Hopeful News from Jennifer Rubin

 from The Washington Post

March 22, 2024

by Jennifer Rubin

What caught my eye Legal peril: Former president Trump increasingly faces threats to his campaign stemming from his past actions and contempt for the law. While the wheels of justice turn slowly, four criminal cases against him remain. The New York trial on falsification of business records will likely begin in April, now that the judge issued a slew of devastating evidentiary rulings against Trump. New polling suggests a conviction in Manhattan could significantly hurt him in November. Moreover, Trump has run out of financial entities willing to help him post bonds while he appeals his mammoth civil judgments. He finagled Chubb insurance company to meet the bond requirements on the E. Jean Carroll verdict. However, he has come up short on the gigantic $454 million verdict for his inflated real estate evaluations. The Post reported that none of the 30 companies Trump and his organization approached would “accept property as collateral — stalling any efforts to obtain a bond with a week before the state might begin collecting.” Without appellate court relief, the state could begin seizing his assets. The legal consequences will inflict further financial and psychic strain on the self-described “billionaire” (now appearing a whole lot less liquid than he once claimed) and might further deplete campaign resources as he tries to fund his defense in multiple cases. Campaign vulnerabilities: Trump’s most acute vulnerability remains his mouth. He continues to spew noxious views that provoke harsh media coverage and even draw rebukes from some Republicans. His dehumanizing of immigrants (“I don’t know if you call them people … In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion”), salutingthe traitorous Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists (before their “anthem” played), referencing Jan. 6 convicted criminals as “hostages” and invoking of violent imagery (“bloodbath”) in his speech in Ohio triggered some of his harshest coverage. Moreover, when given a chance to repudiate Nazi phrases (“poisoning our blood”), he refused. Trump apologists claimed his reference to a “bloodbath” was merely a prediction of ruin for the car industry. That doesn’t fly, as many analysts noted. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on reactionary strongmen, explains, “To get people to embrace violence, fill them with existential dread- the fear that it’s the Leader or the abyss. This is an incitement to violence speech. Trump is a propaganda machine devoted to destroying America.” Ben-Ghiat provides the real “context” for his comments: “Each element of propaganda works with narratives and emotional cues already established by the Leader.” She continues, “Here Trump speaks about the auto industry but the emotion of ‘me, or a bloodbath’ echoes his Jan. 6 ‘If you don’t fight like hell [for him], you won’t have a country anymore.’” The Biden campaign put out its own take on Trump’s constant flirtation with violence: Biden Ad on X In addition to the “bloodbath” remark, Trump’s “hostages” comment provoked even former vice president Mike Pence, who has refused to endorse Trump (utterly unprecedented, but understandable since Trump egged on the mob seeking to hang Pence). On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Pence declared, “I think it’s very unfortunate at a time that there are American hostages being held in Gaza, that the president or any other leader will refer to people that are moving through our justice system as hostages. It’s just unacceptable.” None of this — nor his call to imprison members of the Jan. 6 committee — is acceptable or characteristic of a stable, pro-democratic presidential nominee. It’s the stuff of fascist regimes that rely on intoxicating violence and retribution. Arguing that voters should put his words aside for his “policies” (Which ones? Using the military to quell dissent? Installing a national abortion ban?) beggars belief. Trump’s “policy” is authoritarian rule. Trump’s words and actions finally might disrupt the too-prevalent habit of treating the 2024 race as an ordinary election between two normal parties. Sure, some outlets still cloak his disgusting rhetoric in obtuse language (“a caustic and discursive speech” is how the New York Times described his Ohio screed!), but the average voter will now see more coverage compelled to report on Trump’s warped character and twisted mind-set. They will understand that voting for him ratifies the views of a wannabe dictator who lionizes violence, dehumanizes non-Whites, celebrates traitors, disdains the rule of law and despises deeply held American values.