Now is the time to break their spirit
Donald Trump’s arrest didn’t motivate his supporters to take to the streets, or try to get out the vote in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. His arrest instead left them discouraged, fretting, and whining in defeatist fashion – which in turn caused them to sit on their hands in Wisconsin and helped cause them to lose by double digits.
Trump is finished. He’s about to be indicted in three different jurisdictions, with charges so severe that Republican primary voters will start to figure out that maybe they shouldn’t nominate a guy who won’t even be available for the general election. Yet there are still too many folks on our side who, under the mistaken guise of “vigilance,” are still vastly overstating Trump’s prospects for some kind of whirlwind 2024 comeback.
All that these folks on our side are doing is breathing ongoing life into his collapsing viability. Trump supporters are down in the dumps. They’re on their last legs. They’re on the verge of giving up hope and crawling back under their rocks for a few election cycles. But if Trump supporters hear folks on our side talking about how Trump is somehow more dangerous (and thus more powerful) than ever, all it’s doing to do is encourage them to keep fighting.
This is why it’s so important that we push the narrative that Donald Trump is finished. Let them hear it, over and over. Let it sink in for them. Let it shatter whatever feeble hope they want to cling to about Trump having a future. Let them realize he’s toast. Let it break their spirit. It’ll make our jobs a whole lot easier going forward.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report