Trump's Felony Indictment Was Way Worse Than He or the GOP Imagined | Opinion
When the news broke of former President Donald Trump's indictment, the suddenly-on-again sweethearts at Fox News and in Trumpworld went into overdrive, predicting that the charges would be a boon to his presidential campaign. $7 million in Trump fundraising and a polling bounce seemed to prove the point. But that MAGA fantasy was always suspect, and now that the indictment from the New York case against Trump has been made public, it's downright psychotic to see this as good news for Trump.
Indicting a former President may be unprecedented, but Trump has gotten into severe and uncharted legal trouble before, so we know how it affects his approval ratings. After the January 6 insurrection and his immediate impeachment, NBC News found that Trump's polling actually dipped by five points among Republicans. Trump's favorability edged up by a single point among Republicans after the FBI search of his home at Mar-a-Lago, but by a month after, he had lower Republican approval by six points. During his first impeachment, his approval fluctuated, but it returned within months to where it started.
It's true that since the indictment, Trump supporters have been able to crow about some polls showing movement his way. But the most widely cited poll was a Reuters/Ipsos one finding a small Trump bump of just four points in the Republican primary. What it mostly showed was a DeSantis slide of 11 points, reflecting his own flaws. And later, a Mason-Dixon poll showed DeSantis ahead 44 percent to Trump's 39 percent.
In other words, rumors of a Trump surge are not just greatly exaggerated; they're based on political smoke that is likely to quickly drift away.
Then there's the fact that the charges that District Attorney Alvin Bragg delivered were way worse than Trump ever imagined, or than Fox News and MAGA Republicans were prepared to defend politically. While Trump posted a despicable image of him menacing Bragg with a bat, it was the DA who came out swinging a legal cudgel with a laundry list of Trumpian malfeasance. His 34 felony counts each carry up to four years in prison. Though 136 years in the slammer for Trump seems very unlikely, Trump's face in the courtroom spoke volumes about how serious he now knows these charges are.
More importantly, Fox News hosts have tried to find solace in the notion that this case was all about a technical campaign finance violation that no one would understand or care about. Bad news, Trumpers: Bragg is actually alleging a criminal conspiracy to commit business and tax fraud, emphasizing that "we cannot allow New York businesses to manipulate their records to cover up criminal conduct" and noting that his office has charged hundreds of similar cases of felony falsification.
Voters may not understand campaign finance, but they sure as heck know what fraud is.
A recent CNN poll found that 60 percent of Americans already approved of the indictment—even before being exposed to details of the case. Now they have the statement of facts in the indictment: It is clear, understandable, and almost cinematic in placing the reader inside meetings where open conversations took place about a scheme to commit fraud and cover up it up.
Oh, and there are audio recordings too.
Sorry Fox: This can't be hand-waved away as arcane mumbo-jumbo. The public learning more details will only make this worse for Trump.
Right now, it's politically safe for Republican leaders to fire off outrage tweets and appear red-eyed on Hannity to attack Bragg, rail against liberals, and shed crocodile tears for a man most of them secretly despise. But look at DeSantis' first public statement about the indictment, in which he none-too-subtly twisted the knife by reminding voters exactly what the underlying scandal was about: "I don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star, to secure silence over some type of alleged affair."
If Trump's rivals are already shanking him in their second breath, what will it sound like if more charges pile up? And there is a significant chance of such charges: In Georgia, they could include election interference and racketeering; mishandling of classified documents and obstruction of Justice in the Mar-a-Lago case; and conspiracy, witness tampering, wire fraud, money laundering, and aiding an insurrection for Trump's post-election skullduggery.
Is the Republican Party signing up for Team Trump Defense for all that?
Ultimately, even if Trump's current martyr act (Marjorie Taylor Greene compared him to Nelson Mandela and Jesus) does allow him to hang on in a Republican primary on the strength of MAGA diehards, most Americans are sick of this. Almost two-thirds of independents welcomed his indictment.
All of which leaves Republicans in a nasty strategic pickle. If Trump wins their nomination, which remains possible, he will emerge as a pariah in the eyes of normie voters and go on to face President Biden, to whom he already lost by 7 million votes in 2020.
Will these legal cases somehow gain him swing voters?
For the GOP, disaster looms.
Matt Robison is a writer, podcast host, and former congressional staffer.
The views in this article are the writer's own.
