America has been exposed, interestingly, to Americans themselves. For the longest time, Americans were fed the narrative that they have strong institutions that function for the good of the people. Even when questionable occurrences took place (i.e. Watergate, JFK’s assassination, Operation Denver, and others), the narrative of a strong America and a bastion for democracy and accountability prevailed… at least, that was until the COVID debacle and the political persecution of Donald Trump.

America, you have a problem, specifically that of the weaponisation of institutions and laws against even your own – and this is precisely what we are talking about today. However, the undermining of institutions is not at all exclusive to the US, as it appears that Emmanuel Macron is once again manifesting tyrannical inclinations, except instead of brutally responding to dissent and impoverishing farmers, he is undermining the democratic institutions of his nation after an embarrassing loss to a right-wing party.

while Donald Trump was the accused, it appears that American institutions are now also on trial. Earlier, I alluded to the fact that America has been exposed to Americans themselves, especially since for the longest time Americans were fed the narrative that they have strong institutions that function for the good of the people. This narrative prevailed until the COVID debacle and the political persecution of Donald Trump.

First, the COVID debacle ushered in the exposure of the (not new but certainly more visible) medical industrial complex. The role of pharmaceutical companies in undermining the integrity of regulators and in determining health policy, while destroying the lives of many (and while being exempt from accountability) became obvious. Of course not to everyone, and not at once. In fact, for a while questioning of covid protocols and science was immediately dismissed as conspiracy. To even suggest that COVID was leaked from a lab would expose you to ostracisement and ridicule. Meanwhile, the Biden administration also went so far as to coerce social media platforms to censor dissenting voices (until Elon Musk bought Twitter and came through with the Twitter files + pressured Zuckerberg to do the same). However, the truth of how coordinated the COVID debacle was in undermining American institutions has since come out and is still coming out.

Secondly, and irrespective of your feelings about Trump before 2023, if you are genuinely informed about the contents of his cases, you can easily see that the political and judicial systems are being weaponised against him. For instance, it is not at all clear why a court insisted that he cheated a bank that he got a loan from, despite the fact that he paid it back in time with interest. In fact, even the bank testified that its business with Trump was beneficial and was used to raise its portfolio, and yet the court insisted it was a victim. Secondly, the details of the conviction itself are concerning. Particularly, Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsification of business records in the first degree, which is a felony in New York state. Each charge corresponds to a document that was created to pay Michael Cohen $35,000 a month in 2017: the checks themselves, the invoices Cohen sent to get reimbursed and the vouchers the Trump Organization used to record the payment.  Prosecutors claim that those checks were meant to reimburse Cohen for the $130,000 “hush money” payment that he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016 in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter she said she had with Trump years earlier. However, Trump’s defence said the payments to Cohen were to pay for his legal services. Trump pleaded not guilty to all counts and denied all wrongdoing. And the prosecutors have not proved that Trump’s money is actually tied to a crime.

In any case, the jury, which was composed of 12 Manhattan residents, found that Trump illegally falsified business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. They found him guilty on all counts on their second day of deliberations. This also means that the presumptive Republican nominee for president is now also a (falsely) convicted felon, which is a label that will reverberate across the electorate in the months between now and Election Day in November. But have a listen to Congressman Bryon Donalds who outlined as early as January this year, “It’s without question that the DOJ is playing politics of the worst kind with Donald Trump.”