Don’t go into the topsy turvy 2024 presidential election without an experienced tour guide.
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Once upon a time, the barometer the media (and Mitch McConnell) planned to use to determine if Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination and the presidency was how much he talked about past grievances versus how much he talked about Joe Biden’s record on immigration, crime, the economy, social issues, and foreign policy.
The quaint and (now) anachronistic view was that Trump would go down in flames because he lacked the discipline to talk about anything but the 2020 election and Russia Russia Russia – and that voters would choose (quite possibly) someone else to be the Republican nominee or (definitely) someone else (Biden) in the general election.
For now, at least, you can chuck that framework out with your ratty futon, your college-dorm-era Batik tapestry, that transparent sliver of soap once it’s broken into two pieces, and those three dented ping pong balls.
The indictment of Donald Trump by Joe Biden’s Justice Department gives the maven of Mar-a-Lago a permission structure as big as Trump Tower to lean hard into a list of grievances about those forces he and his core backers (and, significantly, more than his core backers) love to hate: the Deep State, the FBI, Soros-backed prosecutors, Fake News, Hillary Clinton, the laptop from hell, and you know the list.
And the indictment forces Trump’s rivals (all but the beauts Chris Christie and Asa “Ada” Hutchinson) and Republican voters to choose sides: Trump’s side or Biden’s side.
This is now a daily loyalty test, both to Trump personally and to all that his movement represents. Trump knows that his political survival (and, quite possibly, his liberty) depend on forcing this test to become the central organizing principle of not just his campaign, but of the entire presidential election and, really, the national conversation.
As the Washington Post says, in summarizing the message at Trump’s twin Saturday addresses to the state Republican Party faithful in Georgia and North Carolina:
Trump tried to position the federal indictment as the latest in a long line of “witch hunts” targeting him and the MAGA movement — methodically constructing an alternative reality for him and his supporters, full of unforgivable offenses by the other side while Trump has been constantly blameless, framed and persecuted.
How effective was Trump’s positioning?
Keen-eyed Politico scribe Alex Isenstadt, who flew on Trump’s plane Saturday and had an interview with the frontrunner, reports this account from up close:
All day Saturday, there were signs that Trump’s staunchest backers were unmoved by the news [of his indictment]. Supporters lined the side of the highway running parallel to the runway at the airport in Columbus, Ga., many waving flags and standing atop trucks to get a view of the “Trump”-emblazoned jet touching down. Upon deplaning, he was greeted by a group of supporters on the tarmac, some holding “witch hunt” signs.
At the Georgia state party convention, the crowd was filled with people wearing “Make America Great Again” hats, and some audience members called out “We love you” while the former president was speaking.
Shortly after, Trump made a pit stop at a Waffle House restaurant where he was mobbed by diehard fans — one of whom offered to give the meatloaf-loving ex-president a copy of her mother’s recipe. Then Trump headed to the airport, where he posed for pictures with police officers.
Truly understanding where we all stand now with the arc of Trump’s quest for the White House and projecting forward to the fall of 2023 and, then, maybe, to the fall of 2024 is a challenge.
It is a challenge not because we lack data about how America feels about this man.
It is a challenge because most of what most of you hear, read, and see about Donald Trump is content produced by people who don’t understand his appeal (and have never tried to understand) and whose personal and professional lives (no matter what protestations of fairness they make to the contrary) are oriented powerfully around the imperative they feel in their bones and guts that Trump lose.
And so these content creators will primarily be engaged in a perpetual effort to find indications that Trump will be abandoned in droves by Republican elites and at the grassroots level because of the indictment.
The narrative the media has lashed onto is (both coincidentally and uncoincidentally) the same one that Team DeSantis sees in the data – that Trump will lose because sufficient voters will grow so tired of the drama and so concerned about general election electability that they will nominate Trumpism without Trump.
So expect to hear a lot more from the Laurie Websters of the world, as in the Washington Post:
Some Trump supporters here also said they were rethinking their initial dismissiveness of the charges based on the specific allegations. Laurie Webster from Hull, Ga., said she grew more concerned after hearing some of the details on conservative host Erick Erickson’s radio show.
“It sounded worse than what they were saying last night,” she said. “If he runs and is more popular, I’m going to vote for him and support him. If not Trump, we need somebody like Trump,” she said, explaining that she’s now deciding between him and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
With all due respect to Ms. Webster, I think the great Joe Klein (in his always-essential-reading Substack for which you should sign up) has more of the truth right, which is that the Jack Smith indictment is likely a net plus for Trump:
This means we’re back in the familiar Trump tangle: lots of smoke, minimal fire. Lots of playground bravado: Oh, so you Deep State Archives People say that I have to give back my documents, sezwho? If this case amounts to no more than that, advantage Trump. If it isn’t adjudicated before the 2024 presidential election, advantage Trump….
The litigation left—and intelligence specialists like Tom Nichols—will respond: this secret records case is a doozy. There’s even a smoking gun: Trump’s admission on tape that the Iran attack document was top secret and could not be declassified. So he knew that he was spreading state secrets. So what? It’s a detail of implementation. Too technical for public consumption. They were Deep State secrets, anyway….
We are left, then, where we were before. Trump in charge of the story. Trump in charge of the presidential campaign narrative. Trump Teflon in the eyes of his supporters. Disgrace is piled upon disgrace upon disgrace. His traitorous filth stains our entire system of justice. And those of us who believe that Trump is a mortal threat to American democracy—the Sanity Caucus—are left with a rickety Joe Biden trying to stop a bulldozer from running over him. We are left hoping that the drip-drip-drip of scandals might take Trump down. That’s not impossible. Biden may well succeed. But he might not, either. Democrats know how to fight within the legal system, but not in the real world. And right now you have to say: advantage Trump.
And it is a mistake for the Gang of 500 and its media tribunes to ignore the reality that anger and revulsion over the indictment is not limited to the great unwashed denizens of Southern Waffle Homes. Many folks who make up the conservative intelligentsia (who have zero interest in four more years of Trump) are horrified as well.
Dear Blue America, if you too don’t want Trump to win the White House, carefully read the words of the conservative Washington Post columnist Gary Abernathy.
Of course you are free to disagree with his point of view. But you need to understand that what he writes animates Trump’s potential to win back the Oval Office every bit as much, now, as the enduring disdain for Hillary Clinton does.
Don’t hide from the truth in these words about how about half the country feels – it isn’t just Abernathy and Paul Gigot who think:
Bringing charges related to the possession of classified documents against a current or former president for anything short of colluding with our enemies or selling them on the black market is unnecessary, unwise and destructive to democracy. It will exacerbate our political polarization and dominate the daily news cycle much like the Russian collusion hysteria of Trump’s first two years in office. No one can be looking forward to that.
But the biggest downside of indicting Trump is the profound line crossed by a sitting president using — or abusing, to many millions of people — the power of the state to arrest and possibly imprison a political opponent….
Trump’s fate should be decided by voters, not the Justice Department — certainly not the Biden Justice Department — or the courts. Based on what we know now, the underlying offense does not warrant the national upheaval that comes with charging a former president and the likely 2024 Republican nominee.
What else is happening now that should give hope to Team Trump and shivers to those who want to Stop Trump?
1. Although CNN, Fox, and MSNBC did not take Trump’s two Saturday speeches live, the faithful found them, and what they found was a lot of grievance, to be sure, but also a lot of talk about why Joe Biden needs to be beaten. The Dominant Media is going to pretend that Trump never talks about issues, but he did and he will.
2. The single most important story of the news cycle might just be the New York Times article that reports on how Judge Aileen Cannon was assigned to preside over the case of the man who nominated her to be on the bench. The story suggests that Cannon will be the jurist in this matter unless she recuses herself. The implications of this are vast (and maybe even vaster than I currently think) and/but here is an important consideration: If Cannon keeps the case, the chances of a trial before November, 2024, likely go from small to close to nonexistent. Through what I would guess would be a series of pretrial rulings from Cannon (all time-consumingly appealed by the prosecution, with many overturnings), we are going to see a rocket docket turned into the pacing of a drunk donkey. Needless to say, Trump is better off with any trial put off. Heck, Judge Cannon might even throw out the whole thing!
The conventional legal and media wisdom/narrative that this case is a slam dunk against Trump might be failing to take into account a few variables, including the Cannon cannon.
3. What kind of presidential candidate picks up congressional endorsements right after being indicted?
Donald Trump.
What kind of presidential candidate gets the full-throated campaign trail blessing of the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee right after being indicted?
Donald Trump.
4. Your friendly reminder (pre-indictment, to be sure, but…):
If Donald Trump is the nominee he is going to be running against either a man for whom there is limited enthusiasm or someone who has to jump into a presidential campaign late and from pretty much a standing start.
I say what I’ve said before: I’m not rooting for or predicting Trump will be the nominee or win the general election.
But if you think this indictment definitely makes the prospects of Trump’s political success less likely (let alone that it ends his hopes), I think you better think anew and consider our recent history, the weaknesses of Trump’s rivals, and the bestial, primal force that is the Republican frontrunner – and realize this chapter of the wild ride is headed somewhere at once very familiar and brand new.
PS: I can’t tell you how huge I think the debates will be in both the nomination fight and the general election. The debates, of course, are always among the most important moments in any presidential campaign. But for reasons I will explore in future editions of this newsletter, this time around they could assume outsized importance in determining if this man will be, can be, stopped. The fact that there is uncertainty about who will sponsor the debates, who will be on stage, and what the formats will be only heightens the stakes – and the uncertainty about what will happen.
To be continued…
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ESSENTIAL READING
The White House on Saturday said that China has had a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019 and Beijing’s efforts to expand its intelligence gathering are ongoing.
It added that the Biden administration has taken steps to counter Chinese expansion of its security footprint globally.
The statement, which the White House said was based on newly declassified intelligence, follows a Wall Street Journal report Thursday that said China and Cuba had reached an agreement in principle to build an electronic eavesdropping station on the island. Officials familiar with the matter said that China planned to pay Cuba, long in dire economic straits, billions of dollars as part of the negotiations.
After publication, the White House said Thursday that the Journal’s report was inaccurate, but declined to elaborate. On Saturday, it said: “This is an ongoing issue, and not a new development, and the arrangement as characterized in the reporting does not comport with our understanding.”
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ESSENTIAL VIEWING
* Watch a young Joe Biden in 1974 talking about corruption and special interest money being funneled to politicians.
Come for the vintage comms skills; stay for the format and humor.
* I’m looking for more video for tomorrow, but here’s what we know about Saturday night’s event at the majestic Gorge Amphitheater in Eastern Washington as Joni Mitchell headlined her first concert in over 20 years.
Per a source familiar, her jam band included Sarah McLachlan, Annie Lennox, Marcus Mumford, Celisse, Brandi Carlile, and more.
Performed songs included “Big Yellow Taxi,” “ A Strange Boy,” “Cactus Tree,” “Both Sides Now,”, “The Circle Game,” “Young At Heart,” and “Why Do Fools Fall in Love.”
Here are two short video clips: 1 and 2
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Mind the typos!!!
I’m late for Lauriol Plaza!!!