We're All Expendable

David Hearn is every one of us, a citizen, subject to the same laws. But think of what citizen David Hearn is being forced to endure. Indicted by a Washington D.C. grand jury for allegedly damaging Trump’s Reflecting Pool renovation. When the US Attorney brought the indictment, she riffed on Hearn’s guilt, citing loads of evidence; the Department of the Interior did the same. But in court, where facts still matter, the bogus case completely fell apart, and Jeanine Pirro, former Fox News host and cosplaying US Attorney for DC, had to withdraw the charges, marking yet another humiliation for the Trump DOJ. As seemed obvious to most observers, contractor error was the cause of the problem, not any action by David Hearn. The DOJ admitted this in its court filing.

But even after this incredible failure, Trump demanded that Hearn be charged again, saying, essentially, evidence is irrelevant.

When the rule of law no longer applies, every citizen is vulnerable. Hearn is being persecuted by the Regime for sport; the man who simply went out for a bike ride and stopped by the reflecting pool to see what all the fuss was about, and touched the water, has been subjected to stress, media spotlight, legal fees, public scrutiny and time lost from his daily life. How would you feel in his shoes? He’s a scapegoat for Trump’s recklessness and stupidity, a pawn in Trump’s reality TV presidency.

David Hearn happens to be a white man. Imagine the discussions we might be having if David Hearn was black or Muslim or both?

We must understand why what’s happening to David Hearn matters: when the federal government normalizes the persecution of citizens, other actors with power at lower levels of government take note, and some will twist the law for their own ends. Trumpism is like a virulent virus, but it’s also an ethos, method and operating system. Trump isn’t the King of Corruption for nothing. He corrupted the major organs of the federal government in order to execute stupendous white-collar criminality. Reports of Trump’s haul thus far are hard to verify, and the numbers reported may be low. $2 billion? $4 billion? Our country is being looted because the rule of law has been perverted.

Spend a moment thinking about this: Donald Trump is ruining the life of an innocent person to distract from his own failure. It’s like a reflex with Trump. David Hearn is expendable. So are the rest of us. This is what we brought upon ourselves when some 77 million voted for a criminal, a mentally-addled felon and insurrectionist. What’s really tragic is that many would make the same choice again.