Click to subscribe to Mark McNease On Topic, a Substack original arriving every Monday

Well, it finally happened. Donald Trump was indicted, and not the kind of ‘nothing’s going to come of this’ indictment many of us thought was handed down in New York. This is some Espionage Act, serious prison time stuff, and it has left me … ambivalent.

As much as I loathe Trump (almost as much as I loathe DeSantis, and that’s more loathing than I can fit into a thousand Substacks), the idea of a former American president sitting in a prison cell still manages to shock my sensibilities. I felt no sense of joy, no thrill of revenge, when it happened. I felt like we were finally coming to the end of a grotesque tragedy America wrote, produced, and starred in for its own entertainment. American exceptionalism is all the rage, and what could be more exceptional than a trial-by-jury of the most catastrophic head of state we have ever had?

The only enjoyment I’m getting from this is knowing how absolutely out of their minds it’s making the right-wing nut-o-sphere. Their cries of weaponized justice and the criminalization of political opponents rings more than hollow, coming from people who chanted “lock her up” at Trump rallies, and who are currently passing vicious, cruel, draconian laws in Republican-run states in a brutal but doomed attempt to eradicate trans and queer people.

From the Substack Mark McNease On Topic. Subscribe for twice-weekly goodies bags.

For all the times I said I would cheer when the day came, the indictment of Donald Trump did not feel celebratory. It felt like a sad day in a tawdry story that has no ending. Will they shoot to kill? Will they shoot at all? Will they ramp up their anti-trans hysteria, blaming the weakest, most vulnerable people they can still pummel while polite society remains glued to TikTok? Right-wing gadfly Ben Shapiro declares that trans people should be barred from owning guns. Not such a 2nd Amendment absolutist after all, is he?

I’m really an optimist. I think we live once, and only once, in our present incarnations. What happens when the lights go out, I don’t care and I don’t think about. I may stare awestruck at the silent void when I’m inches from it, but the whole “where do we go when we die” question has as much meaning for me as “is there a god?” It’s reported that when asked if god exists, Buddha replied with silence. I think that’s the perfect response: it exists if it matters to you that it exists.