The presiding judge in the Trump federal case is the same one who blatantly acted as though she was a member of his defense team in an earlier case. A right-wing appeals court stopped her blatant favoritism for the guy who nominated her to the federal bench in the first place.
Expect her to be part of the defense team this time, until and unless she's kicked off the case or (yeah right) recuses herself.
Well that's why the US legal system has appeals.
@volkris @dangillmor There is no appeal of dismissal after jeopardy attaches. Thus they need to get it right, right now.
I still think that people are overstating the criticality of this.
If Trump heads off to play golf in obscurity, probably being pretty disappointed and not having the limelight anymore, that is a better outcome than some of the alternatives, including his being reelected president.
This is a tricky situation.
@volkris @Arpie4Math @dangillmor
He's never going to voluntarily relinquish the lime-light. He is a world-class attention addict. Losing the constant firehose of attention he gets from sitting atop the maga throne would be a fate worse than death as far as he is concerned.
The thing about the limelight is that the person wanting the light isn't in control of it. It's not his choice. We are the ones who decide for ourselves whether we want to keep giving Trump attention or not, playing his game or not.
And so with this prosecution our society is choosing to give him more attention, and we absolutely don't have to, but we are choosing to give him more attention and promote his re-election bed, validate his story that he is selling to his voters, and we are voluntarily choosing to make it more likely that he becomes the next president.
I think we should really think twice about doing that.
We should really think twice about whether we should keep giving the guy that attention and potentially power.
Personally I would rather this story end with him wasting away sadly on a golf course, ignored, crying about it, not being a martyr with his claims confirmed. But that's just me.
@volkris @Arpie4Math @dangillmor
We had two years of letting him "waste away sadly on a golf course" and it didn't work. The only people who control who sits on the maga throne are magars and they are not going to give him up voluntarily, they will only do it if he's taken from them.
The only way out is through.
Ha, through letting him have a good shot at being president again? No thanks.
He had two years wasting away on the golf course and his polling numbers weren't looking particularly good except for these renewed efforts that get him back into the headlines.
We were done with him. He was on his way out. But apparently we decided, no, we want to keep him in the story, to keep him a threat to our system of government.
It didn't have to be this way, but it is the choice that Biden made, so okay.
@volkris @Arpie4Math @dangillmor
At no point has he ever been anything less than the front runner for the maga primary.
The idea that prosecuting him will get him elected is maga propaganda. Just like the claims that impeaching him would get him re-elected. Both false.
He can't be beat by appeasing maga voters. He can only be beat by activating Democratic voters and prosecution is one of the best ways there is to communicate the stakes to Democratic voters that might otherwise stay home.
If you listen to polling or mainstream conservative media you would get a very different picture.
Trump's launch of his reelection bed was met with a very striking thud. Mainstream conservatives spent weeks talking about how it was a letdown, how this guy was not worth paying attention to anymore, how he was yesterday's news.
And now these developments have turned him into today's news, breathing life into his struggling campaign.
So many conservatives were happy to be done with him and to move on. But thanks to these prosecutions he has a legitimate chance of becoming president again.
Yay.
@volkris @Arpie4Math @dangillmor
Which polling showed him less than the frontrunner? None.
The only conservatives "happy to be done with him" were a handful of plutes who pulled strings at a couple of outlets like fox to try to keep him off the air. But they couldn't make fetch happen because the party is maga now.
Sounds like you have not been listening to mainstream conservatives lately.
If you tuned in to talk radio in the last year all of the major conservative radio shows had been throwing Trump overboard before the indictments.
At this point they are trying to figure out how to deal with him being back on the playing board when they know that he's a liability but because of the indictments their audiences are pushing for him to be president.
The guy was over. All of the mainstream conservative outlets we're talking about him as a relic from the past. But these moves reinvigorated him, exactly as he would like, and making him a real possibility for being president again.
I know, it's infuriating to listen to mainstream conservative outlets, but I do it so other people don't have to. And yeah, they were all dunking on Trump as a hasbeen until this reinvigorated his presidential run.
Lets take a beat here and recognize that you were making up polls to justify your claim. If you won't own that, then its pretty hard to believe that anything else you say is written in good faith.
I think you just haven't been engaging with the conservative world to watch how it's been changing course to back Trump after the indictments.
Spend more time listening to them and you'd see this process playing out.
Just to cite one indicator, you've seen how many Republicans have signed up to run against Trump? That's because his position was so weak as they made their plans and brought on campaign support.
Trump's recent surge toward the presidency wasn't supposed to have happened, and the folks running against him are hoping it's temporary, but with more indictments he's only gaining that much more backing for his presidential run.
Yay..
I mean this stuff is widely reported and tracked among conservative media, which is largely what matters, but you can also see it reflected in the RCP tracker...
For the people reading along, here's the graph of the polling he's linked too. Its plain as day that ronald dump has always been the frontrunner by a large margin.
When someone's own best evidence contradicts their claims, its clear facts don't matter.
My claim is that he got a boost by the indictments. The graph shows an uptick around the indictments, arresting the downtrend in his popularity.
If you agree that he's always been the frontrunner by a large margin, then everything else is just re-arranging deckchairs on the titantic.
You know what corresponds to that minor dip in his popularity? Fox's soft-ban, that ran from late sep 2022 to late march 2023. Blame fox for putting him back on the air.
Liberals do not control conservatives, and believing so is, at best, codependency if not outright capitulation.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/03/fox-news-soft-ban-trump-murdoch-sean-hannity
@volkris @Spicewalla @dangillmor
The significant pro-Trump event shown in the RCP graph is March 27-April 3 corresponding to the New York indictment while the Florida (Federal) indictment happened on June 8.
Also during the March 27-April 3 period was a flurry of press about Disney outwitting #DeSantis retaliation scheme replacing the #RCID with the #CFTOD.
Since Trump and DeSantis have always been the front-runners, one's loss is the other's gain so it is unclear from polling alone to what extent Trump is strengthening or DeSantis is weakening.
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/29/1166925827/disney-world-board-desantis-power-florida
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution_of_Donald_Trump_in_New_York
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67490070/united-states-v-trump/
Sure, and that's why I emphasize that mainstream conservative media has had such a huge impact, beyond the polling.
I'd consider the polling to be only a minor indicator since it has drawbacks, which is why I'm really not so interested in tracking down specific polls. The RCP trend is plenty for my purposes when it comes to polling.
@Spicewalla @dangillmor
@Arpie4Math @volkris @dangillmor
Another event at the end of March is that fox ended his soft-ban with an appearance on hannity. The ban started at the end of Sep (his last appearance, also on hannity) and corresponds to the start of the dip in his popularity.
That chart looks like regression to the mean as much as anything else. Its tempting to draw conclusions that validate our priors from minor fluctuations, but the only number that matters is that he has always been #1 by a large margin.
@volkris
So again, you won't acknowledge that you made up polls to justify your beliefs. The only reasonable conclusion is that your feelings do not care about facts.
@Arpie4Math @dangillmor