What's The Real Fallout From the Trump Verdict?

Politically, it probably won't matter much

Jun 04, 2024

Liam Donovan has some interesting thoughts on the Trump verdict, having had a few days to ponder it.

Does a guilty verdict “help” former President Trump, net-net?
No, of course not. It is advantageous not to be convicted of crimes, and sub-optimal to be awaiting sentencing as the presumptive nominee for a major political party.
So we agree this hurts him, right?
It hurts Trump in the sense that it puts downward pressure on his ceiling, which has been his big structural challenge throughout his political career, and one that, at least in the early going of the 2024 election, polling had suggested may be abating. Where there had been signs that Trump could perhaps reach the 50%+1 threshold that would allow him to control his own destiny, the verdict—and the polarized response—makes it that much more likely that his path to victory will rely on winning with a bare plurality, one that requires continuing softness from Biden, and relative strength from minor candidates where it matters.
Ok, but does it lose him any existing votes?
My prior is that if you are willing to tell a pollster in the year of our lord 2024, 9 years after Donald J. Trump came down the escalator, you are well aware of what you are signing up for, and the psychology behind this ongoing support self-selects for a level of commitment and tolerance for negative information that shouldn’t be underestimated. Trump’s line about how he could shoot somebody in the middle of 5th Avenue and not lose votes probably shouldn’t be taken literally, but it should definitely be taken seriously. And so far that seems to be playing out in the polls, with Trump maintaining the vote share he enjoyed prior to the decision.
What about those polls that showed people changing their minds in the event of a conviction?
The human capacity for rationalization remains undefeated. We are terrible predictors of our future behavior based on theoretical circumstances, and exception at fitting motivated logic to shifting facts.
In the Bragg case in particular, there is a year-long body of work courtesy of various independent (and even liberal) legal experts, commentators, thought leaders, and other elites downplaying everything from the substantive theory of the case to prudential merits of prosecution. This provides a trove of ammunition, insulation, and mitigation—all from well-credentialed third parties—for what might otherwise be difficult to defend.
But I read 49% of independents and 15% of Republicans say he should drop out!
This is a deeply ambivalent country where one of the few things we can agree on is that we are dissatisfied with our choices. In the heat of the primary season, 58% of all Americans indicated that they did not want Trump to be the nominee. (56% said the same about Biden.) 57% of independents and 25% of Republicans agreed. And similar numbers said Trump should drop out following the indictments. That you wish you had better options doesn’t make it so, nor does seeing one of the major Presidential candidates as unfit mean that you’ll support his chief rival. As ever, this election will boil down to who a narrow subset of cross-pressured voters see as the lesser evil, with the corollary that even if they do turn out, they don’t necessarily have to accept the major-party binary.
As a general rule, just ignore proxy questions like whether people agree with the verdict, if it makes them more/less likely to vote for Trump, or whether he should be replaced on the ticket. These are convoluted ways to get at the real question—does any of this matter? At the end of the day we’re trying to determine who will win the election, and the only relevant barometer is the ballot test. Ultimately it doesn’t matter why you chose Trump or Biden (or somebody else), and unless your mind is already made up, the decision itself is probably overdetermined.

And of course, as he navigates this, Trump will have to take on — well, nearly everyone in corporate media. Just check out this unintentionally damning history of Biden’s TIME covers.

Democrats’ Supreme Court Whiff

Punchbowl states the truth: Democrats’ assault on the Court hasn’t worked.

To date, Senate Democrats have failed to land a single meaningful punch on the high court. This is true even as new incidents emerge that call into question the impartiality of some of the court’s conservative-leaning justices.
Judiciary Committee Democrats met privately after Senate votes Monday night to discuss this issue. Top Democrats continue to insist that the best path forward remains for the Senate to take up a bill that has zero chance of passing — legislation mandating an enforceable code of conduct for the court.
For now, Democrats’ strategy is to continue to raise public awareness while at the same time tempering expectations…
The justices themselves also haven’t been shy about dismissing the idea that Congress has a direct oversight role over the Supreme Court, citing separation of powers arguments. Chief Justice John Roberts rejected a request to meet with Durbin. Last year, Roberts also declined to testify before the Judiciary Committee. And Alito, the latest target of Democrats’ ire, claims Congress doesn’t have the authority to enact an ethics code.

CBS News is out with a report on how much this war on the Court has cost.

Located on the eighth floor of a Washington, D.C., office building, there is little indication the Impetus Fund is anything more than a vehicle to take in and redistribute money. A directory of offices in the hallway does not mention Impetus. A receptionist who serves multiple businesses on the floor says she has rarely, if ever, seen anyone from the organization.
"They're a virtual client," she says cheerfully. Its website is equally spare, with innocuous statements about its mission. "Impetus Fund works with changemakers across the country to unlock a more inclusive, accessible, and vibrant democracy," the site says. Impetus Fund's president is Ezra Reese, the political law chair at the Elias Law Group, which was founded by Marc Elias. Elias, a longtime Democratic Party lawyer who was general counsel for the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, founded his law practice with an eye toward "electing Democrats, supporting voting rights, and helping progressives make change," its website says.
Impetus is a creation of a progressive D.C. firm called Arabella Advisors, which oversees a web of nonprofits that today funnels more dark money into American elections and political causes than any on either side of the political divide. Founded in 2005 as a kind of facilitator for tax-exempt organizations and charitable donors, Arabella provides back-office functions for nonprofits, including legal advice, human resources, accounting and the like.
One of its services is helping donors maintain their anonymity. There are many legitimate reasons why charitable donors seek to remain anonymous. Sometimes it's rooted in humility. Other times they seek to avoid being hit up for other donations. When it comes to political giving, they may not want to court controversy in these polarized times. But good-government advocates say voters have a right to know who is behind the tsunami of ads and other messages that are overwhelming American politics today.
"Transparency is crucial for a fully functional government that is accountable to the people," said OpenSecrets' Massoglia.
Arabella is a dark money juggernaut. Through its constellation of nonprofits, it brought in close to $3 billion in dark money in the 2022 cycle. The behemoth in the Arabella network, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, raised nearly $380 million in that same cycle. In 2020 it steered $410 million to help defeat Donald Trump and win back the Senate for Democrats.
And though the big political spending by tradition starts after the 4th of July holiday, they already appear to be gearing up for the current presidential cycle. Arabella entities are helping fund progressive causes, like climate change and marijuana legalization. Lately, they have poured money into state ballot initiatives, particularly where there are competitive Senate or House seats, possibly as a way of driving turnout.

Mexico’s Corrupt Course Will Continue

Andrés Martínez-Fernández in the New York Post.

To date, Washington has largely been a passive observer of the relationship’s continued collapse. This is best evidenced by the utter breakdown of counter-narcotics cooperation with Mexico.
Opioid overdoses, facilitated by the free flow of Chinese precursor chemicals to Mexico’s cartels, continue to kill over 100,000 Americans each year. Nevertheless, the Biden administration has stood by as AMLO has repeatedly denied Mexico’s role in the fentanyl crisis.
Even when Mexico’s government terminated the longstanding Merida Initiative, upending counter-drug cooperation with US law enforcement, President Biden remained silent.
American permissiveness goes back years, through multiple presidential administrations.
In 2020, under President Trump, US law enforcement agents arrested former Mexican defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos after uncovering his collaboration with the drug cartels.
Yet after substantial diplomatic pressure from Mexico, the US released Cienfuegos, whom AMLO subsequently decorated with a medal honoring his service.