The Trump Indictment May Saddle the GOP With a Loser

April 5, 2023April 5, 2023By Pedro Gonzalez

Former Attorney General Bill Barr is many things—but dumb isn’t one of them. During the recent National Review Institute Ideas Summit, he speculated that the indictment of former President Donald Trump was designed—by the Democratic Party—to secure Trump the 2024 Republican nomination.

“I think the impetus is really to help Trump get the nomination, focus the attention on him for two years, have this thing swirling around, plus whatever else comes, which I think will be damaging to whoever gets the nomination,” Barr said.

Indeed, Trump surged ahead of his closest challenger, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in 2024 election polls. In Barr’s view, the Democrats are betting that a Republican ticket led by The Donald will lead the GOP to yet another loss. The wager is straightforward and based on what Democrats saw in 2018, 2020, and 2022: Trump is no longer interested in or capable of building a winning coalition as he did in 2016.

Multiple polls show that a majority of Americans support Trump’s indictment, even though most believe Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against the former president (for paying “hush money” to porn star Stormy Daniels regarding an alleged affair) is politically motivated. A recent CNN/SSRS survey is typical in displaying the deep dislike of Trump held by a majority of Americans: it showed that 76 percent of Americans believe politics played at least some part in Bragg’s charges, and yet 60 percent approve of them anyway.

All that remains of the Trump of 2016 is the MAGA cult of personality. This cult may benefit Trump personally but it hurts Republicans politically—to the extent that they actually care about winning, rather than simply fundraising off of Trump’s populist base.

Last night in Wisconsin Republicans got a foretaste of the pain to come in 2024. Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz, backed by billionaires like George Soros, defeated her conservative opponent, Dan Kelly, to win a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, ending 15 years of conservative dominance. The state’s high court now looks poised to strike down a voter ID law and bring back absentee-ballot drop boxes.

Kelly’s defeat signals long-term, national implications for the Republican Party far more consequential than any of the legal challenges now facing Trump. Kelly lost in part because he was portrayed to his detriment as an anti-abortion hardliner. But Kelly was also framed as a Trump surrogate who was instrumental in the legal effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

“A Donald Trump ally who advised Republicans on legal efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential race has advanced to the Wisconsin Supreme Court general election, putting him one step closer to a seat on the powerful bench,” NBC News blared on Feb. 21.

On March 31, Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, tweeted: “Democracy itself is on the ballot. If a lawsuit to overturn the 2024 Presidential election reaches our state Supreme Court—as it did in 2020—Dan Kelly would choose MAGA over democracy. He advised the fake elector scheme in 2020. Don’t let him on the court.”

Wikler included a link to an Associated Press story republished through PBS Wisconsin about how Kelly was paid by state and national Republicans to advise on election issues in 2020.

During the final campaign finance reporting period between Feb. 7 and March 20, Protasiewicz raised more than five times as much money as Kelly. An article in Wisconsin Watch reported that Protasiewicz had “a lopsided advantage in direct donations.”

While the right indulged in sharing memes of Trump with red laser beams emitting from his eyes captioned “Retribution 2024”—the political equivalent of autoerotic asphyxiation—Democrats were focused on their ground game in Wisconsin. Their hard work paid off.

Naturally, Trump’s minions took to social media to argue that Kelly lost because he was a terrible candidate who did not prostrate himself before the former president to beg for an endorsement. Trump himself glibly celebrated Kelly’s defeat in a Truth Social post, writing, “How foolish is a man that doesn’t seek an Endorsement that would have won him the Election?”

Trump didn’t say anything about how this loss would affect conservatives in Wisconsin, the people he and the GOP claim to represent. Perhaps he isn’t intelligent enough to understand the ramifications of what just transpired.

In reality, it was Kelly’s already-established association with Trump that contributed to his loss. Trump had endorsed Kelly in 2020 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, and Kelly had lost then, too, just as Trump had lost the state in the general election.

In audio recordings obtained by the Associated Press from a former Republican campaign operative, members of Trump’s campaign conceded Democrats had outworked them in Wisconsin during the 2020 election, beating them fair and square. They praised the turnout efforts of their victorious opponents and then resolved to blame widespread voter fraud for their loss.

“Here’s the drill: Comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election,” said Andrew Iverson, who was the head of Trump’s campaign in the state. “We’ll do whatever they need (inaudible) help with. Just be on standby in case there’s any stunts we need to pull.”

In other words, Trump’s campaign deliberately lied to Republican voters about why he lost the state. They could get away with that because it was what Trump wanted to hear.

Barr is right: the Democrats want to face Trump in 2024. Not only because he’s likely to lose again, but because he deceives his own side. If Trump can’t be honest with his own people about why he lost and fix the mistakes, there is no reason to believe that 2024 will be different than 2020.

Comments (12)

Hey Pedro. I really enjoy your work. I’ve heard reports though of illegal drop boxes in Wisconsin that were apparently illegal. I’ve also heard that many people claimed to be indefinitely confined which allowed them to vote by mail. Are any of these allegations true?

Also, I read that Wisconsin now has a GOP super majority and that they could impeach the judge. IS that true?

April 5, 2023 Andrew McGovern Reply
Literally all of your comments are irrelevant because jack is going to happen with respect to all of them. I hope for your sake you didn’t seriously believe that any of them constituted a strategy.

April 5, 2023 TD Reply
I strongly disagree that Trump’s indictment was part of some conspiracy. And, no, Bill Barr is not that intelligent. It also is funny to see the same voices like Ann Coulter–whom I enjoy–and the WSJ editorial page, etc.–the same voices that despise Trump with a passion–quickly focusing on their real concern, how this might help Trump gain the nomination while, conversely, not serving their purposes on any level, whether Trump wins the presidency or simply only gains the nomination. Also, if you really want to look at a “conspiracy,” look at the voices like Barr, Romney, Jeb Bush and others of the same ilk appearing to jump to Trump’s defense. These all are individuals who in varying degrees would love to see Trump rot in prison, and they would care little how it came about. No, their apparent protestations of what has occurred to Trump are really, in my opinion, attempts, for various reasons, to ward off Republicans from doing the same thing to Democrats.
Also, yes, Wisconsin was extremely telling for several reasons, including the fact that on the night Trump became a very public “victim,” a state he carried in 2016 elected by a decent margin a liberal flamethrower as a Justice. But in my opinion the most telling fact in Wisconsin dovetails with the, overall, Republican response to what occurred to Trump. First of all, Republicans got bent over in Wisconsin financially, albeit they also were saddled with the less than ideal candidate, but even that also was a result, in part, of being bent over earlier financially. Secondly, now we will watch Republicans protest about “banana republics” with regard to the Trump affair but not do much else, while Democrats, the real men in today’s political world, will steamroll traditional America even more. This as juxtaposed to weak dough-boy Barr who, while good at telling high-school students to pray more and very adept at taking on the most defenseless of low hanging fruit, death row inmates, passed on a chance to substantively take on the corrupt turn the Justice Department has taken, a turn now moving on a decade at least. So Wisconsin really stands for what is becoming a Republican regular, the party being bent over in multiple ways by those willing to wage the type of war necessary, whether it involves fund raising–asking for money–or whether it simply involves letting others repeatedly throw mud in your eye, including what is allowed to happen to Trump or Republicans in general, including how they allowed their candidate in Wisconsin to be treated and framed.
And speaking of Trump’s “cult of personality,” while I might very well prefer Desantis to run in 2024 as the Republican nominee, you got to love that Trump hair!

April 6, 2023 Michael Kaiser Reply
Elections?! During a civil war what do they matter? The Demoncrats already proved that BLACK lives, not fair elections, matter. Pauvre Pedro, still working within the system. It’s a salary. Ann Coulter-endorsed DeSantis do any better than Trump? Ridiculous.

April 6, 2023 Nick Reply
Mr. Gonzalez I would like to hear you make your case to Steve Bannon on his show, seriously. I watch his show everyday almost, and I have seen you on that show occasionally. I think it’s obvious that Bannon (and several of his regulars like Navarro, Cortes, Patel, Mike Davis, Jack Posobiec & others) is the Brains behind MAGA (I call him “Trump’s Brain”, a play off an episode of Star Trek, called “Spock’s Brain”). The Frederick guy who created the R.A.V. network on which Bannon’s appears, said the Republicans have NO PLAN, NO GROUND GAME, because the RNC are completely incompetent, while the Democrat Party excels at ballot harvesting and early voting, instead of voting on Game Day, and THAT is the reason for defeat in Wisconsin. It is of extreme importance to get this right (Trump or Desantis for 2024), because another loss will send us along the same path that Venezuela went down (to their doom; they should be the richest country in S. America and they’re a basket case) and Brazil is already following. The Bannon Posse seem convinced Trump must lead this charge, despite his flaws. I suspect, because of the Q influence I was exposed to, that Trump was recruited by the patriotic factions of our intelligence community, to conduct the final phase of a covert Civil War (raging “beneath the radar” since Eisenhower’s warning and JFK’s assassination) between America-hating Globalists (because we are the primary obstacle to a global empire run by an oligarchy of tyrants), and nationalist patriots. I obviously will never get any confirmation of this theory, because the presumed participants would never admit to it, but nevertheless Americans know something has slowly been going wrong since that assassination, and Trump is the key to ending it in our favor (We The People, and the people of the World).

April 6, 2023 Larry Bowen Reply
You wisely urge conservatives to respond cautiously to Donald Trump, but conservatives would face an uphill battle in 2024 even if he had retired from politics two years ago. The American electorate has been transformed. Immigration and technology have played substantial roles in the transformation, but so, too, has the sexual revolution. We would do well to pause and consider what a revolution is. Harold J. Berman defined it as “a fundamental change, a rapid change, a violent change, a lasting change, in the political and social system of a society, involving a fundamental change in the people themselves — in their attitudes, in their character, in their belief system.” If we are living in a revolutionary age (and I submit we are), then crafting better electoral strategies will not save us. What we require is a new political science; one that will guide us through the turmoil that has descended upon us and will only grow worse. I think the Chronicles community has an important part to play in that project.

April 6, 2023 Mark Davis Reply
Republicans aren’t serious as a party. You can also blame Trump’s support of McDaniel as RNC Chair. She is weak. Trump doesn’t understand the fight he is in, and doesn’t care. Time to find a party that actually cares about liberty and is willing to fight against the Left.

https://thecrosssectionrmb.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-ethics-of-liberty-children-and.html

April 6, 2023 RMB Reply
To Mark Davis: I think you might be talking to the wrong audience here. My guess is most readers here are interested not in revolutions, but in restorations. Most folks here likely believe in Eternal Truths, good and noble and beautiful, which mankind loses sight of from time to time, when darkness blocks the vision (typically called a Dark Age). A Restoration of good and noble and beautiful, Eternal Truths is more likely what engages and excites here, with severe scepticism of revolutions being good for.anything. A Restoration may have the appearance of revolution when one has wandered in darkness for a long time, having forgotten Truth that is always there, eternally.

April 6, 2023 Larry Bowen Reply
If Barr is correct, then he is asserting that a majority of Americans loathe Trump so much that they would rather have the Democrats finish destroying America than have Trump as president. Moreover, Mr. Gonzalez gives the impression that he believes that Biden won the 2020 presidential race fairly without cheating. If he really believes that, then he believes that a majority of Americans loathe Trump so much that they would rather have the Democrats destroy America than have Trump as president. Perhaps, the Democrats want Trump to run because they believe stealing another election from him will be easier than stealing it from other Republicans.

April 7, 2023 tempus Reply
Let’s not all bail on Trump now just because it’s the “easy thing to do.” We can understand why Mr. Gonzalez might not like him, but those of us concerned about our country should be standing by the man who walks the walk. Stand firm, conservatives.

April 8, 2023 Bob Reply
Have we ruled out Democrat/RINO rigging of Wisconsin elections, especially one with a voter ID afficionado on the losing side?

April 22, 2023 Michael Zito Reply
2024 must be about dismantling the DC police state apparatus followed by a return to America’s constitutional roots, federalism. If Americans are lucky, a power struggle between the permanent Ruling Class and the People will unfold. We need a Commander in Chief who can survive the wrath of the Enemy Within, not knocked to his knees in short order.

April 22, 2023 Michael Zito Reply