Sharon Kennedy: Flushing democracy down the toilet

If you’ve been paying the slightest attention to what’s happening in the DJT court cases, there should be no doubt in your mind that the U.S. court system is corrupt. If you or I had committed all the infractions he’s accused of, we’d be doing hard time right now. People, where is your common sense? Have you abdicated it in order to join the most destructive movement ever to penetrate our society? If things continue as they are, the country-wide explosion you’ll soon hear will be MAGA judges flushing the rule of law down a golden toilet.

Let’s get real. You’re not blind. You saw the same images I saw on Jan. 6 three years ago. Unless DJT and his minions have convinced you that the people injuring law enforcement, scaling the Capitol walls, smashing windows, smearing the halls with feces, and calling for the hanging of Mike Pence and the death of Nancy Pelosi was a mirage, you know the attempted coup was real. What you might not know is Hitler’s first stab at overthrowing the German government was a failure. He regrouped, realizing the best way to legitimately gain power was through the ballot box. He accomplished this by creating fear in the mind of each voter.

Some of you are under the assumption I “hate” Donald Trump. That’s nothing short of crazy. I don’t know the man. How can I hate someone I’ve never met? It’s not logically possible. What I find fascinating and incredibly destructive is his Pied Piper ability to bring democracy to a halt, not through a coup, but through the state and federal court systems including the Supreme Court. I’m not making this up. Get off your couch, turn off your television and do some Googling.

Start with a short story by James Thurber entitled “The Greatest Man in the World” published in 1931. A brief synopsis taken from the Library of America sums up the main plot:

“Thurber’s Jack (Pal) Smurch has become shorthand for a hero, politician or celebrity who, in person, turns out to be a lout. Everyone who knows him knows what he’s really like, but everyone is reluctant to say anything about it. ‘Greatest Man’ is a satire of the American propensity for hero worship and a parody on Thurber’s ‘What If’ series, i.e., ‘What if Napoleon had Escaped to America.’”

If you don’t read, then listen to podcasts like Keith Obermann’s “Countdown,” Steve Schmidt’s “The Warning,” Bulwark’s “Never Trump” hosted by Tim Miller, and “War Room” created by Steve Bannon. Schmidt and Miller are former Republicans. Bannon still worships Trump. These men and their guests give more than 10-second sound bites on important issues including the collapse of our judicial system.

Once the courts bow to wealthy and powerful defendants, the jig’s up. Perhaps we’ve wondered if judges appointed for life could be bought. Now we know they can. They often decide cases on the perks they’ll receive by ignoring the rule of law as written in the Constitution. The abuse of their authority is smacking us in the face as we watch delay after delay in hopes a former president will be re-elected and demand all charges against him be dismissed. This is an outrage to people too poor to hire lawyers who will defend them by looking under every rock that hides the truth.

Trump-appointed Judge Cannon should recuse herself from any further court proceedings regarding DJT due to conflict of interest. So, too, the public should demand the resignation of some Supreme Court justices unless they’re eager to hear the toilet flush on democracy.

— To contact Sharon Kennedy, send her an email at sharonkennedy1947@gmail.com. Kennedy's new book, "View from the SideRoad: A Collection of Upper Peninsula Stories," is available from her or Amazon.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Sharon Kennedy: Flushing democracy down the toilet