Following Donald Trump’s historic criminal felony conviction for lying about hush money payments to hide potentially damaging information from voters before the 2016 election, I felt the urge to walk down to Trump Tower here in Chicago. It was raining outside. I did not use my umbrella. As I leaned up against Trump Tower, I watched an architecture boat tour travel down the Chicago River. I looked at the people walking past the building on the sidewalk above me. Many of them paused to look up, like me, at Trump Tower before they ambled along in the rain. I imagine we were all thinking the same thought: How did we get here and what happens now?
As I stood beneath Trump Tower, I thought about a scene from one of my favorite films, Michael Mann’s “Heat." I imagined Trump on the screen walking into a diner and asking to speak to the manager. “My name is Donald Trump and my parole officer told me to come by and see you about a job." In the film, the character (played by Dennis Haysbert) is then humiliated by the manager and told “the rules of the game” about how he will be forced to work multiple jobs, unpaid, and then kick back a percentage of his check for the “privilege” of working at the diner. If he complains or is late or otherwise is an annoyance – or for any other reason – the manager will call the parole officer and report him drunk or high or stealing and get him sent back to prison. But I know that such a thing will, in all probability, not happen to Trump. He is a very rich white man and a former president. Nevertheless, one can dream.
