Trump's Indictment: Facing the American Contradiction

Bonnie Greer sees a historical conflict coming to a head as the former President is being indicted under the post Civil-War Enforcement Acts

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At the core of ‘The United States of America v. Donald J. Trump’ is the very survival of this increasingly fragile democracy.

The most controversial part of the latest indictment, for conservatives and right-wingers, is the citing of section 241 of criminal code 18.

This is a statute that dates back to 1870. President Ulysses S. Grant signed it into law, the first of what is known as the Enforcement Acts. The purpose of these Acts was to ensure that my ancestors, the formerly enslaved, could vote, hold public office and participate in the public life of the nation into which they were born. 

Through this statute, Jack Smith, the Special Counsel investigating the attempted coup of January 6 2021, accuses Trump – by way of his fake electors – of denying citizens their vote.

It does not get much more serious than that.

Fitch, the credit rating agency, recently downgraded the United States – not by much, maybe a small percentage. But it’s all going in the wrong direction.

The Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, dressed all in black, immediately took to the airwaves to explain that Fitch had made a grave mistake. She demanded that it look at the curve of the economy, look at the number of jobs being created, look at it all. But the markets went swiftly down. The US now stands naked in the world.