Mikal Gilmore
Jan. 21
Nullification.
That’s where my thoughts finally landed, lying there in the dark.
Last night, around 6 p.m., I was feeling a little tired after we fetched the dogs, and after working in the office. I thought I'd lie down for half an hour in our spare bedroom that’s next to my office. We call it the Roku Room, because Elaine had a Roku TV mounted on the wall so guests who sleep here could watch it in evenings. The sad irony is that the kids (all of whom are in fact adults) managed to lose the remote that is keyed specifically for that TV after a couple of weeks of the TV being installed. Nobody watches Roku in that room anymore. But it’s still the Roku Room, and it’s still the quietest place to rest in the house. I often visit the room for a half-hour after leaving my office.
"In 2020, we elected Joe Biden to the presidency specifically as a repudiation of Donald Trump. Millions of Americans danced in the nation’s streets on that day. We had unseated a brute."
I laid my head on the pillows and before closing my eyes, decided to glance at the news on my iPhone. That was a mistake, because that was when I saw that Trump had pardoned 1500 of the criminal rioters from the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol—the building that is the closest thing we have to a central holy site in America’s secular foundation.
As soon as I saw that, I knew I wouldn’t be able to close my eyes for a thirty-minute rest. I was too disturbed. I was too furious. I was in a place where I could no longer match the colliding truths of violent crime and violent betrayal with any conception of national justice.
He’d been promising to do something of this sort for some time. Still, when he in fact did so, it disturbed me in ways I thought might be beyond my disturbance.
In 2020, we elected Joe Biden to the presidency specifically as a repudiation of Donald Trump. Millions of Americans danced in the nation’s streets on that day. We had unseated a brute. Then, weeks later, the brute went on to amass a mob and hurl that mob at the Capitol Building as a way of thwarting Biden’s lawful election. It was a horrific event to witness. Trump—who after all was still the U.S. president on that day—had urged a mob to rebel against the government that he still headed. Nothing like that had been conceived before except in the most hyperbolic fiction. Even then: Who can name me a fictional example that imagined something so outlandish? That event—on that day—shocked and sickened us. How had we ever let that selfish, hubristic prick sit behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office? Clearly, he should sit instead in a federal prison cell. For the rest of his motherfucking days.
At moments, in the years since, I believed that some semblance of such a result might actually take place. I think many of us did. But beyond all reason, Trump commanded the denial of the justice that was fully due him. Time and time again. Even abetted by the U.S. Supreme Court—the one lasting federal sanctum he hadn’t yet fully overcome. Until he did.
Then he went one ultimate measure further: He persuaded the American electorate—whom he had betrayed—to elect him again to the office whose oaths he had betrayed, to again govern the people he had betrayed.
Which is to say, the betrayed American people put Donald Trump back into the office despite his out-in-the-open betrayals. They put him back into the office that he utilized to betray the American people he’d sworn to protect, but about whose fates he couldn’t give a rat’s fuck. Even if they loved him and raised him again to the nation’s most powerful and respected office. As a result, there is nobody to respect in that office today. I honestly don’t know if there ever will be again.
Of course, Trump didn’t do this by himself. He couldn’t. He had plenty of trusted hands to help him accomplish his treachery. Courts. Members of Congress. Attorneys. Once-upon-a-time exemplars of the free press. American voters. Millions of them.
"American voters betrayed America and its people, its best hopes and ideals, in the 2024 election."
Millions of American voters. They were our ultimate line of defense, and let’s be plain: American voters betrayed America and its people, its best hopes and ideals, in the 2024 election.
My first thought when I saw yesterday’s news was: erasure. He wants to erase the consequences of that day, as if they’d never happened.
After a moment of brooding over that, I realized that what he was in fact after was something far worse: nullification.
He didn’t want to erase what happened. He didn’t even see any need to forgive it. Instead, he wanted to celebrate and sanctify it. These convicted offenders had done their deeds in his name. For him, that made them heroic, not guilty. He got away with it all, so he chose to set free his criminal and violent minions. The people who broke into the Capitol Building, who assaulted 174 peaceful officers, resulting in the later death of one of those officers. Trump wanted to reward the people who had committed that violence and that treason.
"Trump was like a one-man edition of the Southern all-white juries that effectively nullified any guilty verdict for racists who had murdered Black people, no matter the evidence against the guilty."
But that’s not even the worst of it: A majority of American voters were okay with his intentions. Trump was like a one-man edition of the Southern all-white juries that effectively nullified any guilty verdict for racists who had murdered Black people, no matter the evidence against the guilty. Now, effectively, that is what American voters have done as well. The incursion, the violence, the deaths… They all happened but the majority who voted for Trump also effectively nullified the judgments against the assaulters. Maybe some had tired of hearing about the criminality of that day. Maybe some simply figure nullification is the price to pay for lowered egg prices. In any event, what happened yesterday amounts to a massive act of collusion.
Yes, it all happened, Trump’s voters say. All that treachery on January 6, 2021. “So what? We are no longer the people who celebrated his loss in 2020. We are the people who instead celebrate America’s loss in 2025.”
There’s no getting past this. There will be no lingering justice. Trump undid that justice—and so did American voters.
I woke up this morning with all this still turning around in my head, so I went down again to the Roku Room, to try to sleep more, but instead made these notes.
When I went back to our bedroom, our dogs were delighted to see me. It helped.
Jan. 23
I’m sick of him. I’ve always been sick of him. Also, sick of all those who sail with him, who fly his grimy colors. They are great-guns full of themselves, and they come fully loaded.
If before, Trump’s malignancy often got tangled up and made less effective by his incompetency and ignorance, this time the malignancy is determined; it's aimed to be powerful and efficient. He has told us which policies and principles are now forbidden: DEI and affirmative action, among them. He has also told us which people don’t count. Women in high military positions. Transgender persons. First and foremost, immigrants. He won’t even allow them to be called immigrants anymore. Instead, they are designated as “aliens.” Even lawful immigrants, unless they are his family and friends. Others are a blight on his land. Their children who are born American? They aren’t truly American citizens, he claims. They’re like stowaways. Send them back to their parents’ lands. They have no birthrights here.
"He believes the courts owe him. The ones who don’t defer, they too are as unwelcome as aliens. He will, as much as possible, ignore any rulings contrary to his decree."
His moves will constantly be tested before the courts. Sometimes those moves will be disallowed, but not always. He believes the courts owe him. The ones who don’t defer, they too are as unwelcome as aliens. He will, as much as possible, ignore any rulings contrary to his decree.
The block issued by this judge is a welcome stay, but can it prevail? I’m not sure how much to trust our courts’ ultimate rulings now in this new dark land. I’m not sure I can trust our voters again in this new dark land. They have put us—America—in the sights of powers and fates that will be hard to undo.
Aliens? The American voters who elected him are—at least to me—the true aliens. An alien would-be ruling class.
Stay safe, because immigrants and transgender people and women in high power aren’t the only ones the Trump force will be coming for. They believe they own this joint—and they intend to rule it, and to punish others, as they see fit.
We have entered a new age of “Which side are you on?”
Mikal Gilmore is the author of four books, including the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning memoir Shot in the Heart, and the 1960s cultural history Stories Done. He is a longtime writer for Rolling Stone.