I started writing this column before another disreputable chapter was added to the never-ending Trump saga. He became the first president ever to be indicted for a crime. The indictment can take its place beside the two impeachments, but this time he doesn’t have a fawning band of sycophants in Congress to run interference for him.

Donald Trump now faces years of criminal litigation. Despite that fact, he remains the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, stark evidence of the dark hole where a once proud political party has consigned itself.

Dwight Eisenhower may be turning over in his grave, but the rest of us can only hope that Trump is the nominee.

It is difficult to believe that one man could do such damage to this nation, but it’s finally time for him to start paying the piper. And we shall see if the tune that downs the Don is “Stormy Weather” or the more complex pieces for which the orchestra is still tuning up.

In the meantime, there is a more deadly issue for the country to come to terms with.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong put his foot down on the moon. In March of 2023, we are told by members of Congress subservient to the gun lobby there is nothing more that can be done to staunch the flow of blood caused by military style assault weapons.

So, there is nothing Congress can do? They did it once. Stop the sales. Confiscate the assault rifles that are already out there. Impose serious legal penalties on people who still possess them.

That seems decidedly less challenging than putting a man on the moon.

The latest bloodbath in America was at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tenn. that left three adults and three 9-year-old children dead. Republicans feel that they have done all they can do to stop the slaughter without interfering with sacred Second Amendment rights. It’s a damn shame that they didn’t regard the precepts of the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution with that kind of zeal when the former president was stomping them into the dirt. We might all be better off now.

Just for the record: Great Britain, a country that has not managed to put much of anything on the moon, enacted some of the strictest gun regulations in the world after the Dunblane School massacre in 1996. Sixteen children and a teacher were murdered and the country said, almost in unison, enough is enough.

There were a total of 35 victims of gun violence in the entire year ending in March of 2021 in England. The Gun Violence Archive has counted 130 mass shootings in America so far in 2023. Just consider that for a moment. We have had 95 more mass shootings in this country in a three-month period than England had with individual victims in an entire year.

When, in the distant — or maybe not so distant — future, a contemporary Will Durant writes a comprehensive history called “The Rise and Fall of the United States,” I hope the author devotes an entire chapter to a 2010 judgment by the Supreme Court (another court that wasn’t so supreme). The so-called Citizens United decision, in effect, ceded the power in the country to the deep pockets of multibillion-dollar corporations run by the likes of the Koch brothers, Howard Schultz (you go, Bernie!), and Elon Musk.

It consigned the rest of us to the status of annoying interlopers.

Citizens United’s debilitating impact on our democracy continues nearly a dozen years later. The ruling served to put a price tag on members of Congress, who didn’t have to depend on individual contributions from ordinary citizens any longer. They could pad their reelection nests with tens of thousands of dollars from corporate entities that profited by having a friend in Washington.

Citizens United continues to derail attempts to confront issues vital to the future of the country, from climate change to gun control. The decision certainly bears a responsibility for the mass murders of our children in schools. Like flatulence in an elevator, the Citizens United stink lingers over every one of them.

If that seems like an outlandish statement, consider donations by the NRA and gun manufacturers to members of Congress. Most GOP politicians scramble to avoid even saying the word “guns” after another school massacre.

Evoking the Armed Fortress Defense, a former FBI agent told a Fox News employee that the big problem was side doors at schools that are left unlocked. Next they will be advocating for alligator-infested moats and body armor for all the kids.

The idiotic, gutless excuse that they have done all they can was even pedaled by Andy Ogles, who represents the district where the Covenant School is located in Nashville. It shouldn’t have come as any surprise to anyone who received a Christmas card from Ogles and his family. Grinning like a pack of demented Cheshire cats, they are all gathered in front of the tree armed with assault weaponry.

I am not sure what aspect of Christ’s birth or His life that guns were supposed to celebrate, but the Ogles have probably concluded that there wouldn’t have been any trouble later on if the apostles were all armed with AR-15s. Right wing rationalizing knows no bounds.

“How much bloodshed will it take?” tweeted Rep. Veronica Escobar under a picture of that disgraceful insult to the concept of a Christian civilization. “Its. The. Guns.”

The lasting image for me from the Nashville bloodbath is that of a terrified little girl, her hand pressed flat against a window. Her face is contorted into a silent scream, as if she is beseeching someone to wake her from a nightmare.

By now, the flowers in front of her school have wilted, tears will dry, flags will be hoisted back to full staff, and the Nashville horror, like all the others, will fade from our collective memory.

That little girl, however, will probably hear those gunshots in her school for the rest of her life.