Let's All Take a Deep Breath on the New Trump Indictment

Can we please stop treating this like the most incredible historical document of all time?

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It’s the biggest story in politics right now: former President Donald Trump has been indicted for a third time. The charges, which stem from Trump’s widespread conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election and do some kind of coup with the most brain-dead lawyers/co-conspirators around, are serious, and things like this are without precedent. The man is still running for president again, for god’s sake!

So yes, this is all a big deal. But can we maybe, just maybe, take a deep breath? Because we have been here so, so often before, and the result is the same every time: nothing happens to Trump.

I’m biased, but I think Cros got the balance right between the gravity of the charges and the real-world impact they’re likely to have in his blog yesterday. Other people? Not so much. It seems like there are a whole lot of pundits rushing to take their place as the grand marshals of this latest premature victory parade, and—most annoyingly—treating the indictment as if it’s the most historically important piece of writing since the Bible.

Let’s start with the New York Times, ever a space for useful discourse.