In the end, it was, as one observer said, like Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade — only without the talent. On one side of the police barricades in a small Manhattan park were the Trumpers; on the other side, the anti-Trumpers. In the middle was a whole lot of booing, shouting, whispering and whistling, the last courtesy of the Trump whistle guy.
Poor Marjorie Taylor Greene couldn’t hear herself through her bullhorn. She and fellow fabulist congressional colleague George Santos lasted little more than a New York minute, quitting the field about as fast as Sen. Josh Hawley “hawled” butt through the halls of Congress in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists — as fast as Peter’s denial of Jesus during his Passion even. The latter is a particularly appropriate analogy on Good Friday as Greene gave an ludicrous interview in which she compared Trump to Jesus and the late South African President Nelson Mandela, who spent more than 27 years in prison in his quest to free his country of apartheid.
Here the words of a conservative whom Greene and Santos could not deny, the late Pope Benedict XVI, apply. In his meditation on Jesus as servant-leader washing his Apostles’ feet on Holy Thursday, from the book “Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI” (Magnificat), he writes: “As long as power and wealth are seen as ends in themselves, then power is always a power to be used against others and possessions will always exclude others.”
Greene, who’s angling for the veep spot on the Trump ticket, got her New York “60 Minutes” moment, even if she proved to lack the perseverance for Broadway. But what did New York get out of it? For years, the city has tried to hold Trump accountable for his flimflam act. Now it stands accused — along with the Democrats and a whole host of others in the unending litany of narcissistic grievances — of political revenge.
Yet for New York — a practical, take-it-on-the-chin-and-move-on kind of place — this has never been as much about political retribution as it has been about economic restitution. For the city, the financial capital of the nation, it’s really about the money and bringing to justice those who allegedly defraud it of the money that is its due. So Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — and in a separate civil suit against Trump, three of his adult children and the Trump Organization, New York state Attorney General Letitia James — have taken their best shots.
I predict they will get convictions but Trump will never serve any jail time. Still, he will never be president again either. And that will be good enough.