{"id":17564,"date":"2023-04-02T22:36:23","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T08:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/?p=17564"},"modified":"2023-04-02T22:36:25","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T08:36:25","slug":"from-the-big-apple-to-the-big-pineapple-some-thoughts-as-i-await-americas-first-presidential-indictment-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/2023\/04\/02\/from-the-big-apple-to-the-big-pineapple-some-thoughts-as-i-await-americas-first-presidential-indictment-in-history\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Big Apple to the Big Pineapple\u2014Some Thoughts As I Await America\u2019s First Presidential Indictment in History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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by Emil Guillermo<\/em>

I\u2019m still in Manhattan as I write this and I\u2019m wondering, if New York is the Big Apple, why isn\u2019t Honolulu the Big Pineapple?

Among other things, I\u2019m performing in a play off-Broadway at Theater For the New City, and it\u2019s totally impacted my perspective on everything.

First of all, I\u2019m not a New York tourist, I\u2019m more like a working resident. I\u2019m \u201cacting\u201d like a New Yorker.

And when it comes to whether or not there will be protests over the possibility of an impending Trump indictment, New Yorkers seem more concerned with when the cold weather is going away, not when Trump is going away, or with any repeat of Jan. 6.

Judging from New Yorker attitudes, if anyone wants to \u201ctake back the government\u201d in the name of Donald Trump, I\u2019d like to see them take on the NYPD.

I\u2019m actually still quite immersed in the play I\u2019m in, Ishmael Reed\u2019s \u201cThe Conductor.\u201d It deals with how world events impact local grassroots politics. In Reed\u2019s play, a fictional Indian despot\u2019s actions impact Indian Americans who face a wave of xenophobia and are forced to flee to Canada on an \u201cunderground railroad.\u201d

Hence, the need for a \u201cconductor.\u201d

Turns out everyone who is feeling some heat may need one to flee the U.S. In the play, it makes for some strange bedfellows.

\u201cThe Conductor\u201d runs through March 26, and is doing so well, the theater is bringing it back in August.

Reed wasn\u2019t so prescient to include the possibility of a Trump indictment or four, but my being in New York this week makes me wonder if the twice-impeached former president of the United States would soon need a \u201cconductor.\u201d

To get to Canada? After all he said about Justin Trudeau?

I was thinking out loud with Filipino American Studies Prof. Daniel Phil Gonzales on my Emil Amok\u2019s Takeout on www.amok.com<\/a> (Episode 489\/481).

We go beyond whether Trump will get indicted and go straight to wondering if Trump will get convicted for any of the cases that are brewing from minor to major, they include the New York hush money\/Stormy Daniels\/falsifying of documents case; The Georgia voter fraud case; the Mar-a-Lago stolen presidential documents case; and the case involving the Jan. 6 insurrection.

If Trump lost any one of them, would he even have the courage of Martha Stewart to don a matching orange jumpsuit? Or does he just flat-out leave the country? Sort of like the way Marcos left the Philippines to hide out in Hawaii.

Gonzales says Trump won\u2019t have the guts to face the music and will leave.  But to where?

I think Trump has his Putin parachute ready under his left arm.

And under his right arm, there\u2019s his North Korean parachute fashioned together with love letters from Kim Jong Un.

Ah, a former president in exile because he dared to want to be president again?

But that\u2019s the narrative the Republicans are drumming up, as if all this legal drama is merely political, and that no laws were broken (that we know of).  Trump still continues to rile up his base to protest, calling the legal proceedings a \u201cWitch Hunt.\u201d (If I were a Wiccan, I would be offended by his continued use of the term).

Republicans can bad mouth the legal process all they want, but it\u2019s another thing to intimidate the New York DA with threats of congressional investigations.

What\u2019s worse is that the law and order Republicans can\u2019t see they have a blind spot when it comes to respecting the rule of law when their own fearful leader is the possible perp in violation of laws.

Trump\u2019s reaction was simply to go half-cocked, not even knowing what the charges are. But most appalling is his go-to\u2014the call for violence.

\u201cProtest, protest, protest,\u201d Trump wrote in his social media posts. The twice impeached former president, who wants to be president again respects the law so much, his best response to an indictment in New York is to throw a dictator\u2019s tantrum and to use a dictator\u2019s tool\u2014violence.

This is a man who doesn\u2019t understand American democracy and doesn\u2019t deserve to be president even once.

I find it astonishing that it\u2019s not just leading Republicans, but those in our communities who are still supporting him.

When it comes to Asian Americans running for president, Nikki Haley is still mum. But there\u2019s Vivek Ramaswamy, the anti-woke Indian American rushing to Trump\u2019s defense.

\u201cIt is un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its political rivals,\u201d Ramaswamy said on Twitter.

\u201cThis will mark a dark moment in American history and will undermine public trust in our electoral system itself,\u201d Ramaswamy continued. \u201cI call on the Manhattan District Attorney to reconsider this action and to put aside partisan politics in service of preserving our Constitutional republic.\u201d

New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Harvard College, Harvard Law graduate, who grew up in Harlem and knows what it\u2019s like to be stopped by police for no good reason other than one\u2019s race, has said his prosecutors will not be intimidated.

It\u2019s important that this first case go through. America needs to let it sink in. The case involving hush money to a porn star may not be so insignificant if falsified documents were involved, and if the payoff of Daniels to keep quiet had any impact on Trump\u2019s campaign (it probably would have exacerbated that  \u201cAccess Hollywood\u201d tape that came out at the same time).

If Bragg\u2019s indictment comes down in the next week or so, Trump will get booked, printed and photographed.  He will be treated like a former president and a common criminal. That\u2019s never happened before in history. Will it make him more popular? No democracy-loving American would vote for an indicted outlaw for president a second time.

It\u2019s almost not important there\u2019s a conviction. Just getting the first indictment out will clear the way for Fulton County DA Fani Willis, another African American with a sense of justice. She\u2019s seeking the death penalty for the shooter of the Asian Americans in the Atlanta Spa Killings. In the Trump matters, the possibility of racketeering charges coming out of the grand jury has been raised.

We need the New York case as a first stress test for the legal battles ahead.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) decried it all, saying he just wants to see equal justice for all.

We all do, especially in the BIPOC community, where equal justice is hard to come by.

Trump himself has said he wants his \u201cperp\u201d walk, the parade before the media as he\u2019s transferred during booking. He believes it will make him appear to be the victim? Oh, so now he\u2019s playing victim games?

I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to work. Even scalawag Republicans wouldn\u2019t stoop to elect a man so tainted as a perpy, indicted Trump.

But this is why he\u2019s dangerous to democracy. There are the holdouts among the leading Republicans who are willing to lose all their credibility for this man.

Forget the banks, worry about democracy.

And don\u2019t worry about Trump. He\u2019s probably going to sell an NFT of the first presidential mug shot.

NOTE: I will talk about this column and other matters on \u201cEmil Amok\u2019s Takeout,\u201d my AAPI micro-talk show. Catch it Live most days @2p Pacific. Livestream on Facebook<\/a>; my YouTube<\/a> channel; and Twitter.<\/a> Catch the recordings on www.amok.com<\/a>.

EMIL GUILLERMO<\/strong> is a journalist and commentator. Nationally, he was host of NPR\u2019s \u201cAll Things Considered.\u201d Regionally, he worked in California, Texas and Hawaii, where he was on the editorial board of the Advertiser, and a columnist for the Star-Bulletin.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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