two centuries later, Franklin’s prophecy came true again in a land whose history is rife with turmoil and division.
On January 6, 2021, the republic of the US was tested by an uprising. A mob, prepared and emboldened by an angry, vanquished president, attacked the Capitol with one goal: to prevent Congress from confirming Joe Biden’s election as president.
The uprising failed. Most members of Congress, who had taken refuge in the marauding mob, emerged later that shocking day, determined to fulfill their constitutional duty to cement the new president’s decisive victory.
Since then, dozens of insurgents have been arrested, charged and convicted for their often violent roles in the foiled coup.
On July 24, a truck driver from Arkansas was there convicted to 52 months in prison for beating a police officer with a flagpole while shouting, “That whole building is full of treacherous traitors. Death is the only cure for what is in that building.”
So far, the chief architect of the madness and mayhem has avoided the same fate.
Thankfully, it looks like Donald Trump’s procrastination is about to end.
Last week, Special Counsel Jack Smith sent Trump a letter informing him he was a “target” of an investigation into the cacophonous events of January 6 and inviting him to testify before a grand jury considering indicting the defeated president.
Trump’s carousel of attorneys rejected the special counsel’s offer, insisting their rule-of-law-allergic client had “done nothing wrong” and, with typical roar, accusing Smith of being Biden’s handmaid.
Apparently, a grand jury disagrees.
Trump could soon be charged with a slew of charges related to three felonies, including conspiracy, obstruction and witness tampering.
If that happens, it will be the third time since March that Trump has been indicted. He is, of course, the first former president to face such a blunt legal reckoning.
Trump’s lengthy criminal record reflects the sad disposition of a career crook turned president.
He is a womanizer and a liar who pays hush money to a mistress to keep her mother.
He is a raging narcissist who hoards multitudes of the country’s secrets and flaunts them like a petulant child eager to impress and placate his insatiable ego.
He is a self-assured man who enjoys the ignorance, malice and fabricated grievances of his maniacal minions and exploits them for his parochial purposes.
Most egregious of all, he is a conniving imposter who has betrayed his oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Disgruntled, a few liberal commentators grumble that the charges, while welcomed, represent a denouement against a climax that may or may not lead to Trump’s rise or fall politically.
I share a little of their grief. I’ve written about Trump’s continued and staggering popularity, even in the face of a myriad of criminal charges that, if decency or fairness mattered, would have disqualified the 45th president from being commander in chief again.
Still, I remain convinced that these sometimes grating soursops miss the reassuring meaning and purpose of Trump’s indictments.
The ordinary, faceless Americans who make up the three grand juries that to date have indicted or are expected to indict a vulgar simpleton, who as president was shrouded in enormous power, have heeded Franklin’s call to keep their republic intact.
They do their part by corralling an unrepentant villain who longs to exercise the privileges and prerogatives of an all-powerful monarch.
This is an essential act of citizenship that has required enlightened Americans to reject—sometimes at great risk and usually with little fanfare—the sinister schemes of a demagogue who favors autocracy over democracy.
So was the defiance of the largely anonymous Capitol police officers, no doubt motivated in part by the need to preserve, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution. They held on despite being outnumbered, overwhelmed and hurt in body, mind and soul.
They prevailed.
Instead of wallowing in disappointment, abandoned liberal writers should applaud the resolve of honorable Americans who have held a dishonorable president firmly to account. They have served as a bulwark—as Franklin envisioned—against a “populist” charlatan bent on destroying the republic in his obsessive pursuit of money, power and revenge.
The delicious irony is that Trump’s fate will ultimately be determined by the kind of commonplace, faceless Americans he loathes and would deny membership at his gilded monument to kitsch and extravagance, Mar-a-Lago.
Trump has bullied much of the Republican Party into complicity and silence.
He wasn’t counting on the legion of wise Americans who refuse to be intimidated into complicity or silence—in a courtroom or at the polls.
As frayed as it is, it’s their republic — not Trump’s — and they intend to keep it.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial view of Al Jazeera.
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