Let me start off this article with a simple premise: Donald Trump is one of the great political enigmas of all time. He has walked through more political land mines of his own making and survived when many pundits including myself had predicted that he was finished because of it.
You never can really consider Donald Trump out until all the votes that are cast are counted. However, in some instances, even that is not enough for some of his ardent followers. Yet the safe rule of thumb is to never count Donald out for the count until he is, well, out for the count and hopping on Marine One on January 20 2021 to leave the White House on the day his term ended.
This rule does apply to Trump 2.0 as he tries to win the GOP nomination again to face off against Sleepy Joe in 2024, never ever count Trump out.
Now we have a new wrinkle in the warm-up for the march to the GOP nomination in the potential indictment of Trump on tik-tac charges by a biased D.A. that has been covered from many angles here at RedState including our brand new colleague Ben Kew in the piece “Why Should Anyone Risk Protesting for Donald Trump?”
The never count Trump out rule still applies even with this new development but the thought of him becoming unbeatable because of it has confused me a bit. This is not just a side theory from people who seem to think that Trump is some sort of infallible human here to save the republic and for all that it and the flag stand for, this is coming from a lot of sides.
Elon Musk checked in: Elon Musk: If Trump Is Indicted, It Will Backfire — Big Time.
So far my favorite has been comic Chris Rock’s take, which my colleague Brandon Morse wrote earlier in the piece “Chris Rock Gives Democrats a Warning About Trump’s Arrest They Should Listen To.” From that article…
“Are you guys really going to arrest Trump?” Rock asked.
“Do you know this is only going to make him more popular. It’s like arresting Tupac. He’s just gonna sell more records. Are you stupid?” he said as the room laughed.
Rock went on to riff on the circumstances of Trump’s potential indictment, which arose from his relationship with adult film star Stormy Daniels.
“[Trump] f—ing a porn star and paid off someone so his wife couldn’t find out. That’s romantic,” Rock said.
“We’ve all been cheated on. Don’t you wish that the person that cheated on you paid off somebody so you wouldn’t find out?” he added.
Now, there is no doubt in my mind that Rock is having a bit of fun with this take by comparing Trump to Tupac. The deceased rapper Tupac Shakur was shot multiple times by an assailant that was never caught and died from those wounds. Trump on the other hand has verbally shot himself in the foot many times and has not yet died politically because of a loyal core of followers who believe that the man just doesn’t make mistakes.
They really are not the same but Rock has fun with this comparison as he should.
Yet, just from living in the reality of modern-day politics, I fully acknowledge Trump has a loyal base but also realize that Trump burnout is also a very real thing. I don’t see how Trump being indicted is going to all of a sudden make Independents and suburban white women who were turned off by him in 2020 all of sudden think that he’s an original gangster and love him. Maybe I’m missing something, but while Trump’s base has stayed loyal his negatives among normal people never go down.
There is no doubt that a disciplined public speaker that is going through what Trump possibly is going to have to go through with this rigged indictment would be able to score some political points by showing how messed up this is. However, when in the past 6 years have you seen Donald Trump stay on message and pound one singular point home? The simple answer is “never.” Trump is at his best when he’s off script and that’s great for rabid followers of his at a campaign rally but it’s not all that great for driving a point home beyond Truth Social.
I just don’t see the evidence of it yet where he spikes up in appeal if indicted.
Now, of course, he needs to be indicted first but the people who go to an automatic default of this will win Trump the Presidency, possibly forget that we are 19 months away from that election, and in that amount of time anything can happen.
I won’t count Donald Trump out ever but I’m not willing to say he is going to waltz to the nomination and a Presidential win in 2024 either.
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