As much as anything, this week was the real start of the 2024 campaign, and the preview it offered suggested how much the next year will be dominated by variations on the tiresome theme of Trump, Trump, and Trump again. Even the former Presidents absence from the first Republican debate, on Wednesday, did little to distract from the story line of the poll-dominating elephant not in the room, as the Fox News anchor Bret Baier put it. But, if the subject is by now a familiar one, the plot has taken a notable twist, summed up in the extraordinary spectacle that unfolded in Atlanta late on Thursday evening.
In a highly public display manufactured for maximum prime-time impact by the worlds most famous criminal defendant, Trump flew into the city on his private jet ahead of a Friday deadline for his surrender, then motorcaded to the Fulton County Jail, where he was arrested, fingerprinted, and had his mug shot taken, before being released on a pre-negotiated two-hundred-thousand-dollar bail. There was no real news in this, of course, since he was indicted earlier this month. But that did not stop the breathless hours of coveragethe scenes of his plane slowly rolling down the tarmac, the extensive motorcade ride through Atlanta, his self-reported and highly suspect description of himself as six feet three and two hundred and fifteen pounds. The big reveal of the evening was his photo, in which he wore a navy suit and red tie. He glared straight into the camera for his big moment; the trademark Trump glowereyebrows raised, vaguely menacing, closer to a scowl than a smileis one he has cultivated for years. In the White House, his aides called it, simply, the Stare. He stands charged with illegally seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election, in Georgia and nationally. If the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, has her way, he will go on trial as soon as October 23rd, alongside a rogues gallery of eighteen co-defendants in a scheme that Willis has likened to a criminal racketeering conspiracy.
The unprecedented photo of a former American President treated like a common criminal, which Willis seemed intent on orchestratingUnless somebody tells me differently, Fulton Countys sheriff had said earlier this week, we are following our normal practiceswill go down in history, and not, it is safe to say, in a good way. Look at the mug shots of the Watergate conspirators: there is a grainy satisfaction in contemplating those black-and-white figures today, knowing how their stories ended up. Yet, for now, Trump sees only political gainand, quite possibly, the spectre of a historic self-pardonin that snarly snapshot from the Fulton County Jail. And why, after all, shouldnt he? The four indictments this year have been good for his poll numbers with the Republican base, good for his fund-raising, and good for his favored political move of presenting himself as a perpetual victim who must seek vengeance against his persecutors.
Even the big event whose timing he did not orchestrate this week tended to reinforce his preferred narrative of inevitable victory over a largely quiescent field of Republican also-rans. Trumps absence at the debate, on Wednesday, afforded the eight G.O.P. candidates who made it to the stage a chance to argue over policy matterssuch as support for the war in Ukraine and deficit reductionwithout his oxygen-sucking presence. Only ten minutes of questions in two long hours were actually about Trump and the ongoing challenge to American democracy that he presents. But it did not matter. The takeaway from the first debate of 2024 was not all that different from the takeaway from the first debate of the 2016 election cycle: the Republican Party is the Party of Trump, whether hes onstage or not.
The essential moment came at the top of the second hour, when the Fox News anchors finally, belatedly, uttered the T-word, asking which Republican candidates would endorse the ex-President as their nominee even in the increasingly likely scenario that he becomes a convicted felon. The responses that followed unrolled as a sort of democracy car crash: first the young entrepreneur and aspiring Trump clone Vivek Ramaswamys hand shot up, high, followed quickly by Nikki Haleys, Tim Scotts, and Doug Burgums. Ron DeSantis, the Florida Governor once touted as a possible Trump-killer until his leaden personality and clumsy campaigning sent him sinking in the polls, did himself no favors by looking to see what the other candidates were doing, then raising his hand as well.
Next to go was Mike Pence, the former Vice-President whose candidacy has veered between sanctimonious reminders of how he stood up to Trump, on January 6, 2021, and almost inexplicable acts of sycophancy toward him. A few minutes later, Pence would demand, in that deep baritone of his, that the other candidates weigh in on his January 6th choice to rebuff Trump and certify his 2020 election defeat. I think the American people deserve to know whether everyone on this stage agrees that I kept my oath to the Constitution that day, he said. Did he think the audience would forget that he had just pledged to vote for Trump again, criminal convictions be damned? Pence has long since perfected the ability to abase himself in public without seeming the least bit ashamed.
In the end, six out of eight candidates confirmed what we already knew: they would back Trump as the nominee, essentially, no matter what. The two exceptions were Asa Hutchinson and Chris Christie. Someone has to stop normalizing this conduct, Christie said, of Trump, prompting audible boos from the audience. Baier and his co-anchor, Martha MacCallum, didnt even bother to ask which felonyout of the ninety-one counts, in four separate criminal indictments that he is currently facingTrump might be convicted of. That was not the point of their hypothetical, which instead served to remind America that even Republicans ostensibly running against the ex-President are very likely to end up voting for him.
Watching these hopelessly outmatched candidates, I kept thinking back to one of the great lines from last summers January 6th hearings in the House of Representatives. Trumps former campaign manager, Bill Stepien, described how, after the 2020 election, he and others had been part of Team Normal, those who tried and failed to convince Trump that he had really lost the election, only to find themselves pushed aside in favor of Team Crazy, whose members, led by Rudy Giuliani, aided and abetted Trumps lies about the rigged election. The Republican debate stage in Milwaukee this week was filled with candidates who came from what passes for Team Normal in todays G.O.P., figures such as Trumps former Vice-President, Pence; Trumps former U.N. Ambassador Haley; and Trumps former friend and adviser Christie.
All three of them built their careers as governors in the pre-Trump Republican Party: Pence and Haley in the reliably red states of Indiana and South Carolina, respectively; Christie in Democratic New Jersey, a point he emphasizedto little availin his debate-stage pitch for Republicans to go for a candidate who knows how to win a competitive race in unfriendly territory. But, just like Stepien and the rest of Team Normal, they all eventually sold out to Trump. In this, they represent the very considerable part of the Republican Party that knew supporting Trump was a disaster back in 2016 and, yet, when it came time for the general election and divvying up the spoils of power that followed his unlikely victory, they did it anyway.
If this were a different time, a viewer of Wednesdays debate might have concluded that it was not a bad night for Team Normal. Haley and Christie delivered several of the more memorable zingers while making impassioned cases for decidedly normal causes, such as supporting Ukraine, a free country aligned with the U.S., over Vladimir Putins murderous dictatorship, as Haley put it, or choosing to protect the Constitution over terminating it, as Christie put it. Both took especial glee in going after Ramaswamy, a Trump for the millennial set so automatic in his Trumpier-than-thou responses to any question that Christie lampooned him as a sort of ChatGPT version of a Republican candidate. It was a good dig but also perhaps unintentionally revealing: ChatGPT might very well come up with a Trumpist candidate who sounds a lot like this one.
Besides, the polls these days about the Republican race for 2024 are clear: Team Normal is a sideshow, and a highly compromised one at that. There should be little doubt that most of those who now claim to have moved on from Trump, such as Haley and Pence, will nonetheless raise their hands and vote for him again if they have to. For Republicans, for now, there is, once again, only Team Trump.
Originally posted here:
The Harsh Glare of Justice for Donald Trump - The New Yorker
- North Korea Wants to Convince the World It Can Nuke Hawaii. Donald Trump Is Happy to Oblige. - The Intercept [Last Updated On: May 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 3rd, 2017]
- Donald Trump's peculiar obsession with authoritarian leaders - Chicago Tribune [Last Updated On: May 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 3rd, 2017]
- Does Donald Trump Have Dementia? - The Root [Last Updated On: May 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 3rd, 2017]
- Donald Trump Has Been Lying About The Size Of His Penthouse - Forbes [Last Updated On: May 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 3rd, 2017]
- 'South Park' Creators Skirt Donald Trump Next Season Because Monkey Running Into Wall Can't Be Made Funnier - Deadline [Last Updated On: May 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 3rd, 2017]
- AFT President: Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump Are Dismantling Public Education - TIME [Last Updated On: May 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 3rd, 2017]
- This is the best news Donald Trump has had in a while - CNN [Last Updated On: May 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 3rd, 2017]
- Donald Trump Predicts Mideast Peace Is 'Not As Difficult As People Have Thought' - Huffington Post [Last Updated On: May 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 3rd, 2017]
- The Donald Trump Zone of Uncertainty shows up in the health-care debate - Washington Post [Last Updated On: May 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 3rd, 2017]
- Donald Trump - The New York Times [Last Updated On: May 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 3rd, 2017]
- Make America Great Again! | Donald J Trump for President [Last Updated On: May 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 3rd, 2017]
- Stephen Colbert Defends Donald Trump Jokes After Controversy Erupted - NBCNews.com [Last Updated On: May 4th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 4th, 2017]
- Donald Trump May Have Exaggerated the Size of Something Else - Vanity Fair [Last Updated On: May 4th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 4th, 2017]
- Amanda Knox: Donald Trump supported me when I was wrongly accused of murder. What do I owe him? - Los Angeles Times [Last Updated On: May 4th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 4th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Says Peace in the Middle East Is 'Not as Difficult as People Have Thought' - Newsweek [Last Updated On: May 4th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 4th, 2017]
- Donald Trump says he's a big fan of history. But he doesn't seem to trust historians. - Washington Post [Last Updated On: May 4th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 4th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Deletes Tweet Calling Mahmoud Abbas Meeting 'an Honor' - Newsweek [Last Updated On: May 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 6th, 2017]
- FCC to Investigate Stephen Colbert Over Controversial Donald Trump Joke - Variety [Last Updated On: May 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 6th, 2017]
- How Trump won another unlikely victory - CNN [Last Updated On: May 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 6th, 2017]
- Donald Trump's Tweets of the Week: Blasting North Korea, Shading the Democrats, Winning Bigly - Newsweek [Last Updated On: May 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 6th, 2017]
- All Major TV Networks Block Trump's 'Fake News' Ad - Variety [Last Updated On: May 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 6th, 2017]
- Martha Stewart Appears to Give Donald Trump the Middle Finger - Vanity Fair [Last Updated On: May 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 8th, 2017]
- Outside Donald Trump's offices, pigs will fly - The indy100 (satire) [Last Updated On: May 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 8th, 2017]
- President Trump seizes on election rules to push his agenda in new ways - USA TODAY [Last Updated On: May 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 8th, 2017]
- Donald Trump finally gets a bill passed but his history of dealmaking is still full of failure - Salon [Last Updated On: May 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 8th, 2017]
- Donald Trump's Star Gets the Toilet Treatment ... Wanna 'Take a Trump?' - TMZ.com [Last Updated On: May 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 8th, 2017]
- Why Emmanuel Macron is the anti-Donald Trump - CNN [Last Updated On: May 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 8th, 2017]
- Donald Trump's highly abnormal presidency: a running guide for May - VICE News [Last Updated On: May 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 8th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Urges Senate Republicans to 'Not Let the American People Down' on Health Care - TIME [Last Updated On: May 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 8th, 2017]
- Donald Trump wants to ramp up America's presence in Afghanistan - Salon [Last Updated On: May 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 9th, 2017]
- Trevor Noah: Donald Trump Is 'Comedy Cocaine' - Variety [Last Updated On: May 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 9th, 2017]
- Donald Trump says Congress has too much power. He's wrong. - USA TODAY [Last Updated On: May 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 9th, 2017]
- Republicans abandon their virtues to stand behind Donald Trump and clap - Chicago Tribune [Last Updated On: May 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 9th, 2017]
- Donald Trump's New Website Features Military Personnel, Tweets, Merchandise - Newsweek [Last Updated On: May 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 9th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Can't Stop His Team from Undermining Him - GQ Magazine [Last Updated On: May 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 9th, 2017]
- Pipelines and Donald Trump: British Columbia Goes to the Polls - New York Times [Last Updated On: May 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 9th, 2017]
- Trump made one of his own tweets into a Twitter header. Cue the Twitter shade. - CNN [Last Updated On: May 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 9th, 2017]
- Read Donald Trump's Interview With TIME on Being President - TIME [Last Updated On: May 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 11th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Thinks He Invented a Phrase That's Been Around Since 1932 - Vanity Fair [Last Updated On: May 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 11th, 2017]
- Donald Trump After Hours - TIME [Last Updated On: May 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 11th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Is Launching a Panel to Investigate Voter Fraud - Fortune [Last Updated On: May 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 11th, 2017]
- Donald Trump thinks he invented the phrase 'priming the pump.' That's telling. - CNN [Last Updated On: May 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 11th, 2017]
- What Donald Trump doesn't understand about the federal government - Washington Post [Last Updated On: May 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 11th, 2017]
- Donald Trump, 'Brexit,' Snapchat: Your Thursday Briefing - New York Times [Last Updated On: May 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 11th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Backslides on Campaign Promise To Curb Legal Immigration - Breitbart News [Last Updated On: May 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 13th, 2017]
- James Comey, Donald Trump, San Antonio Spurs: Your Friday ... - New York Times [Last Updated On: May 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 13th, 2017]
- Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the ... - AlterNet [Last Updated On: May 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 13th, 2017]
- WikiLeaks Offering $100000 For Donald Trump's 'Comey Tapes' - HuffPost [Last Updated On: May 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 13th, 2017]
- Donald Trump's tax law firm has 'deep' ties to Russia - ABC News [Last Updated On: May 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 13th, 2017]
- Is Donald Trump boosting the economy? Goldman finds mixed signals - MarketWatch [Last Updated On: May 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 13th, 2017]
- Does Donald Trump want to be president? - Fox News [Last Updated On: May 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 13th, 2017]
- Donald Trump la Mode - New York Times [Last Updated On: May 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 14th, 2017]
- Yet another reason Donald Trump is bad news: He's utterly lacking in integrative complexity and that's dangerous - Salon [Last Updated On: May 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 14th, 2017]
- Today Marks Trump's Twenty-First Visit to a Golf Club Since Becoming President - Vanity Fair [Last Updated On: May 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 14th, 2017]
- Who Is Mary Anne Trump? Donald Trump's Immigrant Mother Came To America For A Better Life - Newsweek [Last Updated On: May 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 14th, 2017]
- Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey supports Donald Trump's use of the social media platform - Los Angeles Times [Last Updated On: May 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 14th, 2017]
- Donald Trump's Mother's Day proclamation is straight out of The Handmaid's Tale - Quartz [Last Updated On: May 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 14th, 2017]
- See Alec Baldwin's Donald Trump Dismiss Nixon... - RollingStone.com [Last Updated On: May 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 14th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Is Reportedly Considering Blowing Up the West Wing - Vanity Fair [Last Updated On: May 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 14th, 2017]
- 'Our Institutions Are Under Assault' - HuffPost [Last Updated On: May 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 14th, 2017]
- Donald Trump's disastrously bad week in Washington - CNN [Last Updated On: May 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 14th, 2017]
- What Donald Trump said about the spread of classified material during the campaign - PolitiFact [Last Updated On: May 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 17th, 2017]
- Donald Trump's plan to disenfranchise minority voters - The Hill (blog) [Last Updated On: May 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 17th, 2017]
- Donald Trump, douard Philippe, Ransomware: Your Tuesday Briefing - New York Times [Last Updated On: May 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 17th, 2017]
- Republican Congress won't rein in Donald Trump - USA TODAY [Last Updated On: May 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 17th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Is a Stress Test for Democracy and We Are Failing - Slate Magazine [Last Updated On: May 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 17th, 2017]
- Donald Trump, Ransomware, North Carolina: Your Tuesday Briefing - New York Times [Last Updated On: May 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 17th, 2017]
- Donald Trump, Israel, Erdogan: Your Tuesday Evening Briefing - New York Times [Last Updated On: May 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 17th, 2017]
- Can Donald Trump Be Trusted With State Secrets? - New York Times [Last Updated On: May 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 17th, 2017]
- KING: Donald Trump has reached peak white privilege - New York Daily News [Last Updated On: May 18th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 18th, 2017]
- How Trump learned about the special prosecutor - Politico [Last Updated On: May 18th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 18th, 2017]
- Stephen Colbert Uses 'Let It Go' From 'Frozen' To Mock Donald Trump - HuffPost [Last Updated On: May 18th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 18th, 2017]
- Donald Trump Said Saudi Arabia Was Behind 9/11. Now He's Going There on His First Foreign Trip. - The Intercept [Last Updated On: May 18th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 18th, 2017]
- Chinese propagandists are using adorable kids to take on Donald Trump - Washington Post [Last Updated On: May 18th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 18th, 2017]
- Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron, Google: Your Thursday Briefing - New York Times [Last Updated On: May 18th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 18th, 2017]
- Trump's Loyalty Test - TIME [Last Updated On: May 18th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 18th, 2017]
- Donald Trump: Come out, come out, wherever you are - The Hill (blog) [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2017]
- Donald Trump May Be Causing Problems For Disney World - HuffPost [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2017]
- Don't underestimate Donald Trump - Chicago Tribune [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2017]
- A Prayer for Donald Trump - New York Times [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2017] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2017]