PAUL GORDON

April 15, 2024, was a sad day in United States history.

That was the day Donald Trump became the first former U.S. president to stand trial for criminal charges, of which he was convicted six weeks later.

I watched, as did many Americans, as the networks spent hours each day of the trial telling us what happened, showing us sketches like they were going to make some testimony seem more real, and telling us what we should pay attention to.

I read countless reports from reputable news sources about the same things, believing still in the print media’s ability to go more in depth in a meaningful way.

I watched as the networks broadcast the guilty verdicts on 34 felony charges having to do with influencing the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The actual charges were for falsifying business records to cover up moral misdeeds he didn’t want voters to know about.

But while watching I didn’t cheer or feel any sort of satisfaction, even though I believed from what I’d heard and read that it was the correct verdict. Instead, I felt sad that it had come to this.

I felt sad thinking of what was ahead because of what one man and his minions had done and would likely do if given the chance. I felt sad remembering when the likes of Bob Michel or Ray LaHood were reaching across the aisle to get things done, not having to worry about the “gotcha” antics of Jim Jordan or Marge Green. There were actual times when party politics took a back seat to what was good for the country.

Impeachment was a serious thing, not a tit-for-tat mindset thrown around like candy at the Republican parades.

I could not care less about Donald Trump the person. He is arrogant and has an ego the likes of which we have never seen. If not for that ego, it’s doubtful he would have gone on trial for anything. His fraudulent schemes, such as Trump University, probably would have gone unnoticed if only because his victims of those schemes would be too embarrassed to say anything publicly.

The inflated value of his Trump Tower condo probably would not have been caught because nobody would have looked that closely at his numbers, considering how long he’d been getting away with it.

I do not feel an ounce of sympathy for Donald Trump, but, sadly, I feel some toward members of his family who probably believed themselves lucky to be born into that last name. Now they may still feel very loyal toward him and proud of him but if not for his ego, their names and images would not be part of a growing disparagement across the world.

Anything that comes Trump’s way now is deserved. He decided to run for president to prove … what, exactly? And now, after proving he was not up to the task, he wants us to put him back in the White House.

Please, let’s not.