Trump Asked Supporters to Take to the Streets. This Was the Sad Result.

Outside a courthouse in New York City, it was difficult to tell who had come to protest the pending indictment of the former president and who had come to troll.

This article appears in full at The New Republic.

By the early evening of the prophesied day of former President Donald Trump’s detainment—Tuesday, March 21—defeat was hanging heavy in the air. A few intrepid news crews were still trying to report live from Collect Pond Park, a pondless square of green space and concrete that faces the art deco fortress of the Manhattan District Criminal Courthouse building. This courthouse may, or may not, book Trump in the next few days on charges of cooking the books to pay a porn star to shut up, back in 2016. At this point, it might be easier to count the number of politicians who haven’t hushed up a sex scandal using shady money than the ones who have, but here we are nonetheless. The number of presidents who schemed for months to hold onto power after losing an election still stands at one, and it seems to be the liberal consensus that one criminal charge is as good as another.

Let’s get you caught up on the pageantry of waiting outside a courthouse in New York City for Donald Trump to get arrested. There are police barricades. There are policemen. What there haven’t been, to speak of, are the protesters that Trump summoned to this spot—there are perhaps two at this point, though it’s hard to tell for sure. There are no Trump flags here, no signs, no bombastic speeches about God and country and freedom.

The absence of anything resembling news complicates things significantly for on-the-ground reporting, but the assembled news anchors are doing their best. “Police are on high alert for—” an Australian woman says into the camera. Then she falters; then she starts again. The situation behind her can’t be helping her concentration; a retired Marine is loudly dressing down the tiny remaining pocket of dejected, signless demonstrators. “This ain’t Trump’s world! This is God’s world, motherfucker! Fuck Trump! Fuck Trump! Fuck YOU!”

Read the rest at The New Republic