What to make of the strange happenings of this week, where a former president was arraigned like a common street felon on criminal charges stemming from an inherently private matter?
It’s only natural to discuss the topics of death, resurrection, redemption and new life at this time of year.
With Easter coming up this weekend, hundreds of millions of faithful Christians the world over will attend services and sing familiar hymns commemorating the instant when Jesus was raised from the dead. The extraordinary melancholy of Good Friday is suddenly replaced by the boundless joy of new beginnings – and eternal life.
Though hardly in the same category, politicians sometimes experience a sort of death to their political careers and then, thanks to being redeemed, or through the simple passage of time, manage to resurrect their fortunes. I’m not sure why Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg chose the Easter season to try and make an example out of former president Donald Trump, but the compromised leftist prosecutor effectively provided Trump the perfect chance to demonstrate that political leaders can be left for dead by the establishment and suddenly come back to life as though darkness never came to them in the first place.
Most conservatives’ reactions to Bragg’s audacity came in the form of anger, shock, outrage and resolve. Regardless of what you think about the former president’s mission to wage a political comeback, there was little justification for Bragg to do what he did. The injustice of it all could very well drive Trump to remove the rock from his proverbial confinement and emerge with fresh political life.
In a piece titled “Millions from a mug shot: Trump’s indictment propelling him back to presidency, majority says”, the always interesting political watcher Susan Ferrechio reported at The Washington Times:
“Pollster Jim McLaughlin said Mr. Bragg’s indictment ‘will backfire’ politically on Democrats as weary voters see the party obsessed with taking down Mr. Trump while failing to address inflation, crime and out-of-control illegal immigration.
“’We’ve actually been talking to voters about it in focus groups over the last week or so, and at least among swing voters, many of which voted for Joe Biden, they are saying to themselves, ‘We’ve got real problems facing this country, and this is what they come up with?’’ Mr. McLaughin said. A McLaughlin poll of likely voters released March 23 found Mr. Trump leading Mr. Biden, 48% to 43%...
“Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling and Strategy, said post-indictment enthusiasm for Mr. Trump may not last. Mr. Trump had a brief bump in the polls after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, for documents he brought with him from the White House. ‘The GOP rallied around him after the Mar-a-Lago raid, but within a few months the story faded and his poll numbers dropped significantly,’ Mr. Coker said. ‘Same thing could happen here.’”
Yes indeed, the same thing could happen here, but in this illustration, I don’t think it will.
First off, as has been argued many times, the American public has a remarkably short attention span for most news generating events, but this one, on its surface, would seem to have staying power. Don’t believe it? How many people are still waxing over the possible ramifications of the Chinese spy balloon’s trip over the entirety of the North American continent? The balloon was all anyone could talk about for about a week and then the story disappeared, burst in a flurry of headlines about… well, something else.
But the Trump indictment likely won’t go away, because there will be new developments in the procedural prosecution of the charges, plus Democrats won’t be able to restrain themselves on the topic, hoping and (secular) praying that this latest witch hunt will produce the magic bullet that slays the big mean orange man thus preventing him from hoodwinking the ignorant American public into voting him into office again.
And, as if that weren’t enough, other opportunistic liberal “lawmen” will see Trump’s New York indictment as the gateway to going after Trump themselves. Wouldn’t it be great for them to have the evening establishment news shows featuring the former president traveling from place to place to appear before judges and answer to charges they concocted within the confines of their own skulls?
Liberals will love it. The producers of “The View” and Steven Colbert’s late night show (a paid commercial for the Democrat National Committee disguised as woke comedy that only liberals find funny) won’t need to worry about material for their program. The work will have been done before they even arrive at work each day! This will translate to another couple years’ worth of TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP! even if the man somehow doesn’t get the Republican nomination!
However, Bragg’s indictment and the subsequent celebrations from liberals certainly didn’t mark Donald Trump’s political death, so his rebirth – again – into the American scene doesn’t qualify as a resurrection. It’s more like the initiation of a rigged trial where Trump’s detractors take turns bashing the innocent man until a Pontious Pilate-like judge sentences him to torture and a show trial political crucifixion. They’ll hoot and holler and jeer and taunt and threaten while Trump is paraded before the contemptuous Democrat authorities.
All of which will accomplish nothing more than making Trump stronger. As if there were any prior doubt Trump was the favorite to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, his standing has increased that much more because of this travesty. The tens of millions who were already firmly entrenched in the “only Trump” category won’t fathom leaving his side now. It’s not that there won’t be openings for Ron DeSantis or the others to challenge Trump, the Democrat spectacle just makes it highly unlikely. I agree with Brad Coker’s (quoted above in Ferrechio’s article) that it’s possible the feelings engendered from Trump’s indictment might not last, but only if Trump does something himself to cause his supporters to lose faith in him, like turning the whole episode into a tasteless public relations photo op which mocks the entire American political system.
Or, even worse, if Trump refuses to cooperate, which could conceivably end in an ugly standoff. Trump loses only if there’s some kind of January 6-type partisan protest where people are injured or killed and the left is henceforth supplied with a host of new images to spin to their advantage.
Most Americans have forgotten about January 6, 2021, and the establishment media and Democrats’ attempts to keep the outrage alive have been drowned out by facts and video images like those shown on Tucker Carlson’s program last month. Democrats can’t let the subject die and the longer they insist that an “insurrection” happened that day, the more they’re merely pushing reasonable minded voters into the “Trump really wasn’t that bad” category.
Meanwhile, there’s another kind of slow death taking place in American politics, and this time, there’s seemingly very little chance of a meaningful resurrection. The longer time goes on, the more it looks as though Democrats may not run senile president Joe Biden for another term. For instance, there are rumors that Biden is not anywhere close to announcing his reelection bid, and the actual say-so might not come until this fall.
Whereas many liberals/leftists/Democrats were openly gleeful at the news of a Trump indictment, the president himself and vice president cackling Kamala Harris refused opportunities to comment on the leftist inspired inquisition. Perhaps their caution was due to striving to not make the prosecution look political, or maybe it was because senile Joe didn’t want to pour gasoline onto the flames of his own ethical, legal and criminal struggles. Either way, there was little doubt Biden wasn’t bent on making hay over the New York sideshow.
If senile Joe were truly as confident as he maintains about a possible rematch with the bombastic Donald Trump, wouldn’t he be itching to jump into the fray?
If Biden’s inaction equals a concession that he’s winding down his political career, it’s highly unlikely there’d be a miraculous resurrection. Unlike Trump, Biden’s political lives have seemingly run out, the product of his increasingly unsteady public appearances of late and the voters’ realization that Biden himself was a blowhard phony who promised to “heal the soul of the nation” and restore a sense of moderation to the government.
Instead, divisions in America have only gotten worse under Biden’s failing eyes, and there’s no hope for a societal-wide comeback if he stays at the helm. Senile Joe has no new ideas other than more federal spending to solve every new blip that emerges and the “good guy” persona that once surrounded the Delawarean has worn off in total. Even his longtime colleagues agree that senile Joe has lost a step (or six). If you’re him, what’s there to look forward to?
It doesn’t matter the year or the situation, Easter is a time for self-reflection and assessment of one’s own possibilities. It also offers a one or two-day respite from the ongoing negativity of politics and the news – and the hope that a dose of perspective will make people’s lives better. Donald Trump looks to get stronger after being unjustly prosecuted. Can he sustain it?
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