Trump's ace in the hole

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Let's suppose for the sake of argument that DeSantis (or hypothetically some other Republican) manages to get out of the teens and bring his support back up at least into the 20s. Imagine even that DeSantis or whoever else makes it all the way up into the 30s. Yes, it requires a great deal of credulity to imagine that even this is feasible, but bear with me and just try to imagine that some sort of Republican primary candidate picks back up a little bit of momentum against Trump at some point.

The question then is... what next?

Even if things were to progress this far, Trump still hasn't revealed his ace in the hole. He hasn't played his Trump card.

If push comes to shove, if Trump needs to pick back up some momentum, Trump still retains the unexercised option to begin ceaselessly and brutally attacking Alvin Bragg in a ridiculously over the top manner. Trump can talk non stop about his legal case, and he can start making barely coded death threats against Bragg as well as the Judge Merchan. Both Bragg and Merchan make convenient targets for Trump. Bragg is Black, while Merchan is Hispanic, so neither of them will be viewed favorably by Republican primary voters, and Trump will always appear positively (to Republicans) in comparison to them, no matter how egregious Trump's behavior becomes.

So far Trump has shrewdly refrained from this, because it hasn't been necessary to annihilate DeSantis and all other competition. Merely having been charged has been enough to rally the Republican base behind Trump so far. But just imagine what will happen if the New York prosecutor/judge actually sends Trump to jail for breaking decorum and making death threats etc. If the judge doesn't send Trump to jail right away as punishment, Trump can just keep escalating his rhetoric and getting more extreme until eventually the judge will have no choice but to imprison Trump to shut him up.

And if that happens, Trump can then say that he is being persecuted and censored by evil liberals who are prosecuting in a witch hunt for crimes which Trump will say that he is 100% totally innocent of. Republican primary voters will continue to believe this, and as a result Trump stands to instantly earn a massive new surge in solidarity sympathy support as soon as he spends a single day behind bars. Republicans will feel the urge to rally once again behind Trump. This should easily be worth another 20-40 point swing to Trump.

After that swing, even if DeSantis picks up support in the meantime, we will be right back once again with DeSantis back in the teens, with no chance.

So what hope do other candidates like DeSantis have against Trump? When you remember Trump's ace in the hole of imprisonment, how does DeSantis counter that? It seems doubtful that it can be countered. And just picking up a bit of support now won't do anything for DeSantis if this latent imprisonment bump, which Trump can activate at any time of his choosing, can't be somehow pre-empted and prevented.

[2016]

Trump will be indicted a couple more times before the sun sets on 2023.

That's precisely the reason why the Republican Party will have 10-15 Candidates! Everyone thinks Trumps further legal problems will eventually sink him.

[Alben Barkley]

Trump will be indicted a couple more times before the sun sets on 2023.

That's precisely the reason why the Republican Party will have 10-15 Candidates! Everyone thinks Trumps further legal problems will eventually sink him.

And everyone is wrong. They will just empower him more.

Honestly, this will be the most boring primary season in a generation or more. We’re used to at least the non-incumbent party having a competitive primary. Not this time. It WILL be a rematch and anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

Trump will be indicted a couple more times before the sun sets on 2023.

That's precisely the reason why the Republican Party will have 10-15 Candidates! Everyone thinks Trumps further legal problems will eventually sink him.

"Everyone thinks BLANK will eventually sink him" is the theory that the anti-Trump forces in the Republican party have been operating on for damn near eight years at this point. You can't just wait for events to take him out when you've trained Republican voters for thirty f***ing years to ignore any bad press stories because "liberal media"

[2016]

Trump will be indicted a couple more times before the sun sets on 2023.

That's precisely the reason why the Republican Party will have 10-15 Candidates! Everyone thinks Trumps further legal problems will eventually sink him.

And everyone is wrong. They will just empower him more.

Honestly, this will be the most boring primary season in a generation or more. We’re used to at least the non-incumbent party having a competitive primary. Not this time. It WILL be a rematch and anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.

Indictment & Conviction are two different things.

The Michigan State Legislature (which now is completely controlled by Democrats) will introduce a bill based on some Amendment to keep Trump from appearing on the Michigan Presidential Ballot. And this will happen in a lot more States.

States have the right to kick Trump off the Ballot given what happened on January 6th!!! Do you get that!

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Indictment & Conviction are two different things.

The part you are not taking into account is that Trump can reap the political benefits of being imprisoned for a short period of time without actually being convicted. This would be the best possible world for Trump (in political terms at least), a world in which he is subjected to imprisonment but in which he also can keep claiming that he is totally innocent of everything and has never been found guilty.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-trial-2659718332/

Former prosecutor Glenn Kirschner told MSNBC Monday that there is a chance that Donald Trump could be put in pretrial detention if he goes over the top with his attacks on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

On Sunday, the Guardian reported that the former president sees going after Bragg for the grand jury indictment as a winning issue with his supporters, and he has plans to ramp up the rhetoric.

According to the Guardian, "...the latest charged language reflects Trump’s determination to double down on those attacks as he returns to his time-tested playbook of brawling with prosecutors, especially when faced with legal trouble that he knows he cannot avoid, people close to him said."

As Kirschner explained, New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan – who will oversee the case – will have the former president on a short leash and may call him back from Florida if things get out of hand.

"What are the repercussions if he decides not to follow that judge's [gag] orders?" host José Díaz-Balart asked.

"You know, a judge could place greater restrictions," the former prosecutor explained. "For example, a judge can say, 'listen, you obviously can't be trusted to abide by the conditions set for you by the court, so now I'm going to prohibit you from making any public comments about your case at all or posting anything on the internet about your case at all.'"

'"Now, where is the final stop on ratcheting up conditions for a defendant who steadfastly refuses to abide by the conditions set for him by the judge? It is pretrial detention," Kirschner elaborated. "Now, I don't know that anybody expects we'll ever get there but the other thing that's in play, Jose, if Donald Trump repeatedly violates conditions set by the judge, it would be contempt of court."

It is possible that conviction would be bad for Trump politically in the primary, but imprisonment without conviction surely wouldn't be. This would feed into Trump's witch hunt narrative.

[Del Tachi]

And you think Trump hasn't been laying it on re: Bragg so far?  LMAO

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

And you think Trump hasn't been laying it on re: Bragg so far?  LMAO

Remember prior to the indictments, Trump and his family members and co-conspirators were making death threats. That resulted in a lecture from the Judge to Trump's lawyers. After that, Trump stopped.

True, he has still been attacking Bragg politically, but not making death threats like he was before.

However, if it becomes in Trump's political interest to do so, he always has the option to backpeddle and resume the death threats. He can start off "subtly" talking about second amendment remedies and then keep gradually escalating over time until the judge has no other choice but to impose some pre-trial detention prison time to shut it down.

[emailking]

Would you kindly

[Epaminondas]

The Michigan State Legislature will introduce a bill based on some Amendment to keep Trump from appearing on the Michigan Presidential Ballot. And this will happen in a lot more States.

Not a stretch to bet the Scotus would repay back Trump for their appointment by striking down such restrictions.

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

Trump will be indicted a couple more times before the sun sets on 2023.

That's precisely the reason why the Republican Party will have 10-15 Candidates! Everyone thinks Trumps further legal problems will eventually sink him.

And everyone is wrong. They will just empower him more.

Honestly, this will be the most boring primary season in a generation or more. We’re used to at least the non-incumbent party having a competitive primary. Not this time. It WILL be a rematch and anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.

Indictment & Conviction are two different things.

The Michigan State Legislature (which now is completely controlled by Democrats) will introduce a bill based on some Amendment to keep Trump from appearing on the Michigan Presidential Ballot. And this will happen in a lot more States.

States have the right to kick Trump off the Ballot given what happened on January 6th!!! Do you get that!

There is NO WAY the Supreme Court would ever keep that in place.