Does Any Of This Land?

 The feeling in many quarters that Trump will never suffer consequences for his many deeds comes from his upset win in 2016. After the Access Hollywood tape, mocking a Gold Star family, being crude, cruel and racist, he managed to run his inside straight and break the Blue Wall. 

Since then, he has lost control of Congress in 2018, lost the White House in 2020, his party had a very poor showing in 2022 and yet somehow the race is currently a toss up. It's easy to assume that he will not be found guilty of any of his very real crimes before election day, because his handpicked judiciary is running interference for him, leaving only the NYC case.

What's striking about this is that Trump continues to violate any normal laws of politics. Take his recent statement about Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter being held hostage in Russia. Basically, in his typical mob boss fashion, Trump says that Gershkovich will be released when he's re-elected - or put another way, the only way to get him back is to elect Trump. Hell, Putin could invite Trump to Moscow, they could have a "summit" and Trump could return with Gershkovich. That's a brilliant political move, because it would show Trump actually doing something as opposed to talking about doing something.

Instead, we have this statement or the one shaking down petrochemical executives that would be the end of any normal candidate. 

I saw some photos of Trump's rally in the Bronx. It was sparsely attended but quite a few of the attendees were of the "young male and transgressive" variety. For them, Trump is the ultimate middle finger to normal people (like their parents). Some of this goes to the Likely Voter/Registered Voter dynamic we are seeing in the polls. Trump does much better when irregular voters are included, but falls behind when you screen for people who actually voted in the last two elections. Also, keep in mind that Trump's Get Out the Vote apparatus is likely to be starved for funds as he funnels RNC money to his legal defense. 

I do think that some of this is going to accumulate on him as we get closer to voters making an actual choice in November, but I'm disgusted that it hasn't already done so.