Former President Donald Trump now faces 78 criminal counts and hundreds of years in prison after Special Counsel Jack Smith’s latest round of indictments was announced this week.
Suffice it to say, we would not be here if the former president decided against a political rematch against Biden and chose to spend the rest of his life golfing and orchestrating entertainment for guests of his clubs.
If it was not clear before that Democrats are terrified of the American voter, the latest round of indictments proves they are worried about the results of the 2024 presidential election. Why else would they be working so hard to bury President Trump in prison?
Three days after Trump announced his 2024 campaign, Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland announced his decision to appoint Jack Smith as the Special Counsel to investigate Trump’s actions on January 6th after concluding it was “in the public interest” because Trump had decided to run again. The Biden administration’s choice of Smith as Special Counsel proved they wanted to see Trump prosecuted. Smith already had a record of erring on the side of prosecution. The Supreme Court unanimously rebuked Smith after his political prosecution effort tried to send Virginia Republican Governor Robert O’Donnell to prison. (Smith’s prosecutions of former Democrat vice presidential nominee John Edwards and Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez also ended in mistrials.)
Now our country is in the throes of a political prosecution of a former president. Part of the calculus behind Democrats’ zealous legal pursuit of Trump is that cautious Republican supporters will abandon the former president as an embarrassing crook who cannot deliver a victory for their ideas and principles.
First, it was the resurrection of the Stormy Daniels case by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who crossed the unprecedented threshold of indicting a former president of the United States. Then it was the charges of Trump stubbornly possessing classified documents, an indictment that only solidified his support with Republican voters. Despite the seriousness of the charges, most Republicans shrugged off their significance. Why would they turn on their former commander-in-chief for having classified documents after specifically voting to trust him with classified documents in the first place?
Now Democrats are turning back to the January 6th well as they will try to prove to his supporters that Trump nearly overturned American Democracy with a misdirected group who stormed Capitol Hill in protest of the 2024 election. But it is getting harder for Democrats to prove their point.
The transfer of power from Trump to Biden after the 2020 presidential election was tumultuous, but it was never in doubt. On January 6th, Vice President Mike Pence was committed to seeing the proceedings through. His personal security, under the protection of the Secret Service, was never in any serious doubt. The majority of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate were also prepared to certify the election on January 6th, despite the attempt by some Republicans to play a mostly symbolic scrutinizing role in the process.
As Trump faces 561 years in prison, as he estimated in a recent fundraising plea, his supporters remain increasingly loyal as they roll their eyes at the latest efforts by Democrats to influence the election results -- outside of the ballot box.
That’s why Democrats are terrified of Democracy. Despite their best efforts to put Trump into the “dustbin of history” as Biden promised, millions of the former president’s supporters remain committed to seeing former President Donald Trump back in the White House. Recent polls demonstrate an even matchup in the 2024 general election and Trump’s supporters are growing ever more energized as the political prosecutions pile up.
In a strong functioning democracy, America’s leaders should trust voters to deliver the verdict on Trump’s political future. The Democrat’s reliance on the federal legal system, currently led by their party, suggests they are afraid of the message that voters are prepared to deliver.
