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Will the Injustice Matter?
Pollster Doug Schoen says reactions to the Trump conviction will not be dispositive of the November elections. Most voters’ attitudes about the candidates are baked, including opinions about the array of accusations against Trump.
Good news: He says that the voters are far more focused on the economy and the border and that the Biden White House is “tone deaf” to polling data. They still seem to think that “felon” and “insurrection” are winning themes.
Bad news: My fear is that Trump will make his victimhood the overriding issue, even though victimhood could be better used as a natural argument that Biden is trying to destroy his opponent because he is trying to evade the issues and accountability for his administration’s failures. I do not have a scientifically selected focus group assembled but I would bet large amounts that “Failed Joe Biden” tests far better than “Corrupt Joe Biden.”
Demonstrating (or at least pretending) that the need to address the great issues outweighs his entitlement to vindication (and serious payback), that he is a better and bigger man than the failure who dispatched the weasels who hunt him in the courtroom, and that he stands ready to deliver on the big issues beats the snot out of carping about unfairness. The abuse of the justice system galvanizes me but I am not a swing voter, most of whom don’t want a rehash of judicially sanctioned political crimes.
Win first. Vengeance later. It’s prices and the border, stupid!
Published in General
I fully agree. A focus on Joe’s poor management rather than complaining about how DJT was “done wrong” will be a better strategy.
Embrace the power of ‘and’
I’ve had a smart key programmed to insert that text since 2015….
Trump makes many missteps and mistakes but he rarely fails in causing the Left to reveal the extent of their evil. America has needed a change in direction for a long time. Trump has merely helped to immensely broaden the recognition of that among the American people.
The fact that so much is driven by the victimization is probably a reflection of just how fearful the Left is of what Trump might cause to happen. I think the Left would have been so much better off in retaining objectives they had gained if they had just allowed Trump to move through his two terms as POTUS.
People don’t need much reminding of the hell FJB has wrought; every time they go to the grocery store; every time they fill up; for that matter every time they drive by a gas station. I think I read something like 60% of the national population are against the FJB border policies. They don’t need the FBI website to know what crime is up; all they need to do is look out their window.
On a personal note, 8 years the hand wringing on the R is getting really, really old. “I fear that Trump …”, “If only Trump would …”
We are all in agreement that we are witnessing the destruction of our Republic. It’s been right in front of our eyes for years; this past week made it obvious everyone except those who refuse to see.
When the justice system has failed, we are all at risk. DJT knows that, and I hope he doesn’t stop pointing it out.
On a personal note, when I read posts like this the voice in my head is that of Thurston Howell III.
But it’s clear that many people are at least short-sighted, and even downright oblivious. The description I use for some of my ex-neighbors in Arizona, and sadly even some of my own relatives, is “Wow, the Democrats have really messed things up! We have to elect MORE Democrats to fix it!”
Which is not entirely gain-saying, consider for example New York again. Governor Kathy Hochul is clearly responsible for a lot of damage there. And yet she was re-elected in 2022, and reportedly many New Yorkers were then “begging” for her to fix problems that SHE had caused!
You’re probably correct. But to the bigger theme of the OP, I don’t think the people you describe are going to be convinced differently by DJT talking about it.
I think there are at least some people who can be convinced by pointing out the lawfare, even though they ignore other obvious damage caused by the left – and would not be changed even if that were brought up over and over. On the other hand, I don’t think people who DO understand the obvious damage caused by the left, are put off by Trump talking about the lawfare etc. Except for maybe a few people on Ricochet, I suppose.
Even for those who don’t understand our Constitutional rights, I would hope they have the 5 year-old’s sense of “That’s not fair!”
On the other hand, with the media we have, do they even know what is going on?
The lawfare issues bother Americans because the charges against Trump are so nonsensical that they scare people. The government really could do this to anyone.
Don’t underestimate how vile Biden is. He created “Borking” and was at the center of the high tech lynching of Justice Thomas. He demagogues every issue (Ga voting law, Border Patrols and “whips” ….)
The first sentence here is accurate. The second sentence can stand elaboration. The government can do this to anyone but the choice is to do this to the powerful who pose a threat. Trump, of course, Giuliani and Eastman are two more prominent examples. These kinds of techniques used by the Left tend to put conservatives at a great disadvantage because they are not used by them. Look what happened during the Covid Pandemic, it was filled with this kind of stuff. Sometimes I marvel that we are able to stand at all.
They don’t always simply choose to do this to the powerful and those who pose a threat.
23 years ago my brother was involved in an accident where a young man on a motorcycle died. When the prosecutor was pressuring him to take a plea, he told my brother to his face, witnessed by my father and my brother’s lawyer, that he was tired of sending black and brown men to prison and he was looking forward to sending a white guy there.
It took 18 months to wrangle a deal where he plead guilty to a misdemeanor, no jail time and tens of thousands in fines. Without my parents’ help, he and his young family would have been wiped out.
It was a vindictive prosecution. Note that the family of the young man who was killed recognized that it was an accident, did not sue, and welcomed my brother and my father at the young man’s funeral.
I have no illusion that if DJT gets re-elected these type of prosecutions will stop. I tell the story only to explain why many Americans relate to him.
Yes, it can be any one of us when they want to set an example that furthers their cause.
It’s the lack of willingness to talk about it that makes me hesitate.
If Trump can master his emotions, he will earn a landslide.
Trump needs a faithful platoon of proxies to carry the message about the use of *lawmakers.
EDIT: the autocorrect in my phone substituted this for ‘lawfare.’
Trump should focus on what middle Americans should expect when he is elected.
Whenever I listen to Trump, which is very seldom, he seems reasonable enough. Then I listen to what some of his hardest hardcore supporters say on Ricochet, and I’m not so sure. I hope they’re misrepresenting his views, but it’s hard not to think they might be representing it.
Last time I listened to him might have been a couple of months ago. I should be careful not to let it become a habit. I should also be careful not to base conclusions on too small a sample.
Well, considering that Trump would be the president, not his “supporters” who you appear to be concerned about, what’s the issue?
“appear to be”
Who are you going to believe, Trump’s supporters, or your lying eyes/ears?
I always expect Trump to steal defeat from the jaws of victory, but he’s been pretty good lately at not saying anything really stupid. At times he even sounds downright statesman-like! If he never said a word between now and November, he would win in a landslide.
There is plenty of time to decide. In the meantime I’m gathering information.
Just be careful to get what Trump ACTUALLY says, not what the media “reports” that he said.
There’s also the pro-life advocates against whom fake charges have been fabricated, who are sometimes arrested under circumstances that seemed designed to increase the probability that they or someone close to them would be killed.
The parents dragged off to the gulag because they objected to government school teachers turning the parents’ children into sexual playthings., or because they complained that government school officials allowed sexual predators to abuse the parents’ children.
Evil powers-that-be also use threats against low-level people to leverage them into turning on more powerful people. As a line corporate lawyer, I had seen a few of my peers targeted not for themselves, but to get them to “spill the beans” on the corporate superiors when the government goons came a-calling. Nonetheless, it was scary to know that I could be next on the list for an unscrupulous government lawyer to fabricate charges against me, and the possibility that such leverage could result in crippling punishment for me even just to defend my own name.
True. I keep warning people about that, and I keep making the mistake of believing the reports, too.
Some of his most ardent supporters, and here I include some politicians who shall remain nameless, are almost a caricature of Trump. They can speak the words but can’t carry the tune.
Which is one of the reasons why it’s important to elect the actual Trump, not someone who claims to be LIKE Trump.