Trump was hoping to inspire another insurrection in New York over his presumed indictment. The mayor even called up all 38,000 cops to patrol the streets in full uniform in case mass mobilization was needed. The only problem was there was no indictment and no mass protests. Only three to six persons pitched up for the rally with Jordan Klepper on hand to interview the handful of protestors. Have we made too much of Trump's influence?
Polls show he is still enormously popular among the conservative base, yet when it came time to mobilize his followers very few showed up. His rallies in general have posted low numbers and commentators made fun of all the empty seats at his speech before CPAC earlier this month. It seems that Trump's support is much softer than the numbers suggest.
I don't think support for him has ever been very strong. This is a guy who never topped 50 per cent in a weekly approval poll while president and still finds himself with a 55% unfavorable rating two years after his tenure. Of course, it is that 41% favorable rating that political pundits look at. More than enough to secure him the Republican nomination if no major candidate steps forward to challenge him. So far only Nikki Haley has done so and she is only polling 3 or 4 percent among conservative voters.
Ron DeSantis, or "Meatball Ron" as Trump previously liked to call him, is considered a serious challenger but he seems content to bide his time before announcing his candidacy. He is starting to dig at Trump after taking so much abuse at the former president's rallies. However, you don't really get the feeling Meatball Ron has the chops to challenge Trump in an open forum.
My feeling is that DeSantis is another Scott Walker. Remember him? I didn't think so. He was the rising star in 2015, having fended off a recall vote in Wisconsin and was pushing right to work and voter ID laws in his state. Republican pet issues at the time. His campaign ended before the first primary largely because of his lack of telegenic appeal and big money donors.
What Trump has over all other Republican candidates is a firm grasp of the television medium. Even if no one showed up for his indictment protest, he was able to create the specter of a big crowd that worried the city enough to mobilize its police force. Apparently, the New York Grand Jury has yet to be convinced of the seriousness of the crime to issue a warrant for his arrest.
Of all the pending indictments against Trump this is probably the weakest of the lot. It concerns the payoff Trump allegedly made to keep Stormy Daniels quiet in 2016. Michael Cohen, his lawyer at the time, already admitted to the transaction. The problem is that Cohen paid for it himself. There is no record of Trump actually paying to shush Stormy, only Cohen's and Stormy's accounts that he ordered it. If you are going to issue a warrant for Trump's arrest, make damn sure you have a solid case against him. If not, you are only going to reward him yet again for his bad behavior.
This has been the problem all along with Trump. He has been able to skirt the law largely because he has an uncanny ability to make others take the fall for him. He is much like a mafia don in this regard. Even when the loyalty wanes, there is little or no paper trail that can directly implicate him in the crimes. This is why Merrick Garland is taking so long to build a case against Trump for the January 6, 2021, insurrection. No testimony given could unequivocally prove Trump incited protestors to physically breach the Capitol on that ill-remembered day. The witnesses were only able to state that he implied it, and that is not enough to win a criminal court case.
The best legal approach to Trump is not criminal but civil, where the burden of proof is much less. There wasn't enough hard evidence to convict O.J. Simpson of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in 1995, but there was enough compelling evidence for the victims' families to win a $33.5 million civil lawsuit against him the following year.
A debt O.J. was never able to overcome, which led him to commit a notorious robbery 10 years later to recover what he regarded as his personal sports memorabilia from Bruce Fromong in a Las Vegas hotel room. Simpson had essentially become persona non grata and could no longer get the lucrative television contracts he was accustomed to, so he had to resort to the pettiest of crimes to try to cover his payments.
The same would be case with the Trump. The media damage from multiple civil lawsuits would wreck him. He is already skating on thin ice, using his ongoing presidential campaign to help cover the fact he is so deep in debt that he has little disposable income. The release of his tax records last year showed he isn't the self-ascribed multi-billionaire, but rather a shady businessman that uses every conceivable deduction to get out of paying taxes, largely because he doesn't have the ability to pay them. He would go bankrupt if he had to pay a billion dollar civil lawsuit like Alex Jones is currently being forced to do. Trump would probably keep going, as Jones has done, although his reach would be greatly diminished.
His appeal is already eroding but there are still enough poor deluded individuals out there who show up at his rallies and might be inclined to take a gun in hand if Trump ever were indicted. The fact that so many of them were indicted after the January 6 insurrection may have had this dampening effect. Very few of his supporters are willing to stand on Fifth Avenue and give up their lives to him, as he once infamously remarked.
The only question now is who will run for president in his place? It seems the major prospects are waiting to see what comes from all these potential indictments, trying to play both sides of the charges leveled against him. It's clear it won't be Mike Pence. This is guy who let a fly rest on his head throughout his debate with Kamala Harris. The other Mike, Pompeo, has said too many ill words against his former boss to garner the support of Trump's faithful. "Meatball Ron" DeSantis has very limited appeal beyond Florida. At this point, the only one really telegenic enough to carry a candidacy through to the end is Nikki Haley, who I think will gather momentum over the year and be a strong candidate. It would certainly alter the way Biden views the 2024 election if Nikki does indeed emerge as the front runner.
Anyway, I don't think we should take too much stock in the current polls or Trump's rambling speeches. This just seems to reflect the current unrest in the country. Voters typically turn to recognizable names to voice their anxiety. After all, Hillary seemed unbeatable in 2015 but how quickly we forget that.
Let's try to keep things in perspective.
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