The 1st Amendment says that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech (especially political speech), free exercise of religion (or more simply, in what you believe), press (which increasingly has walked away from that freedom in order to defend and promote willfully one party’s ideology), assembly, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances (meaning objecting to being screwed over by the government). Without these guarantees, quite simply, the American experiment is over.

The four-count indictment dropped on Trump Tuesday afternoon boils down to the criminalization of political speech, and claims to know what the former President really believed, and that he was lying about that belief in order to stay in power. Congress isn’t making a law here abridging free speech, but a Trump-seeking missile in the Justice Department is perverting an existing statute in order to take away that freedom of political speech by criminalizing it, along with criminalizing what the prosecutors believe Trump believed, and then ultimately, criminalizing the attempt by the former President’s team to petition state governments in order to redress his grievances.

Now a couple of caveats from me so you know where I am on the spectrum here. And I write it with some trepidation because we apparently are on the threshold of entering a world where what you believe and what you say about it publicly can get you prosecuted and potentially incarcerated. I believe what happened on January 6th was disgusting. I believe Trump lost the 2020 Election, albeit narrowly, but he did lose. I believe the post-election challenge was a Hail Mary pass that was Constitutional nonsense.

I also believe that Joe Biden, Democrats in Congress, and Democrats inside the Justice Department are the most corrupt public servants this country has produced in my lifetime. And that’s saying something coming from a person who cut their political teeth and got into radio broadcasting specifically by uncovering and reporting on the Hillbilly Mafia that propelled Bill and Hillary Clinton to the White House. As crooked and corrupt as the Clintons were and are on a moral, professional, and political level, Biden Inc. is every bit their equal and even more shameless in the lengths to which they will go in order to protect their racketeering and personal debauchery.

Regardless of whether or not West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin launches a No Labels independent run for president, the reality of the choice in 2024 is going to be a vote at the top of the ticket between either a continuance of what we already see to be economically ruinous and morally bankrupt, or something else. That something else could be either a return to what preceded Joe Biden, or perhaps a generational shift to new leadership.

I have not endorsed any Republican contender, just like I didn’t endorse anyone in 2016. I certainly had my favorites then, and do now, but when the primaries are counted, I will support whoever emerges as the Republican Party’s nominee, because I believe the country simply cannot stand four more years of Joe Biden (or whoever replaces him when he eventually cannot do the job anymore).

I fully understand the mentality of a large swath of Republican voters that have had it with growing hostility to them coming from the government and with several elected establishment Republicans not doing enough to stop it. A one-sided fight has been ongoing for a long time, and a large chunk of the conservative base believes it’s high time to begin fighting back. That’s a large part of the appeal of renominating and reelecting Donald Trump, and that’s in large part why he’s got such a huge lead in early polls, and why those polls show a bump every successive time Trump gets a new round of indictments leveled at him.

The anger and resentment at the wanton disregard of equal treatment under the law by the feds is very real and growing. Just in the last 48 hours, the media has changed rapidly from reporting reluctantly on the damaging testimony in Congress by former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer, who demonstrated that Joe Biden at best has been lying about knowledge of and participation in Hunter’s shady and very profitable international business dealings for years. Joe Biden’s been using the trappings of his office to influence peddle and accept bribes to affect business entities abroad that happened to benefit Hunter. That testimony dropped from coverage literally overnight due to the Smith indictments, and the media has talked about nothing since. And while the indictments are being discussed, very quietly, the revised sweetheart plea deal for Hunter Biden’s criminal charges, even after being revised, a deal that you and I would never be offered, is being presented to the district court. No outrage, no reporting, just very quietly being taken care of while the nation rages about Donald Trump. Again.

If your choice for president is Donald Trump, I get it. I understand it. There actually is a lot of justification for it, considering what is being done to him. But there are also some hard truths that must be realized before doing so.

1. If Trump gets the nomination and wins the election, he will be a lame duck on January 20th, 2025. Unless the sweep into office includes dozens of Republicans in the House and at least half a dozen senators, nothing of substance will move through Congress. Trump will have to rule via executive order, and as we have seen from the last couple of years, you live by the executive order if it’s your guy, you die by the executive order if it’s not. Democrats will simply run out the clock, and none of the reforms you’re looking for are likely to get done. How will they be able to run out the clock?

2. The Democrats will bring a new lawsuit to stop anything of substance every single day of the Trump administration. They’re suing Trump now, they will continue to sue if he gets into office. This is nothing new, and regardless of which Republican eventually becomes president, using the courts as a delay tactic has become perfected as an art form by the Democrats. But the intensity and fervor are multiplied tenfold when the person they’re suing is Donald Trump. He is a lightning rod for legal action.

3. A second Trump administration will not be about policy. It will not be about solutions. It will not only be about ongoing Trump prosecutions but ongoing Trump persecution. This talk you hear by some on the left in media that, “Yeah, Trump is bad, but DeSantis is worse,” that’s a lie. In a Jack Smith world, that statement would get you incarcerated. There is no one worse to the left than Donald Trump.

I’ve spent my entire adult life studiously avoiding Les Miserables. Just never had a desire to be miserable watching a play about miserable people in a miserable period of time in history singing miserable songs about being miserable. The son of my next-door neighbor this summer had a featured role in a high school production of Les Mis, and I relented, willingly, in order to support him. It was miserable. For the next 18 months of Trump’s upcoming legal actions, all exquisitely timed to interfere with the 2024 Election, and the prospects of another Trump term in office and all that portends, I’m just not looking forward to an absolute certainty – the Beltway-On-Broadway nightly production of Les Miserables, with Trump in the Valjean role and Jack Smith as Javert. It’ll never end, and we’re all going to be miserable.

4. Trump’s past performance on personnel could very well be an indicator of future performance. He featured Anthony Fauci. He nominated FBI director Christopher Wray, who has been a disaster. He did take the counsel of some very good picks, most notably Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien. But beyond that, you’ve got to really search long and hard to find successful hires that actually drained the swamp. There’s simply not much of a predicate to point to that would show how Trump would drain the swamp this time, something that vitally needs doing if the country is to survive.

Pundits like me, regardless of political ideology, usually refer to the next presidential election as the most important election of our lifetime. I hate that turn of phrase, even though I must confess having used it myself a few times. I won’t use it this time. All I ask is that you go back to that line out of the Buffalo Springfield song, For What It’s Worth.

I think it’s time we stop
Children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

We’ve dodged a lot of bullets lately on 2nd Amendment grounds. We’ve had prayers answered recently with huge Supreme Court wins on behalf of religious liberty. But we’re on the precipice of criminalizing political speech, and culpable for being incarcerated, ultimately, for believing in something the government believes to be disinformation. Who needs Nina Jankowicz and the Ministry of Truth when you can simply have a Justice Department lawyer indict, prosecute, and potentially jail you if you don’t comport to their idea of truth?

We’ve got one chance here to pick the right nominee to step back from the coming wreckage. Choose wisely.