Warren G. Harding, our 29th president, died 100 years ago this month. At the time of his sudden passing, he had high approval ratings and was expected win reelection in 1924. His connections to the Teapot Dome scandal, a bribery investigation that dragged on for two years, overshadowed all of Harding's accomplishments posthumously.
There are some neat parallels between this and our 45th president, who is on his fourth indictment and counting. Had Harding lived to see Teapot Dome play out, he almost certainly would've been indicted as well. The end result of Teapot Dome was a member of Harding's cabinet and a few presidential aides going to prison. This latest Trump indictment corralled 19 collaborators, including disgraced former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani; for a pioneer of RICO laws, getting charged with racketeering is a sad irony. Naturally, all parties are pleading innocence.
The very idea of an elected US president standing trial for anything seems absurd. That was true in 1923 and it remains preposterous now, but Donald Trump is a special case. He's still running the GOP table (so to speak) and his base has hardly wavered. I assumed six years ago that if the crap hit the fan, most of Trump's lackeys and brown-nosers would take the fall while their vainglorious boss got off relatively scot-free. Seeing that Trump mugshot offers hope for a long-awaited reckoning, but it's only surface-level assuagement.
Next time: my annual NFL preview.
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