Here we go again! Trump gets indicted a fourth time. Trump has responded to the DC and Atlanta indictments with attacking the Black judge and prosecutor in vaguely and not-so-vaguely racial and gendered ways, because of course he did. As Josh Marshall notes, Trump is first, second and last about "dominance" in everything. Trump Steaks are the best; Trump sleeps with the hottest women; Trump really won the popular vote in 2016 and the election in 2020. This character trait is both strategy and just who this fucker is.
And that has to be broken. As Marshall also notes, Trump has to go 4 for 4 in court. He can't lose in ANY of those cases or he goes to jail for the rest of his miserable life. So his best chance is winning the election and pardoning himself or short circuiting the prosecutions. He's certainly not behaving like he's innocent.
So we return once more to the question that has dogged us since 2016: Can Trump win the election? He did in '16 by running an inside straight in the Blue Wall of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Can he do that again? I'm REALLY doubtful because of Dobbs and all those prosecutions. I think the GOP has kind of locked themselves into Trump, since he's the only guy to win since 2004, even if that election feels very much like a one-off.
Let's say Jack Smith gets his trial in early January. Let's say Trump gets convicted on at least one count. I think that outcome is likely though by no means assured. My guess if that occurs is that Chutkan throws his ass in jail while waiting on appeal. Trump is in jail and yet is likely still the frontrunner for the GOP nomination. That's...insane, but so is everything about living in Trumpistan.
What will the GOP do? If he's convicted, does that immediately kick him off the ballot under the XIVth Amendment? Would the GOP just take the "L" and finally break with this motherfucker? Would Trump launch a third party bid or would he simply be banned from running altogether?
During the Trump years, there was a popular sentiment among the Very Online that "Our institutions aren't strong enough to withstand Trump." Yet if anything, they have been. Even the Reactionary Supreme Court drew the line at violating democracy.
If Trump gets convicted, my best hope would be that the GOP bans him from being the nominee, he runs a third party desperation campaign with a full-blown MAGA party running candidates up and down the ballot. MAGA and the GOP devour each other in bitter recriminations and bile and Biden gets working majorities in both Houses of Congress. Much more likely is that he either flees the country or slinks away to prison while his cultists commit random and scattered acts of violence in his name.
Trump's need for dominance in all things makes him vulnerable to this laundry list of indictments, because the institutions have ;largely held and because once it's pierced, a lot (though sadly not all) of his support will face away.
A beaten, humiliated Trump is not "Trump" anymore.
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