The Witness Chronicles, April 11, 2024
An election turning point?
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The New Election Reality Starts Next Week
Will a fuming Trump in Court get old?
There are seven months until the 2024 US Presidential election and Republican candidate Donald Trump will spend nearly two months, minimum, of them sitting in a courtroom and squirming, talking to himself, and giving the press a series of unhinged soundbites before and after.
His legendary impatience and lack of self control have worked for him so far, but the question is, how will an extended stretch of this stuff play out with voters? Remember, this trial is going to be juicy with a porn star, Playboy Bunnies, convicted felons, tabloid publishers, and other fringe players testifying under oath and it will be covered daily by the press.
Supposedly Trump is thrilled by that. Except that he won’t be showing up here and there and using those appearances as publicity ops. He will be there four days a week, all day, for six to eight weeks by most estimates.
We are going to see the real, day to day Trump, facing a reality that he cannot control. His attorneys have exhausted their meager battery of legal weapons trying to stall this, the first of his criminal trials, and are siphoning money from his campaign at alarming rates in the process.
There is an operative word in that last sentence: criminal. He could go to jail and have a record as a felon when the dust clears. He may boast that this is all wonderful for his campaign but all reports are that he is terrified and desperate.
You would be, and so would I. Prison and a record are reality in its most real form, and Donald Trump has never lived in reality as we know it. He lives in the lalaland that those with huge inherited money are surrounded by. But a courtroom in Manhattan, as a defendant, is not his turf, not for weeks on end.
This is where the entire campaign changes and those changes are unpredictable and out of his control.
The news media, pundits, and the pseudo media (Fox News) are going to dissect this minute by minute until even news junkies like me are going to be sick to death of it. Trump’s campaign already knows this scrutiny is likely to backfire on him and are planning to rein him in by limiting him to carefully scripted and edited videos designed to make him look like he knows what he is doing.
It will not work.
This thing is going to get uglier. Joe Biden may not poll well, the economy may stall, and the border crisis remains. The Israel Gaza war looks to reach a breaking point if they invade Rafah. The Republican House is paralyzed by Trump loyalists and their own inability to do anything. But Biden has a huge war chest, over 100 campaign offices across the country, and an actual track record of success.
Trump will be fuming in court, or in jail if he cannot keep himself under control, which he is famous for being unable to do. Ask his lawyers.
As a writer, I would ask you to think about how weird this all is, even before we tune in on Monday. And, I promise, it is going to get weirder in ways no one can predict, because nothing like this has ever taken place in our democracy.
On the surface it would seem we face a clear choice. An experienced, competent incumbent President, old but still hale and hardy, or an indicted rich man, known for cheese ball grifts and incessant lying who sits in a courtroom in the middle of a Presidential election.
If this was the only problem Trump faced, it would be enough. But it is far from the only one. There is the small matter of 91 counts of felony charges in multiple courts, his mounting legal bills and poorly run campaign, his nearly one half billion dollars in existing fines, and his failing business prospects.
The very real possibility, as evidenced by over hundred experts, that he is cognitively impaired or may be descending into dementia. His financial desperation, that could lead to him seeking money from Russia or Saudi Arabia, in exchange for something unknown. And on and on. And it starts to get very real this Monday in NYC.
Buckle up, and put the horses in the wagon because it’s all downhill from here.
~ I write The Grasshopper, a letter for creatives, The Witness Chronicles, a place for my articles on politics and climate, and The Remarkable, a recovery letter, about my addiction and reentry experience. All are weekly and free, however this is how I live and I strongly believe all writers and creatives should get paid, if we provide value. Your upgrade to a paid subscription helps make that happen.
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Dear Martin, ~I have always liked your writing. I am not part of the money system. I had a middle-class family, I ran out of their money, I do not make money on my own. I have no income. I live on a sum of 50,000 from a property sale ---I do not know if that is the same a "inheritance," but I still have no income. Where is the money to "subscribe" to you and perhaps seven or eight deserving writers going to come from? Can you give me your six dollars a month or whatever it is? Then I give i BACK! Now am I a subscriber? Please respond with an investigation of just what "economics" is. I call economic thought ECONO and I have ECONO Postings as a "section" located at the top of my page.