There comes a time when it’s hard to know the difference between a banana republic and the greatest system of government devised in human history. Sometimes it’s just a Thursday. Dictionary.com defines a banana republic as “any exploitative government that functions poorly for its citizenry while disproportionately benefitting a corrupt elite group or individual.” Gee, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

There are any number of biases we have to sift through on a daily basis. The worst one is what I would lovingly call the superlative bias. In short, it is the concept that whatever event we are currently going through is the best or worst event of its type in history.

In some sense it makes perfect sense. Sensationalism sells and nothing kills the sensationalism like the admission that we have been through this before. Just this week we saw reporting that pointed to what most people would call treason during the Iran hostages scandal of the late 1970s and 1980. Americans back then would have been flummoxed to hear that news if it had immediately come out. Fortunately or unfortunately we did not hear about those events until long after they actually happened. If American voters had known Richard Nixon was conspiring with North Vietnam then maybe he doesn’t become president.

The job of the media is becoming increasingly more difficult as these stories become news instantaneously. We learned about Russian interference in the 2016 election almost virtually as it was happening. We learned about various Trump scandals almost immediately. We had all of the evidence we needed. Hell, it was all on tape. It has to be difficult when things are that simple. In a nation where conspiracy theories reign (and rain), it seems impossible to believe something so simple. We keep getting told that arrests and indictments are imminent. We saw that in 2017 and 2018 with the Russia scandal. We saw that with the first impeachment following Ukraine. We saw that with the second impeachment and January 6th. We have seen it since the bloviating moron left the White House.

Every time an arrest or indictment doesn’t happen it makes you doubt the story itself. The press is just crying wolf again. Maybe this is another “trumped” up charge. It’s really not that serious. Someone that is such an accomplished businessman would never do something so blatantly obvious like that. Except he did at every turn.

The current and former jackass in chief is even leaning into it. He is releasing his own rumors that he will be indicted. Why? It leans into the narrative. If he gets indicted for Stormy Daniels then it is proof in his mind that he is being persecuted. He did all this other stuff and it is a one night stand with a porn star that gets him? He must not have done any of those other things.

Political prosecutions are tricky business. If you overplay your hand then you guarantee the other side will do the same when they get the opportunity. There was talk from day one about impeaching Joe Biden. What’s the charge? They don’t know and couldn’t explain it if they did. They just know that it’s not fair that you busted our guy when he obviously broke every law in the book. Just rest assured that this latest scandal will be the worst of all. At least it will be until the next one.

The Ahmaud Arbery case clearly shows how good our justice system could be. That’s until you actually pay attention to everything that went into that case. You had someone from law enforcement (though retired) taking the law and throwing it down on its ear.

You had a prosecutor using judgment so outrageous that they ended up being charged with a crime. You had someone filming the whole incident in what could be described as either the height of foolishness, act of real foresight, or strategy gone wrong. You had the trial itself that was anything but smooth. We obviously have high-minded ways of describing this collision of misshapen events, but the kids probably have pegged it best. They call it a “shit show.”

Yet, after all of that malarkey, justice was somehow served. The guilty parties were actually found guilty. While that explanation seems so far out of whack to Arbery’s friends and family, it is far better than the alternative up in Wisconsin. It hardly qualifies as the best of times, but in comparison I guess it will have to do.

In the background somewhere off camera is the debate over critical race theory. On the one hand, one can easily say that justice was served, so why the need to discuss race? Except we can’t avoid looking at how it was served. We can’t avoid looking at why it was served. We can’t avoid the feeling that it would very likely have not been served at all save a little stupid luck along the way. If the footage of the murder had not been captured on camera and sent to the right people it would have never been served.

Sometimes these things are captured for posterity sake and justice still isn’t served. More often than not it isn’t. When we were young, our elders taught us that character is made up of the things we do when no one is watching. Maybe we take the extra cookie or slack off at work when the supervisor is out. That’s small potatoes. If we pervert justice because we can, then do we really need a high-minded academic theory to tell us we’ve done it? Is it really that difficult to imagine it happening more often?

Most people are smart enough to take only one extra cookie from the cookie jar. They don’t raid the whole thing because that would be too obvious. Justice isn’t grotesquely biased on most occasions. That would be too obvious. We eat around at the corners until the advantage is clear. We do it so that we have plausible deniability. So yes, justice was served. It was only served because the whole world was watching. Still, there are times when even that is not enough.

OK, this one is rich.  Trump’s latest excuse about not releasing his tax returns?  He’s being audited.  That’s right, that’s not new; his new reason is that he’s being audited because of his strong Christian faith and that the IRS is biased against Christians.  That’s right – he’s being audited because he’s Mr. Super Duper Christian now.

Jesus.  Literally.