19 VII 2023: How do you stain a stain?

A good piece of analysis on CNN by Stephen Collinson bears a curious title, “Why a third indictment of Trump could be such a profound stain on his legacy.” I find this confusing because I don’t think that Trump will leave a legacy. He is more likely to leave an unpaid bill for all of us to pick up. In addition, if we should imagine a Trump legacy, it is very hard to imagine anything staining one vast, dark, and deep stain, a stain on Trump, on the Republican Party, on American democracy, on all conservatives who have remained silent. Any stain to be left by a third or fourth or fifth indictment will be invisible against the stain that is already there.