The ongoing murder of a republic: federal judge temporarily forestalls the persecution of two of Trump’s more prominent enemies

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A federal judge has dismissed the Department of Justice’s cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, after the prosecutor in question was declared to have been unlawfully appointed {NPR 24 November}.

Thus collapses yet another fragment of what passes for law and order under the Trump regime—an inept gaggle of tinpot despots, draped in counterfeit piety and patriotic bluster, yet commanding the unwavering devotion of millions.

For all their corruption, cruelty, and chaos, they have achieved what tyrants throughout history have most craved: the unwavering loyalty of a vast and credulous multitude. Their iron grip endures upon the hearts and minds of white working-class Americans, most professed Christians, most gun owners, most in the ranks of law enforcement, and, not least, much of the corporate aristocracy that feeds upon the same trough of grievance and greed. The opposition, meanwhile, remains enfeebled and timorous—its own moral vanity a shackle—shouting platitudes about equality and inclusion while offering neither courage nor coherent policy.

One court ruling, however just, signifies little in the grander theatre of this nation’s decay. Trump 2.0’s only true objective is to terrorise, to intimidate, and to annihilate dissent—and the American people, by their own hand in the election of the previous year, have ensured that he and his acolytes shall do so with unrestrained efficiency. They voted not for deliverance, but for domination; not for liberty, but for spectacle and vengeance.

And so, I shall go on reminding all who will listen of who bears the ultimate responsibility for this criminal cabal’s resurrection and for the murder of their own republic: the American people themselves. Not merely those who voted for the orange demagogue, but also the pious moralists and hollow progressives who, in their feckless vanity, busied themselves policing pronouns and debating lavatory access while the foundations of democracy crumbled beneath them.

Soon enough, Trump will again attempt to place James Comey, Letitia James, and any who dared oppose him behind bars, while sycophants like Lindsey Halligan—pictured above in illustrated form, her actual face also lacquered beneath a pound of paint—will glide effortlessly through the corridors of the new orange-stained America, radiant in her complicity.

What was once the republic is now but a stage for farce and fanaticism, ruled not by principle but by spectacle. And the audience, clamouring in rapture, mistakes its own degradation for deliverance.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.