Yesterday, we got a preview of what Donald Trump will be talking about for the next year. The New York Times reports that:
Former President Donald J. Trump spent much of his first major political rally of the 2024 campaign portraying his expected indictment by a New York grand jury as a result of what he claimed was a Democratic conspiracy to persecute him, arguing wildly that the United States was turning into a “banana republic.”
As a crowd in Waco, Texas, waved red-and-white signs with the words “Witch Hunt” behind him, Mr. Trump devoted long stretches of his speech to his own legal jeopardy rather than his vision for a second term, casting himself as a victim of “weaponization” of the justice system.
“The abuses of power that we’re currently witnessing at all levels of government will go down as among the most shameful, corrupt and depraved chapters in all of American history,” he said.
The speech underscored how Mr. Trump tends to frame the nation’s broader political stakes heavily around whatever issues personally affect him the most. Last year, he sought to make his lies about fraud in his 2020 election defeat the most pressing issue of the midterms. On Saturday, he called the “weaponization of our justice system” the “central issue of our time.”
Trump insists -- always has insisted -- that he is the central issue of our times. And he intends to keep himself at the centre of his nation's consciousness proclaiming that he is a victim:
Lamenting all the investigations he has faced in the last eight years that have — to date — not resulted in charges, Mr. Trump claimed that his legal predicament “probably makes me the most innocent man in the history of our country.”We haven't heard the last of Donald. What we will hear is a repeat of what he's been saying for almost a decade. And that looped message simply emphasizes how loopy -- and dangerous -- he is.
Image: The New York Times
4 comments:
It's not difficult to predict that the Donald will spend the next year talking about himself - that's all he's ever been interested in. I wish the NYT would spend more time on why he's not behind bars and still free to hold his rallies.
Every time a prosecutor talks up an indictment and then caves, it adds credibility to Trump's claims of persecution. Many legal scholars believe that the Stormy Daniels campaign finance case currently before a NY grand jury is at best a misdemeanor charge. I expect that the DA will balk, just as he did when he dropped the case against Trump on fraudulent real estate valuation. As they say in NY, fuhgeddaboutit.
And so, the Trump roadshow rolls on, and barring some major health issue he will be the 2024 GOP presidential candidate.
The Manhattan case is surely not the most important case against Trump, Cap. But if Bragg follows through, it will be the first time Trump will be held accountable. And it will start the indictment ball rolling.
Jennifer Rubin suspects old school Republicans are prepared to see the GOP lose everything in 2024, the White House and both Houses of Congress, as the sacrifice that is inevitable to displace not just Trump but also MAGA.
As I recall, Mound, the late Bob Dole suggested the best solution was to burn the party down.
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