Friday, July 28, 2023

WILL THE SUPREME COURT MAKE UP A REASON NOT TO JAIL TRUMP?

I've been reading pieces like this one at Talking Points Memo, with the headline "The New Evidence Against Donald Trump In The MAL Case Is BRUTAL." I've had doubts about the likelihood of a conviction in Trump's Florida case given the Trumpy makeup of the likely jury pool, but maybe the evidence in the case really is overwhelming. Maybe he'll be convicted. And maybe he'll be convicted in New York (though that probably wouldn't lead to more than a fine) and/or D.C. and/or Georgia.

But his poll numbers continue to defy gravity -- not just in the GOP, where that's expected, but in general election polls. (In the latest Marquette Law School poll, he and President Biden are 50%-50%. That's better than Trump's 52%-47% lead in May in the same poll, but it's still bad for Biden. Trump is also tied with Biden in the latest poll from Big Village, and ahead of Biden by 4 among registetred voters in the latest Premise poll.) And then there's the likely effect of the No Labels and Cornel West candidacies.

So I still believe the most likely outcome of the 2024 election is a legitimate Trump victory, at least in the Electoral College, because it doesn't seem as if there's anything that will turn even casual Trump supporters against him. If I'm right about the win, it could very well happen despite one or more felony convictions for Trump. Trump will appeal any convictions, and I assume, given the constitutionally fraught circumstances, the appeal or appeals will make their way to the Supreme Court.

The GOP majority on the Supreme Court answers to old-school Republicans -- billionaires who are mostly sick of Trump and wish he would go away. But if we have a Trump who's both victorious and a felon convicted on overwhelming evidence, isn't it likely that the Court will conclude that upholding the conviction(s) would create a constitutional crisis, even if the government's case is rock solid?

I'm imagining a Bush v. Gore-style decision sometime after Election Day 2024 but before Inauguration Day. It will be based solely on what the justices tell us is best for the country. And it will go Trump's way.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the timing of all this. Maybe it's more likely that the appeals process won't get that far before Inauguration Day, at which point Trump will be self-pardoned or declared an innocent man by his Justice Department. And you all might be right that polls right now are meaningless, and that a significant number of casual Trump supporters will finally reject him after one or more convictions, even though impeachments, the January 6 hearings, indictments, and the E. Jean Carroll civil case haven't made a dent in his general-election support.

I know I say these things all the time, but I continue to be struck by the disconnect between the reaction to news about Trump among politically engaged liberals and Never Trump Republicans -- Wow, he's even guiltier than we thought! -- and the reaction among the general public, which is that he's just as credible a general-election candidate as he was dozens of felony counts ago. I'm just waiting for some signs that he's become too unpopular to win the election, and I'm not seeing them. A question for those of you who think he can't win in November: When will we see a level of anti-Trump disgust sufficient to guarantee an election loss? What will be the precipitating factor?

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