This blog is not known for its sunny optimism. In my experience, the light at the end of the tunnel usually turns out to be the headlamp of an oncoming train. 

That said, I am guardedly upbeat about the chances that we will defeat Donald Trump on Election Day 2024. (The notion that he will not be the GOP nominee is no longer on the table.) I won’t exhale until that happens, since nothing is certain, as we learned to our lasting chagrin on Election Day 2016. The economy could tank. The Kremlin—or China, or someone else—could intervene with a targeted PSYOPS campaign and gaslight the American public, again. Biden could pass away in a tragically ill-timed RBG-like manner. And most worrying of all, the Republicans—knowing that they’re in deep electoral doo-doo—could ramp up their efforts to subvert the election process and just steal the damned thing, which as we have seen, they are not at all above trying to do.

So I ain’t relaxing yet. But I do feel encouraged. 

Trump is in trouble. He is under indictment in four major criminal cases, two at the federal level and one each at the state and local, facing sentences that could put him in prison for the rest of his natural life, not to mention a civil suit in New York state that could bankrupt him, and the potential for further litigation still pending. Yes, we all know that those indictments have only raised his poll numbers and his fundraising with the Republican base, tightening his hold on the nomination into a death grip (and I do mean “death”). But that success is in the realm of preaching to the choir. Primary voters, of course, tend to be even more partisan than the general electorate, so Trump’s popularity within the party is not surprising. (Meanwhile, Russell Berman reports that even that support inside the GOP may be overstated, due to poorly worded questioning by pollsters.)

The general election is a whole different story—a diametrically opposed one. The numbers show that his legal troubles are in fact hurting him with the broader public, as they should, and in what promises to be a tight race with Biden even a small shift can be decisive. (That it’s tight in the first place is a headshaker for another day.) Some objective observers are even predicting a historic ass-kicking for the erstwhile Grand Old Party. Wouldn’t that be something?

Even beyond his legal jeopardy, Trump is not the candidate he was four or eight years ago. (Christ, have we been dealing with this for that long?) His act has worn thin with the majority of the American people. He’s old, he’s tired, and he’s shown us what a monster he is. He’s no longer some novelty, but a candidate with a record he has to defend, and for most sentient citizens, it’s not a pretty one. A lot of low information voters who were once amused have soured on him, and a fair number of “moderate” Republicans who were once willing to give him a shot (pause for wave of nausea) have had enough. The opposition is energized as ever, if not more so, while the public appetite for four more exhausting years of this shitshow has vanished.

And Donny’s not alone on Danger Island. Eight years ago Putin was the Master Troll, mounting a historically successful intelligence operation to ratfuck the US presidential election and install his obedient servant in the White House. Today he is bogged down in a disastrous land war that makes US involvement in Vietnam look like a fender bender. Even more shocking, he was recently the target of a brazen coup d’état from within his own circle, and not just some assassin tiptoeing through the Kremlin in the night but an outright military challenge to his power, a sign of weakness and vulnerability on his part that was unthinkable just a few years ago.

So yeah, I am liking our odds at the moment. Still…..

TRIAL AND ERROR

Trump faces trial in most or all of those criminal cases between now and Election Day. Depending on how fast the adjudications move, we may see the candidate of a major party convicted, sentenced, and even incarcerated before we go to the polls. It’s mind-boggling. And it’s worth remembering that a number of the crimes themselves relate to trying to steal an election.

In The Atlantic, David Graham writes:

Trump could become the presumptive GOP nominee in the 2024 presidential election at the same time as his lawyers are in court for his trial for seeking to steal the last election. Neither political scientists nor legal scholars have really anticipated such a scenario, so no technical term exists to describe it, but I can suggest one: a huge mess.

Trump, of course, with his demagogue’s instincts, is trying to frame all this as a desperate attempt by his enemies to keep him out of the White House. Graham again:

One common thread through all four of Trump’s felony indictments is that he has claimed that they are “election interference” on the part of Democrats who want to hobble his attempt to return to office. This is a doubly ironic claim, given that in this case Trump is literally charged with attempting to thwart the will of voters. It is a demand that he be handled with kid gloves while doing his own dirty work with the gloves off.

I have previously written about the infuriatingly gentle treatment Trump has gotten from the justice system, particularly in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. But in Fani Willis, Jack Smith, and Judge Tanya Chutkan, he has clearly run into some folks who didn’t come to play. He may still wriggle out and get acquitted—he has a history of so doing, as we know all too well—but thus far it’s been gratifying to see him and his usual legal hijinks slapped down for a change.   

What would I like to see come out of these trials? Well, I’d like to see Trump held accountable for his various crimes, duly convicted and sentenced, publicly disgraced (in the eyes of rational Americans, that is, carrying on a process begun with his impeachments), and locked up. On the political front, I’d like to see him beaten like a red-headed stepchild in November ’24 and go down to his second successive ignominious electoral defeat, affirming that sanity is still alive and well with the majority of the American people, and cease to be a player in American politics ever again.. 

But I don’t for a moment imagine that any of that, or even all of it in concert, will end Trumpism or put an end to his influence, though I’d like to believe it will damage it. We all know that the right wing faithful will still vote for Don even if he’s wearing stripes, and still idolize him even if he is thoroughly repudiated and cast into permanent political exile. They would vote for him even if he went on national television and wiped his ass with an American flag while singing the Russian national anthem and torturing a puppy. But that cult of brain-dead devotees is a minority, passionate though they are, and is not getting any bigger, while Trump’s woes continue to mount. So I think we stand a pretty good chance of my dreams coming true.

But suppose that happens. Suppose we beat Trump two Novembers from now, and even convict him of major crimes. (Order may be swapped as necessary.) What happens then?

It hardly bears noting that this situation is unlike anything we have even remotely encountered in 240 some years of American history; we are sailing into treacherous and uncharted waters regardless of the outcome. 

If Trump continues his lifelong streak of wildly undeserved good luck and beats the rap in all four cases, irrespective of whether he then wins re-election or not, we will have a miscarriage of justice that undercuts the legitimacy of the criminal justice system and encourages Trump-brand skullduggery from all manner of folks at the highest levels in the future.

If he is convicted of any or all of these charges, we may see a US president ruling while imprisoned (even if it’s only house arrest). 

If he is defeated, Trump will surely run his 2020 playbook again, claiming the election was stolen from him, inspiring his followers to violence—as Salon’s Chauncey DeVega asks, what does he have to lose?—and further destabilizing the US political system, as right wing America becomes even more deeply entrenched in its anti-democratic nihilism. 

In other words, even in the best case scenario of criminal conviction(s) and electoral defeat, we will still be faced with tens of millions of his aggrieved supporters (fewer than the number of Trump voters, but still a sizable bunch) who don’t accept Biden’s legitimacy, who will go to their graves believing Donald is a hero and a martyr, and who will be further committed to their conviction that “the system is rigged.” 

This is the toxic legacy Donald has bequeathed on our country, semi-permanently at the very least.  

NITWITS’ END

In The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last writes: 

You saw how Republican voters and elites behaved in the aftermath of 2020. Do you think that if Trump is convicted and then loses the election these same people will say: “Well, daggum it. I guess the jury has spoken and people didn’t like us running a convict. We’ll have to try something else.”

He’s right on the mark. But it’s also his final bullseye before his argument begins to break down. 

Last argues that there is only possible outcome of the current situation that will avoid crisis: a Trump conviction and a clear Biden win in November ’24. But we had a clear Biden win in November ’20 and that didn’t stop the crazies, now did it? He also contends that the “scenarios in which we do not have a verdict by Election Day all lead to crisis, because there is not a voting outcome Trump’s supporters will accept as legitimate while the legal process is ongoing.” 

True. But there is nothing that is damaging to Trump that those supporters will ever accept as legitimate. So trying to appease them, or even worrying about what the hell they think, is a waste of time (except prophylactically, in preparing to protect against violence on their part). 

As a very wise, very old sergeant major once said to me, “Don’t worry about the nitwits.” Words to live by, people, words to live by.

I like Last a lot, as a sane conservative voice at a time when that description has become all but oxymoronic, but IMHO he goes completely off the rails when he writes:

This is why prosecuting a man running for president is so dangerous. Trump’s prosecutions invite future “retaliation” from Republicans, delegitimize an electoral system already under active assault, (and) undermine respect for the rule of law in a large minority of the population.

With all due respect, this is nonsense. Yes, prosecuting a former head of state is fraught, but letting them get away with major crimes is far worse.

Trump’s prosecutions invite retaliation only from lawless cretins who brook no accountability for him for anything he’s done. Meekly backing away from legal action for that reason is a surrender to terrorism. The electoral system Last fears for is already under active assault BY THOSE PEOPLE. Rather than delegitimizing the system, holding Trump to account is part of defending it. And it’s not possible to “undermine respect for the rule of law in a large minority of the population” when that large minority plainly has no respect for the rule of law in the first place. 

So they can go fuck themselves. We should not spend any time worrying about them or their hypocritical, proto-authoritarian worldview, except to oppose it with every fiber of our collective being. 

CELLBLOCK TANGO

Returning to The Atlantic’s David Graham one last time, he writes that “the political and criminal-justice systems are not only not designed to work together, but are in fact constructed to pretend the other doesn’t exist. “The only safe prediction” for how all this might play out, he contends, “is chaos.”

That, my friends, is a safe bet. But it’s the road we are on, and we have no other rational path. 

Any way you slice it, we’re in for a rough ride for the next few years, if not longer. The process of restoring American democracy to good health is going to be slow and painful, and for that I blame Donald Trump, even though I understand that he is only the avatar of a broader revanchist movement. Addressing that dilemma will require a profound reckoning with the original sin of America itself, and confronting the retrograde, grievance-driven, authoritarian-friendly, violence-prone faction of our countrymen who insist that the United States is a White Christian nation where all others must bend the knee. 

I told you optimism was not my forte. 

But if my options are a second Trump term or a second Biden one beset by an angry segment of cretinous White nationalists who don’t accept his re-election any more than they did his election in the first place, I’ll take Door #2 in a New York minute. Let’s concentrate on bringing that scenario about, rather than worrying about how difficult it will be.  

So I am cautiously bullish, but in no mood to relax. The specter of Hillary’s shocking defeat still hangs over many of us like a bad case of PTSD; let’s use that chilling memory to our advantage to protect ourselves against complacency. Let’s take morale-boosting encouragement from watching the wheels of justice grinding at last, ever so slowly, and hope that they deliver Donald Trump the comeuppance he so richly deserves. Along the way perhaps that process will also deal him sufficient damage to keep him out of the Oval Office, and maybe—just maybe—mark the beginning of the end of the fanatical cult of nitwits and nutjobs that he commands. 

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Illustration: “Stable Genius,” Ralph Steadman-esque portrait of Donald Trump by Dutch artist Siegfried Woldhek, October 12, 2019