Trump and Death by 1000 Indictments

W.J. Astore

If you can’t beat him at the polls, beat him in court

If you’re like me, you’ve lost track of the number of charges against former President Donald Trump. He’s facing at least 78 criminal charges stemming from three indictments: the Stormy Daniels case, the classified documents one, and now the January 6th riots/”insurrection.”

Readers of Bracing Views know I’m not a Trump supporter. In fact, in March of 2016, I wrote an article stating unequivocally that Trump had disqualified himself from running as president (he’d stated troops should follow his orders even if those orders were unconstitutional). That article was the most popular one I’ve ever written in terms of “hits,” but of course Trump prevailed as many Americans concluded that Hillary Clinton would be even worse of a president than a narcissistic and clueless con man.

Interesting image from CNN that superimposes Trump on the charges against him stemming from the classified docs case He sure looks guilty, right?

Democrats seem to think the way to “kill” Trump is death by a thousand paper cuts inflicted by all these legal charges and indictments. I don’t think so. I think most Americans know what Trump is. They know he’s a rogue and a scoundrel. They know he paid off Stormy Daniels in a dodgy, probably illegal, way; they know he shouldn’t have had all those classified documents around; they know he’s a sore loser who lashed out in petulant and dangerous ways on January 6th; but they also know Democrats aren’t offering much of an alternative except four more years of Biden/Harris. Their motto might be: More of the same, only more!

The way to beat Trump is to offer real changes of substance that will help Americans who are struggling across our country. But we’re not going to get that from Biden/Harris. Just look back to all those campaign promises, vintage 2020, that haven’t come through, such as a $15 federal minimum wage, substantial student debt relief, a single-payer option for health care, and a ban on oil and gas drilling on federal lands.

Democrats always have excuses here, someone else to blame, like Joe Manchin or the Senate parliamentarian or the conservative Supreme Court. But what matters to voters is results, and Biden/Harris haven’t succeeded in producing results consistently. Truth is, Biden is an aging president, a stumbling figurehead rather than a strong leader, and Harris is deeply unpopular. It’s not exactly the “dream team” the Democrats are running in 2024.

In these increasingly Dickensian times, the Democrats keep shoveling billions of dollars to the Pentagon and to Ukraine while offering a new Cold War with Russia and China. Main Street USA may wish to declare war on those two countries, if only to get money from Congress.

Alternatives exist for the Democrats, of course, such as Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Yet the Democratic establishment is too busy mocking or smearing them to listen to their ideas for substantive changes.

The Democratic establishment, it seems, is content to roll the dice in 2024 with Biden/Harris, preferring even to lose to Trump than to win with more progressive and dynamic candidates. Perhaps they truly believe they can “kill” Trump through all those indictments and charges, the equivalent to death by 1000 cuts.

It’s a strategy, I guess—just not a winning one.

10 thoughts on “Trump and Death by 1000 Indictments”

  1. Trump is very likely guilty of most or all of the charges. His popularity in the polls is irrelevant. He would have been removed from office (twice) if the Senate Republicans had only voted to hear the evidence against him. I suppose Astore approves of Trumps’s policies. But that does not mean Trump should be allowed to continue to engage in criminal behavior, possibly even as POTUS.

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    1. On what basis do You assume that Mr Astore “approves of Trumps’s policies”? And which specific policies do You think he approves of?

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    2. Nope. Not a fan of Trump. Didn’t vote for him in either 2016 or 2020. Won’t vote for him in 2024.

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  2. I agree — it is a strategy, but not a winning one. This latest indictment re: the Jan. 6th events should make even thinking and level-headed Democrats uncomfortable, it’s being largely a very questionable alteration of our precedents on the 1st Amendment. And Jack Smith has an unenviable record at the Supreme Court.

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  3. Great point. Trump’s terribleness wouldn’t be an issue at all if the Dem were ordinarily competitive. The tragedy is that BOTH parties are determined to be incompetent. And I’m not proposing a false equivalence. The GOP is aggressively criminal at the top, while the Dems at the top are merely effete and moribund. But both are bad.

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    1. Yes. Whenever I criticize Trump and Biden, I’m accused of putting them in the same basket, of false equivalence. And I’m careful to critique them with specifics that are unique to each candidate.

      But the mainstream media thinks if you critique Biden, you’re pro-Trump, and vice-versa. That’s our simplistic politics. You must be blue or red. You can’t be purple or green or some other color.

      Speaking of Green, in 2024 I’m most likely to vote for Cornel West if it’s Biden/Trump again. For Biden supporters, that makes me a Trumpist. Go figure!

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      1. It’s the same world view and mindset, Bill, as the one that declares that if You are against America’s war with Russia in Ukraine, You are a Putinista.

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    2. i am prepared to argue that the “Dems at the top” are ~ and have always been ~ as “aggressively criminal” as the GOP is and has always been, That’s how they both got to the top and are able to stay there.

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  4. I totally agree that Biden/Harris are poor candidates at best, that they have not delivered, and that they seem to be in the pockets of the “defense” establishment. But your hated of them and the Dems is causing you to parrot Trump’s legal defense that these indictments are merely political. The cold facts are that Trump and his cronies tried to overthrow the results of an election by consciously lying and organizing a scheme that could have succeeded. Do you think the DOJ should look the other way because he’s a Presidential candidate? What evidence do you have that the DOJ is doing the bidding of Biden? I have read your column for years and agree with your critiques of the military. But you are undermining your credibility because of your single-minded dislike of the Dems.

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    1. I don’t think you’re reading what I wrote. You’re reading into what I wrote.

      I don’t “hate” the Dems. Nor do I “hate” Trump. I find Trump to be constitutionally unqualified to be president. As in he has little respect for the U.S. Constitution and he has no sense of what public service is about.

      The Dems (Biden/Harris) are corporate stooges and hacks. They are bought and paid for.

      I make no legal judgment on the indictments. I simply believe they are the wrong avenue to travel down to beat Trump in 2024.

      The way to beat Trump is to run a real candidate who’s not a corporate stooge, a true public servant who will work for the 99% against the greed of the 1%. Someone like Cornel West, for example.

      That is my argument.

      I doubt the DOJ is doing the bidding of Biden. Biden is more puppet than puppet master. The DOJ answers to other interests.

      Though these indictments may be “legal,” they are also inevitably political. How could they not be? They have powerful political ramifications.

      I hope this clarifies my position.

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