So Now What?

I tensed up unexpectedly on hearing Nicolle Wallace announce a verdict was coming in for Trump’s hush money trial. MSNBC’s daily coverage passed like announcers calling horse race results from an old ticker tape machine, an endless loop of snippet updates and former prosecutor comments that droned into a background race call as the trial turned to the homestretch. Until this unexpected moment, when the jury bell rung and the message came across the ticker a verdict had crossed the finish.

Odd that I was bodily attuned now. I did not over-invest in this trial and had no illusions a courtroom alone could save the country from orange fascism in blue suits and red ties. This verdict is not even an end. Trump will appeal, then appeal his appeals for years and may contort a Cosby-Weinstein maneuver to wiggle out. He will certainly not be in jail before the election. But here I was with the cliched pit of my stomach feeling that this trial did matter in some way and we will begin today to understand what a verdict means.

A real billionaire would never be caught

Some believe the high concepts of protecting the rule of law and preserving democracy by holding politicians accountable will be a guilty verdict message to sweep Trump away electorally. But no, voters who prefer and trust our legal and electoral systems are already voting against Trump. Others see the yuck factor of a verified silk-pajama and porn star hush money as peeling off suburbanites. But this is really nothing new about Trump and he kept votes in spite of such behavior. No, we are looking at something more base that can move the final tally.

A real billionaire would never be caught. A billionaire would beat little ol’ New York City with a flood of campaign contributions and strategic arm-twisting. An actual billionaire, if he somehow got to trail, would have a phalanx of experienced defense lawyers hammering away, not a newbie seeking on-the-job training.

Looking back at all the Jack Smith legal drama of runaway federal judicial toadyism in DC and Florida, I now believe it was better for New York City to be a picador and move first. Trump-leaning folks could see the big bad federal government as a billionaire-level threat. But New York? While the Trump side will keep hammering how Biden somehow puppet-masters the Manhattan DA, the optics are otherwise. Trump could not win in a crappy cold courtroom, against a local borough prosecutor, in his old hometown. It is as if the New York Yankees lost to their minor league team in Scranton PA. Everyone would see a weakness.

The guilty always look weak, victims are always blamed.

Republicans are Republicans mostly because they are zero-sum folks who see your gain as their loss and view anything novel as a threat before any curiosity. But the party’s other aspect is a concentration of authoritarian personalities. I still think about the 2016 primary research poll that found the only significant Trump supporter predictor was their score on the authoritarianism scale.

Now, Trump is being smacked around in a real-life Law and Order episode. A strong man, an actual billionaire, would never be in this position.

These voters see Trump as someone who upsets other people they do not like and is strong enough to hurt these others. Such voters appreciate his wall-building, child-torturing policies and all-round hatred of foreignness. But this only works if Trump is a strong man. Now, Trump is being smacked around in a real-life Law and Order episode. A strong man, an actual billionaire, would never be in this position.

The guilty always look weak to authoritarians and victims are always to blame. What this conviction does is crack the Trump dam so it will break after some good rain this fall. There will be a rallying of the troops after this conviction, but over the weeks a slow, steady realization will grow from the margins Trump is not who they want him to be. These folks will not vote for Biden, but they are vindictive once disappointed, so expect Libertarians to get more votes this cycle.

Trump will lose 2024, MAGA will not

Trump is not, nor has ever been, representative of a working majority of Americans. He lost in 2016 overall, only getting office with a football stadium of voters bouncing the wrong way. He has lost every election since. Trump will lose this year through authoritarian disillusionment and swing state vigilance. However, like a cult founder prophesizing the wrong day for the world’s destruction, MAGA will find a new date and a new prophet after Trump and that is the long term threat to American Democracy.

For all the drama of Trump claiming FBI assassination plans in the Mar-a-Largo raid, the real threat to his bodily safety lies within MAGA.

Unfortunately for the country, there is now a MAGA cadre who have inside federal government experience. National on down to local Republican infrastructure is now hijacked into the cult. And the Young Republicans are very much Hitler Youth, having no experience except thriving in MAGA and aspiring to the SS. The pipeline of GOP leadership is very frightening indeed and all these skills, knowledge and resources will turn to another prophet and a new prophesied end time.

For all drama of Trump claiming FBI assassination plans in the Mar-a-Largo raid, the real threat to his bodily safety lies within MAGA. The only way to protect the MAGA movement from Trump’s demise is for a MAGA actor to kill him before he loses this election and spends his retirement in prison. Better a dead martyr than a live loser.