Was there another indictment or something?
Trump faces several new charges, and my own response kind of scares me. Because I didn't really have one.
The former President of the United States, and presumptive GOP nominee for 2024, faces even more criminal charges, several of which involve him acting like a mob boss. (More of a Corky Romano mob boss than Don Corleone, but a mob boss nonetheless.)
Former President Donald Trump and two others are facing additional charges in special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into Trump's handling of classified documents after leaving office.
The charges came in a superseding indictment returned by a grand jury in the Southern District of Florida that adds one defendant and four charges to the prior indictment filed against Trump and aide Walt Nauta.
The new charges include allegations involving the handling of surveillance footage and charges related to Trump's unauthorized possession of a document that he was previously heard discussing on an audio recording.
Carlos De Oliveira, a current Trump Organization employee who sources tell ABC News is the head of maintenance at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, has been added to the obstruction conspiracy charged in the original indictment.
De Oliveira allegedly told another employee that "the boss" wanted the server containing Mar-a-Lago security footage deleted, and asked how long it kept footage, according to the indictment.
And this was my initial reaction:
Admittedly, these charges were added on to an existing indictment, involving the classified documents he kept at Mar-a-Lago. We already knew he was in trouble for that, and funding out that how much effort he was putting into hiding them feels kind of like the “director's cut” of a film we've seen already, with a few deleted scenes restored.
If and when he's indicted for January 6, and/or for trying to fraudulently overturn election results in Georgia, that will feel more like a whole new movie.
…and even that doesn't really get the blood pumping like it once did. Just as everyone got tired of the Marvel Cinematic Universe because Disney insisted on making too many films and shows for casual fans to keep up, every new criminal charge against Trump feels slightly less shocking than what came before.
And I follow this stuff for a living. Well, for a side hustle anyway. For people who don't pay attention to the news at all - and for whom I feel contempt and envy in equal measure - this is just background noise.
More charges are hopefully coming, and maybe some of them will have the power to shock us. If a Chris Hansen sting operation was part of the investigating process, that could move the needle.
..if the online decoy was male, anyway. (Why are you booing me? You know I’m right.)
If you've already pledged your soul to Trump, there's pretty much nothing he can do that will change your mind. His base of support is rock solid.
The silver lining? He has a hard ceiling of support, too.
I hate to deny campaign strategists new sport fishing boats and Mercedes-Benzes, but all the ad money being spent on both sides for 2024 is kind of a waste. Whose mind is left to be changed by now?
It's resources on the ground - actually getting people registered to vote, and then getting them to the polling station - which will make the difference. And at the risk of making you feel a little optimistic for once, state-level Republican parties in some very crucial parts of the country are in total chaos at the moment:
When a political party adopts a mindset that prioritizes loyalty to a particular figure — in this case, Donald Trump — over all other traits, eventually it tends to run low on those other traits. We see the consequences of this mentality in the condition of several state Republican parties.
[…]
In these states, we are seeing the self-marginalization of the Republican Party. No outside force came along and forced these state parties to spend money, alienate traditional supporters and donors, pick nasty fights with their own lawmakers, turn loyalty to Trump into the preeminent litmus test on all issues and disputes, and alienate and repel once-persuadable swing voters. No, the people who took over these parties chose this path.
Yes, the pre-Trump Republican Party had its faults, and there’s no getting around that. Perhaps you remember it as being boring, stuffy, and predictable, with the state and local parties largely being run by nice old ladies who liked to wear big hats. But those allegedly boring types also tended to get the basics right: get more money coming in than is going out, pay attention to down-ballot races, and avoid infighting and messy public squabbles. Prudence, diligence, coalition-building, and cooperation — sure, those traits might not quicken your pulse, but they are required to get the job done. You cannot bellow, snarl, table-pound, and rage your way to an effective state or local party organization.
Again, the pre-Trump GOP state parties weren’t perfect, and they lost some races they ought to have won. But they also managed to win a bunch of races in states that now seem utterly repelled by the modern Republican Party. In 2014, the Arizona Republicans trounced Democrats up and down the ballot; now, Democrats hold the top three statewide offices and the GOP is hanging on to the state legislative chambers by its fingernails. That same year in Colorado, Republican Cory Gardner won a hard-fought Senate race, and Republicans won the attorney general, secretary of state, and treasurer races. Last year, Colorado voters reelected the state’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, by 19 percentage points, reelected its Democratic U.S. Senator, Michael Bennet, by 14 percentage points, gave Democrats expanded legislative majorities, and handed easy victories to many down-ballot Democratic candidates.
Trump convincing his own voters that elections are rigged against him is part of the reason Georgia - the very state which sent Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress - has two Democratic Senators at least until 2026.
Biden won in 2020 because he mostly kept his head down and let the loose-cannon incumbent sink his own ship. 2024 is not exactly the same - this time, Biden has a Predidential record to defend - but that might still be the best strategy.
As my old boss Willie Brown used to say, "Run lioke you're 10 pointsw down regardless what the polls say, and don't stop till the polls close." He won a lot of victories as the last really great Assembly Speaker here. (Can't even remember any of the successors)