Verdict Worse than OJ, Trump Will Benefit from Outrage
New York had better hope a reelected Trump decides to be magnanimous
Before today, the 1995 “not guilty” verdict in the murder case against O.J. Simpson was the gold standard of politics intruding into judicial matters. Back then, most Americans believed there was overwhelming evidence that Simpson was guilty of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. After the verdict, much of the public believed the jury found for Simpson as a method of protest against police injustices against blacks—a political rather than legal matter.
Today’s verdict by big-city versions of rednecks and hicks in a kangaroo court in New York is worse. At least the O.J. verdict was a politicization of justice in favor of the defendant and against the government. The judgment against former President Donald Trump is a phony decision in favor of governmental power to use the judicial system for political purposes.
The flaws of the case and hysterical bias of the judge against Trump have been enumerated ad nauseum elsewhere and do not need repeating here. Suffice is to say the verdict will be reversed on appeal given the case’s many flaws and obvious politicization of justice. The other cases against Trump are just as fragile and have failed in their goal of denying the American people the chance to elect Trump again.
The question is what impact this decision will have on the presidential race and a likely second Trump presidential term.
President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats who set today’s judicial circus in motion cling to polls that indicate voters are less inclined to vote for someone with a felony conviction. However, these are generic polls that do not ask about the specific cases against Trump and their obvious political motivation. A recent Marist poll found that 67 percent of people wouldn’t alter their vote for Trump based on a conviction. Fifteen percent actually said they would be more likely to vote for Trump and a near-equal 17 percent said they would be less likely.
Crucially, the sham verdict will energize Trump’s base of support at the precise time that the Israel-Gaza war along with Biden’s other shortcomings are depressing energy on the Democrat side. A rule of thumb in politics is that the side with the most visible enthusiasm wins.
Furthermore, the unfair verdict will likely help Trump with groups that he is converting from Democrat supporters to Republican supporters, especially blacks and Hispanics. A Wall Street Journal poll in March indicated Trump had already increased his support among black men from 12 percent in 2020 to 30 percent this spring. Trump can now benefit from empathy that runs through black culture for prosecutorial injustice, combining it with his previous economic appeal to a group that has seen its financial position hit hard by Bidenomics.
The verdict also punctuates that Democrats have no issues on which to base reelection. Bidenflation will have eroded about 30 percent of Americans’ savings and purchasing power by the time Biden’s term is over. The economy is poor; lethargic growth during the first quarter of the year was just revised down to 1.3 percent. Democrats have eroded American power everywhere in the world, benefitting China, Iran, and Russia. Biden himself is a dotard and his vice president is more of a dangerous laughingstock than anyone to fill that unfortunate position since Henry Wallace. Trump has successfully triangulated the Democrats on abortion—the only issue on which they held a polling advantage.
Amid this malaise and the lack of a pandemic to implement exotic voting procedures that favor Democrats, Biden and his compatriots face long odds. These are reflected in polls that show Trump winning most swing states. Today’s decision may put Pennsylvania and Michigan in Trump’s corner, either one of which would be a game-ender for Democrats.
What does the decision imply about the trajectory of a would-be second Trump term?
New York had better hope that Trump suddenly becomes magnanimous and forgiving before returning to the Oval Office. In the past, he has spoken of helping (Democrat-run) cities that are beset by crime due to the poor decisions of voters and politicians . Will he apply this sentiment to his former hometown of New York, or he will he instruct government agencies to withhold the funding on which welfare queen par excellence New York City relies for everything from transit to schooling to policing? Even a modest drawdown in the presence of federal law enforcement officials helping the city would accelerate the city’s decay. He could work to accelerate the city’s demise as America’s financial capital to the benefit of places like Austin, Charlotte, Salt Lake City, and Southern Florida—either through modest steps like talking down Wall Street to major steps like shuttering the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The verdict suggests a Trump term that will be more domestically focused than it otherwise would have been. While Biden has left his successor a mess in every region of the world, the sense that Trump would have to use his energy and political capital to address the rot within is likely to prevail.
An unsustainable federal budget slouching toward crisis will give Trump an opportunity to make significant cuts and reforms. Biden’s final budget has amounted to about $7 trillion, of which $1.9 trillion is borrowed—a plainly reckless and untenable situation. The crisis is nearer than most people expect: a federal bond auction on Wednesday was weak enough that the Treasury had to sweeten the deal for investors to bite. As Bill Clinton used cuts to defense to reshape the federal government to his liking in his first term, Trump could use budget cuts to ax policies, personnel, and agencies he dislikes.
Biden and other Democrats thought their phony court cases were a firewall against a Trump comeback. Their strategy is poor.
Biden’s Pier to Nowhere
On Fox Business, I discussed the latest on Gaza and Ukraine, including Biden’s pier to nowhere.
I posted about this ten minutes before you published. The justice system has been collapsing since the OJ case. Slow at first, then all at once. I was playing teeball when he ran in the bronco. Now I am middle aged and wondering why in the hell we ratified a bunch of amendments.