Dana Verkouteren via AP
An artist sketch depicts former President Donald Trump, right, conferring with defense lawyer Todd Blanche, center, during his appearance at the federal courthouse in Washington, August 3, 2023. Special Prosecutor Jack Smith sits at left.
The official presidential nominations for 2024 are far off, but all signs point to an easy Donald Trump victory in the GOP primary. His only serious challenger thus far, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has collapsed in the polls, likely thanks to a deeply unsettling affect, a campaign staff that appears to be infested with hyper-online fascist freaks, and above all his total unwillingness to offer anything different from Trumpism, when the genuine article is his main competitor. Mike Pence would be a logical candidate, but even after Trump nearly got him lynched, Pence’s criticisms have been notably half-hearted—and even that much has sharply driven up his unpopularity among Republican voters.
Nobody else except Chris Christie has seriously laid into Trump, and that no doubt helps explain why Christie is polling in the low single digits. Trump’s imaginary victimization at the hands of President Biden and the “deep state” is the beating heart of conservative grievance politics now, and he has a near death grip on the Republican Party. Ever since Trump launched his campaign in 2015, Republican elites have wanted him to go away without them having to do anything, and it’s not going to work this time any more than it did in 2016 or 2020.
The nearly certain nomination explains Trump’s legal strategy for all his various felony trials that are coming up soon: stall for time. If he can squeak out an Electoral College victory, he can use presidential powers to squash the prosecutions, one way or another. As Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley report at Rolling Stone, Trump is already forming up brigades of right-wing legal shock troops who can exact vengeance on Jack Smith, Biden, and everyone else who wronged him.
It follows that American voters will be the ones who decide whether or not Trump faces any accountability for his attempted coup.
Trump and his cronies are likely aware at some level that this time they might be in serious legal jeopardy. The recent indictment for attempting to overturn the 2020 election is incredibly damning, with multiple apparent admissions of guilt, and much of the evidence is public. It’s like some robbery trial where the culprit was filmed in the act by every national TV news station, reporters had him on tape planning to do it, and detectives found the stolen goods in his garage.
Indeed, John Eastman, one of the co-conspirators named in the indictment, recently straight-up admitted that they were attempting to overthrow the government. As Josh Kovensky points out at Talking Points Memo, in a recent interview Eastman claimed that a Biden victory in the 2020 election was an “existential threat to the very survivability, not just of our nation, but of the example that our nation, properly understood, provides to the world.” Referencing the Declaration of Independence, he added: “At some point abuses become so intolerable that it becomes not only their right but their duty to alter or abolish the existing government.”
Unless something changes, the American electorate likely won’t know whether Trump is convicted or not when they cast their ballots for president.
Incidentally, it is true that many prominent Americans in history have discussed an inherent right of revolution. But as President Ulysses S. Grant noted in his memoirs, attempting to exercise that right comes at a high risk. Any “people or part of a people who resort to this remedy, stake their lives, their property, and every claim for protection given by citizenship—on the issue,” he wrote. “Victory, or the conditions imposed by the conqueror—must be the result.” Trump, Eastman, and all the other conspirators are lucky indeed they didn’t receive a more swift and traditional punishment for what they did.
At any rate, this recognition is why Trump’s team has wasted an entire week on a routine protective order matter. As David Kurtz explains at TPM, Jack Smith is trying to keep the January 6th trial process moving quickly, and so is trying to give Trump discovery materials under a bog-standard protective order prohibiting Trump from discussing the materials publicly. But Trump has objected to this, suggested a replacement order, demanded delays and hearings at every point, and so on, trying to play for time. Sure enough, Judge Tanya Chutkan scheduled an in-person argument later this week. As Kurtz writes, it “will play out like this over and over again. Trump will turn every minor procedural skirmish into World War III and every serious matter into armageddon.”
Trump’s legal team has also called for stripping the case from Judge Chutkan and changing the venue to West Virginia, where the population is “more diverse.” By more diverse, Trump obviously means more willing to vote for and support Trump. (They conveniently skipped over the D.C.-adjacent Biden states of Maryland and Virginia.) But by his actions, Trump is already changing the venue to the entire American electorate, who will determine whether or not Trump faces a trial and/or appeal in this case.
Legal procedure in this country is extremely slow, and that holds double for a big criminal trial—particularly in the unprecedented case of a former president in the dock who is also making not-so-subtle threats against the judge, requiring her to increase security. It might just be possible to finish the trial before Election Day 2024 by throwing Trump in pretrial detention, but that would require a strong political stomach. (Indeed, any other defendant already would have been locked up over what Trump posted on Truth Social.)
So unless something changes, the American electorate likely won’t know whether Trump is convicted or not when they cast their ballots for president. Democrats have pined for a deus ex machina to rid the nation of Trump for years, going back to Robert Mueller. But it’s clear that only voters will have the power next year to deny Trump what he wants. Will enough people in swing states vote for the most corrupt, lawless president in American history, who is openly plotting to make himself dictator-for-life? We’ll find out soon enough.
