What if Trump is convicted before Election day?
It was simply icing on the cake that Trump’s superdelegate rigging partner was a Romney
It is an open secret that Trump World rigged the Republican party election process at the outset in its favor. With sharp-elbows and testosteronal moxy his team rammed through a front-heavy primary calendar in order to get a jump on the verdict-heavy, legally-infused Summer season. Trump’s outsized lizard brain learned all too well from past experience. He was burned — some might say outmaneuvered — in 2016 by, of all people, Ted Cruz. In the Colorado primaries Cruz, the last man standing in opposition to the parties march to Trumpification, took all the states delegates, leaving Trump’s panties in a twist. And so in the 2024 race, Trump’s reptile cunning adapted to the harsh realities of the American Presidential process.
Image: Fulton County Sheriff's Office
Trump puts the “bent” in incumbent because he has the cash, the organization and the endorsement advantage over his opponents (now winnowed down to one) in addition to the fealty of the RNC Chairwoman. Trump World therefore front-loaded the Republican primaries, giving the incumbent — for all intents and purposes, Trump — an all-but insurmountable lead over the challengers. 36% of the delegates, for example, will be at stake on Super Tuesday; about 70% of the total delegates will have been chosen by the end of March. It just so happens that all of these political processes happen — pure coincidence! — before the verdicts in Trump’s multitudinous civil and criminal trials.
We won’t entertain the possibility that Ronna Romney McDaniel and Trump World rigged the primary calendar. “But this primary calendar means there won't be a verdict in any of the multiple cases against Trump before the nominee is essentially decided,” notes NPR's Jeongyoon Han. “In total, Trump faces four scheduled criminal trials, including a criminal trial in Georgia that prosecutors have proposed to begin on Aug. 5 — just weeks after the July 15-18 Republican National Convention.” Coincidence!
We cannot fail to note that the Republican Party’s fealty to Trump here is just plain embarrassing. Not a good look at all. It just pulled a resolution — at the bequest of Trump — to call him “the presumptive nominee” despite the fact that Nikki Haley is still fighting an uphill battle with only a few dozen delegates claimed. Even Trump, who loves a thorough ass-kissing, had to intervene, picking the party up off the floor and prompting it to act, at least nominally, as objective. Thomas Beaumont reports for AP:
What was expected to be an uneventful RNC winter meeting in Las Vegas this week briefly gained heightened attention last week after the resolution, introduced by Maryland Committeeman David Bossie, to name Trump the presumptive nominee became public.
Bossie was Trump’s deputy campaign manager in 2016 and advised his team when Congress pursued a second impeachment after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Within hours of the resolution’s leak, Trump batted down the proposal, which some members of the committee criticized publicly as premature.
“While they have far more votes than necessary to do it, I feel, for the sake of PARTY UNITY, that they should NOT go forward with this plan,” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social.
Such a statesman! It was simply icing on the cake that Trump’s superdelegate rigging partner was a Romney. Because one of Trump’s greatest pleasures in life is humiliating an enemy. Still, it is up in the air if Ronna Romney McDaniel can continue to ride the populist beast that is the Republican party. Her very leadership is in jeopardy because she has been unable to give the party wins. It turns out, oddly enough, that kissing Trump’s not insignificant posterior alone is not enough to hold sway in the Trumpified party. Whatever her future, to be sure, Trump cannot be bothered. McDaniel served her unique purpose of being a Romney in servitude to a Trump. She is not Mitt, but she still has Romney blood running through her servile veins …
This is all a part of the Trump belief in it-takes-one-to-know-one. “Rigged” is one of Trump’s favorite concepts, a process he has sold to his audience as something to be wielded against the Overclass. And he, Trump argues, is the perfect person to wield that weapon against their Masters. Trump‘s crooked taxes — wink, wink — uniquely qualify him for the highest office in the land because he knows how to play the game. And, ancillary to that, how to rig it. While some Establishment squares might say that flagrant tax-dodging is a punishable offense, Trump counters, no, no, no — it is what makes him the working man’s retribution. Because he, having navigated the Wharton School and the sewer that is New York real estate, is expert at the art of rigging things. Although he would never admit it publicly, Donald J. Trump is, in fact, a rigger-lover.
Come retribution! Can I get an amen?
Trump is all but certainly the winner of the 2024 Republican nominating process, though the Republican party still has to play disinterested and be respectful to the crispness of Koch money. And that is why the Biden v. Trump general election has all but started at this incredibly early point in time. It also leads me to the point of this substack, asking aloud What if Trump is convicted before election day? It is a real possibility, despite Trump’s ample experience in delaying verdicts.
I ask this question out loud because a new Monmouth University/Washington Post poll suggests that Trump is in for some deep reckoning if he is indeed convicted. And given the amount of heat on Trump, there is a considerable possibility that trump might spend time in the pokey, even though the wealthy almost always find a way to avoid detention in such — how does one put this politely? — moist, sexually aggressive spaces. “News here, to my eyes, is 40% of SC Republicans (!) would dump Trump if he’s a felon,” writes Politico’s Jonathan Martin on X. “Halve that - is still a flashing light.” It is indeed pause for some thought.
Trump World’s strategy of delaydelaydelay works swimmingly in the short term, but possibly not so much in the course of the long game. And there is no game longer than a Presidential race where the nominees are essentially chosen by the end of January. This incidentally might be one of the reasons behind why so many big money donors — the Koch network, for example — are still backing Haley, at least for now. Delaying tactics notwithstanding, the possibility that Trump gets convicted on at least one of the many dozens of criminal cases against him this summer — in the thick of the general election campaign — is high.
But what if he were convicted of several crimes? As the summer progressed. Which is, of course, a distinct possibility. According to the poll, if Donald Trump is nominated, then convicted of a crime from the 2020 election, 60% of respondents said he should remain the GOP standard bearer. “And 90% of Trump supporters would still vote for him in November,” the MonmouthPoll added, posting on X. But the flipside reading of those numbers is 40% don’t believe that a convicted Trump should be the nominee. And that is mildly hopeful news for Haley and her monied libertarian backers going forward. But that is even better news, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, for Biden World.
”Bernie Sanders has been thinking a lot these days about what public pressure can accomplish when it comes to the war in Gaza. We were talking less than 24 hours after Joe Biden had struggled to make it through a Virginia rally that was meant to be focused on abortion rights. Fourteen times, the president been interrupted by protesters chanting ‘Genocide Joe’ or demanding a cease-fire. Young people, progressives, activists — ‘They have a right to be upset at the administration,’ Sanders said. He was matter-of-fact about the president’s situation, having just spoken with a pair of Biden aides about Gaza. Sanders has been friendly with and supportive of Biden, but ‘we are doing our best to turn the administration around, we’re doing our best to turn my colleagues here in the Senate around,’ he said. Outside pressure, he argued, was working even if the results weren’t yet visible. Now, he continued, ‘one of the things that has got to be done is public pressure has got to be put on the Senate.’ Sanders, a longtime leader of the progressive movement, was not among the most prominent voices responding to the crisis for months. Soon after the October 7 attack, progressives across the country and in Washington called for a bilateral cease-fire with Sanders a prominent exception.” (Gabriel DeBenedetto/NYMag)
“Taylor Swift has many titles: cultural juggernaut; international pop star; billionaire businesswoman. She can now add MAGA conspiracy theory target to the list.Far-right internet personalities and even a former Republican presidential candidate are spreading the notion that something is not quite right with Swift’s relationship with Kansas City Chiefs star player Travis Kelce — and that somehow the Super Bowl is rigged and it’s all leading up to a Swift presidential endorsement of Joe Biden. Swift was once famously politics-averse, but she inched into the arena in 2018 when she endorsed Tennessee Democratic Senate candidate Phil Bredesen, and then she backed Biden in 2020. That may have first soured some conservatives on Swift, but in recent days, the right has seemingly launched a full-bore attack on her. It seems like incredibly foolish politics, particularly as the gender gap grows and Republican support with suburban women erodes.” (Katherine Kim/Politico)
“Three families of American victims of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel sued the governments of Iran and Syria and the Binance crypto exchange and its former CEO, accusing them of providing financing and other material support to the militant Palestinian group’s terrorist activities. The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday afternoon in the Southern District of New York, is the first of what U.S. lawyers told Semafor will likely be a flood of cases tied to the Hamas assault, which killed around 1,200 people and led to the kidnapping of 240 Israeli and foreign nationals. At least 30 of the dead were U.S. citizens. The New York suit was filed, in part, on behalf of members of the Raanan family. Judith Raanan and her daughter, Natalie, were both kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 and held in the Gaza Strip before eventually being released in a prisoner exchange two weeks later. The family and estate of Itay Glisko are also claimants; the 20-year-old New Jersey native was a sergeant in the Israel Defense Forces and died in fighting with Hamas on October 8 … The filing also accuses Binance and its co-founder, Changpeng Zhao, of allowing Hamas to use the cryptocurrency platform to conduct financial transactions and make payments. Binance reached a $4.3 billion settlement with the U.S. Treasury Department in November and acknowledged that Hamas and other extremist groups illegally used the exchange. (Zhao stepped down as Binance’s chief executive as part of the agreement.)” (Jay Solomon/semafor)
“President Joe Biden issued an executive order targeting violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank whom he has said have undermined stability in the area, a US official and source familiar with the matter told CNN. The new directive, first reported by Politico and expected to be announced Thursday, will impose sanctions on several individuals accused of having participated in the violent acts. The order targets four individuals accused of directly perpetrating violence or intimidation in the West Bank, a senior administration official said, including people accused of initiating and leading a riot; setting buildings, fields and vehicles on fire; assaulting civilians and damaging property. The State Department announced the names of the Israelis targeted by the executive order, which blocks their financial assets and bars them from coming to the US. They are David Chai Chasdai, Einan Tanjil, Shalom Zicherman and Yinon Levi. The White House notified the Israeli government of their plans ahead of the order, an official said. Officials said they had compiled evidence they said offered proof of the individuals’ role in the West Bank violence that would withstand judicial review, including information from public reporting.” (CNN)