Facts don't matter.
The more indictments, the stronger The Donald becomes because the unreal reality in which we all live verifies the unpleasant truth ... facts don't matter. IMHO, Agent Orange has a real shot of becoming POTUS yet again, especially if Joe Manchin and/or Joe Freedman decide to run as possible third party candidates. If Trump becomes P 46, the notion of a viable democracy remaining in America becomes moot in an NYC second. Additionally, the other repug candidates, lacking in charisma and viable reasons as to why they should be the one, is farcical at best, especially with
‘start slitting throats on day one’ Ron demonstrating how to be truly loathsome 24/7.
Now, though, that potential dynamic seems to be evaporating, unraveled by the interaction between the multiplying indictments of Trump and DeSantis’s weak performance so far on the national stage. One way or another, 2024 increasingly looks like a full-abnormalization campaign.
Post-indictments, for DeSantis or some other Republican to rally past Trump, an important faction of G.O.P. voters would have to grow fatigued with Trump the public enemy and outlaw politician — effectively conceding to the American establishment’s this-is-not-normal crusade.
Turn on the news and its Trump 24/7.
In the more likely event of a Biden-Trump rematch, the remarkable possibility of a campaign run from prison will dominate everything. The normal side of things won’t cease to matter, the condition of the economy will still play its crucial role, but the sense of abnormality will warp every aspect of normal partisan debate.
Despite all my doubts about the abnormalization strategy, despite Trump’s decent poll numbers against Biden at the moment, my guess is that this will work out for the Democrats. The Stormy Daniels indictment still feels like a partisan put-up job. But in the classified documents case, Trump’s guilt seems clear-cut. And while the Jan. 6 indictment seems more legally uncertain, it will focus constant national attention on the same gross abuses of office that cost Trumpist Republicans so dearly in 2022.
The fact that the indictments are making it tougher to unseat Trump as the G.O.P. nominee is just tough luck for anti-Trump conservatives. Trump asked for this, his supporters are choosing this, and his Democratic opponents may get both the moral satisfaction of a conviction and the political benefits of beating a convict-candidate at the polls.
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