Perp Walk

Last Saturday former President Trump posted on Truth Social a message announcing that he would be arrested on Tuesday. Tuesday has come and gone with no arrest but the furor still reverberates across social and news media. Former President Trump has used this pending indictment to rally his troops, telling them to protest, protest, protest. New York City, where the arraignment of the former president will occur, is preparing for an onslaught of biblical proportions. Authorities fear that the MAGA fanatics will besiege the courthouse in a repeat of January 6th.

Many pundits believe this ordeal will only help Mr. Trump to be renominated as the Republican presidential candidate for 2024. They may be right. Mr. Trump is closely noting the reaction of Republican lawmakers and potential candidates to his possible arrest. The denunciations and faux outrage will be the litmus test for finding his favor. A rather tepid response by potential rival Ron DeSantis drew an immediate ad hominem post on Truth Social. And Don Jr. piled on describing Mr. DeSantis’ comments as pure weakness and asserted that, “He's totally owned by Karl Rove, Paul Ryan & his billionaire donors.” As if that were a bad thing.

Of all the bad, horrible, possibly criminal things that Donald Trump has done in his life, paying hush money to a porn star is probably the least consequential. Many presidents have had mistresses including Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Warren G. Harding, Bill Clinton and, of course, John F. Kennedy. And that doesn’t include the many one-night-stands we have never heard about. Why would Donald Trump, who famously said, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" be bothered by a porn star tell-all? Unless she had something demeaning to say.

And he was right. He tried to block the peaceful transfer of presidential power, a treasonous act if there ever was one, but he was never prosecuted for that and has a good chance of being renominated to run for president in 2024. The charges being pursued by a George Soros backed DA for a relatively minor crime are more than likely designed to enflame Trump supporters than to achieve a conviction because the controversy will drag the rest of Republicans down into the Trump gutter as they rally to his defense. The only way Democrats can recover from the disastrous policies of the Biden Administration is to have Donald Trump as the standard-bearer for the Republican Party.

And Donald Trump is playing up this travesty by announcing his impending arrest to his followers, in the knowledge that this is his best chance to win the nomination. The traditional perp walk intended to shame an arrested criminal will be Donald Trump’s glorious moment. In his book, shame is for suckers. Donald Trump knows that his perp walk, with handcuffed hands behind his back, will be the lead article on every TV news show in the country, smeared on the front page of every newspaper, and blasted across every social media platform. And not just across America but all around the world. You would have to pay a huge chunk of money for that kind of publicity.

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In an article on Axios, Mike Allen and Josh Kraushaar reported that former President Trump has a five point plan to attack Governor DeSantis.

1. accuse DeSantis of planning to undermine Social Security and Medicare

2. accuse DeSantis of disloyalty to Trump

3. accuse DeSantis of being a lackey of former House Speaker Paul Ryan (in other words he’s a RINO)

4. accuse DeSantis of a poor response to COVID, and

5. accuse DeSantis of a muddled policy on Ukraine

But I think (and I believe a lot of other people think) that those attack points just make Governor DeSantis a more attractive candidate. Social Security and Medicare absolutely must be reformed. We will go broke if they are not. Disloyalty to Trump counts more for Trump than it does to other people. And I rather liked Paul Ryan although I realize he is a bit too wonky for some - Donald Trump is the true RINO. Governor DeSantis’ successful policies during COVID were an important factor in his land-slide reelection. I need to know more about Governor DeSantis’ policy on Ukraine but I am pretty sure that former President Trump would abandon the Ukrainians just like President Biden abandoned the Afghans.

Donald Trump is a distasteful person. And while some of his policies were actually not bad, the way he presented his policies made them seem distasteful as well. All those Trump policies are tainted by their association with him along with anyone who claims to be a Republican. That taint made it difficult to build the support of the American people for many of those policies. You do not have to call Mexicans criminals and rapists to convince people of the need for border security. And you do not need to brag that the Mexicans were going to pay for the border wall to convince people that the expenditures for building the wall were necessary for national security. That’s just pure braggadocio. Because many in the public thought former President Trump’s policies were distasteful, those policies were easily cast aside after he was thrown out of office. But many of those policies were beneficial and casting them aside has been a disservice to the country.

Morris P. Fiorina wrote in his book, Unstable Majorities, that radicalized Democrats and Republicans tilt to their base and often ignore the independents that increasingly represent the bulk of Americans. These independents swing back and forth between the parties neither of which truly represent their interests resulting in changing administrations and divided, stalemated government.

This drifting back and forth between radicalized political parties means that the United States has no clear economic or foreign policy in a time when clear well-thought policies are essential. It allows unelected bureaucrats to make policy decisions without legislative authority, in effect handing the governing of our nation over to the deep state. But both parties need to quit pandering to their radicalized bases and start addressing the needs of the American people.

I do not know if Governor DeSantis has the strength of will to take on former President Trump although he has shown some spunk in the early going. But somebody will have to because there does not appear anybody on the Democratic horizon that is willing to take on the radicalized progressive left.