Prosecute Donald Trump? Democrats May Be Paving the Way for the Former President’s Return
It’s a spiritual axiom that whatever one fears, especially at a deep-seated level, tends to grow larger. And so it is with Donald Trump, who continues to strike holy terror in the hearts and minds of his critics, especially liberals. Democrats, fearing that Trump may have survived the past six years of non-stop assaults on his name and character, have gone into full-scale smear mode of late. And yet these increasingly reckless attacks may well be paving the way for Trump’s return – this time, with a vengeance.
In recent weeks, Democrats, led by a vindictive and seemingly unhinged Manhattan District Attorney, have abandoned all pretense of reason and legality in their desperate attempts to thwart Trump’s return to power. Alvin Bragg, who pledged to “get Trump” during his own campaign for office two years ago, has instigated an unprecedented criminal indictment of the former president based on manifestly absurd and unsubstantiated felony charges.
The original misdemeanor charges against Trump were based on financial accounting errors that federal authorities previously dismissed as unworthy of prosecution. In fact, the statute of limitations has already run out on these old charges, rendering the legal case moot. But Bragg has elevated these old charges to felonies to try to breathe new life into them. It’s an outrageous maneuver driven by one man’s spite and vengeance toward a president he detests.
This is hardly the first time that Democrats have engaged in smear tactics. Remember the 2016 “Russian collusion” hoax, instigated by supporters of Hillary Clinton. suggesting that Trump was in the pocket of Vladimir Putin? It’s taken nearly two years of persistent investigative reporting by conservative news outlets to demonstrate that the claim against Trump was based on a phony legal affidavit provided by a Democratic source. Several news organizations including the Washington Post were awarded a Pulitzer Prize for their supposedly “courageous” reporting of a story that was invented from whole cloth to try to discredit Trump’s character and reputation – which fortunately, backfired.
More recently, Democrats have persisted in accusing Trump of organizing the January 6th 2021 protests outside the U.S. Capitol and of stealing classified documents for his personal use after leaving office. In neither case have the charges held up but the Democrats have used them to threaten Trump with possible jail time. Democrats in Congress conducted a public show trial on January 6th events which failed to show that Trump was legally culpable for the riot that ensued. And their high-profile raid on Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate backfired when it was revealed that Biden himself had taken a trove of classified documents from the White House after leaving office as vice-president in 2016.
Despite their persistent efforts in public to suggest that Trump is “finished” politically, there is mounting evidence that the latest charges haven’t hurt Trump; in fact, they may well be helping him
Prior to Bragg’s indictment, Trump was consistently beating President Biden in head-to-head polling by a small margin – about 2 to 4 points. But now that lead appears to be growing. The very latest Rasmussen poll, fielded two weeks after Trump’s indictment, found the former president leading Biden by 7 points – beyond the statistical margin of error. Another recent poll has Trump leading Biden by 5, again outside the margin of error. These are the largest Trump leads over Biden in the last two years of polling.
The problem for Trump’s Democratic critics is akin to the “boy who cried wolf.” Each time a new – and more outlandish – smear is revealed to be based on lies or half-truths – or a blatant double-standard – Trump’s antagonists lose more face – and credibility. As a result, the public stops listening, or worse – starts listening to the man that’s inspired so much fear.
The backlash from the Bragg indictment may well be growing. In fact, some Democrats now fear that the recent fall-out may make it harder for more charges to be brought against the former president in the future. Last week, Democrats and their medias allies sunk to a new low: resurrecting an old and discredited accusation from a woman who claimed Trump raped her in a clothing store dressing room nearly three decades years ago. The story received one day of news coverage and has since all but disappeared. The liberal news media dutifully reported the claim but quickly recognized it for what it was – another smear, and an old one, too boot – and appears to have let the story die.
There’s another reason Democrats are launching a fresh campaign to smear and discredit Trump. House Republicans have been investigating the Bidens and finding new evidence of his family’s unprecedented financial corruption dating back decades. The main source for these revelations is evidence contained on a laptop formerly owned by the President’s son, a known cocaine and sex addict who’s been trading on his father’s name – on behalf of himself and his father – for years. By focusing on Trump, and hyping evidence of the former president’s criminality, Democrats are hoping to keep the spotlight off of Biden and his own criminality.
Consider how the story of the Hunter Biden laptop was handled – and buried – from the very beginning. When the story was about to break on the eve of the 2020 election, Biden officials quickly denounced it as a fabrication. But their efforts didn’t stop there. Alarmed that these revelations of corruption might sink Biden’s election chances, long-time Biden loyalist Antony Blinken, soon to become the incoming president’s Secretary of State, organized 50 top current and former intelligence officials to sign a letter saying the attacks on Hunter Biden had “all the earmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.”
Now, more than two years later, we know the truth: The laptop was real and the charges against Hunter Biden were real, too. In fact, it was Biden and his minions – like Hillary and hers before him – that were engaged in “disinformation” to try to influence voters to turn away from Trump.
Rest assured: Biden and his friends in the media will continue to smear Trump. They have to. Biden’s policy record – on immigration, inflation, his humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan, the quagmire in Ukraine, above all his embarrassing capitulation to China – has been exposed as a failure. And the evidence that the Bidens received millions of dollars in kickbacks from companies beholden to Communist China is mounting. Journalist Johnathan Turley has called President Biden the “GOAT” in the annals of presidential corruption.
Fortunately, the public at large seems to be catching on. Not only to Democrat’s smear tactics, but to the all-too-willing role that the mainstream media plays in facilitating these attacks. In some ways, the intense focus on Trump is forcing the media to take the charges against Bide more seriously, too. The current House GOP investigation – still in its infancy – may evemntually dwarf the Watergate scandal in significance. One day, it may be Biden, not Trump, that actually serves time for his crimes.
Meanwhile, Trump, bloodied but unbowed, continues to surge on. With each new mass rally, he’s reviving the sights and sounds of his triumphant 2016 campaign. Even if Trump were found guilty of something – which seems increasingly unlikely – Trump can still run in 2024. And there’s little evidence that the escalating smear campaign is doing anything to discredit the former president.
Democrats, it seems, are becoming victims of their own hubris. By hyping the specter of Trump, the former president is occupying center stage again. Republicans have united around his candidacy and his prospects for regaining his rightful throne are suddenly brighter than ever. It’s a spiritual axiom, one that Democrats seem destined to forget.
