Does an indictment, if it happens, help trump in the upcoming election, or not?

Politics & Elections
1

Certain sources say that an indictment of trump could be a bad thing, because it may just help his chances to be reelected. I’ve heard that trump’s own camp is said to be almost gleeful over the prospect, and are planning to film any scenes where he is arrested, or surrenders himself into custody, for propaganda fodder to fire up the base.

First of all, I think it’s important that trump is indicted for anything he should be indicted for, regardless of political implications. he’s gotten away with far too much illegality and corruption without so much as a slap on the wrist, and he should finally pay the consequences of his actions and be made an example of.

Secondly, I don’t know if I buy the “indictment will only help him win reelection” argument. his base is already fired up; I don’t know how more fired up you can get them. he needs a certain amount of moderates to vote for him, and I believe that many of the moderates who voted for him in the past are pretty fed up and sick of his BS. I don’t see an indictment getting them outraged and fired up enough to swing back to him.

On the other hand, despite everything, he’s still the Repub candidate with the most recognition and potential to take the nomination, and even after 4 years of utter insanity he still got more votes in 2020 than any sitting president in history, losing only because he pissed off and fired up the Democratic base to turn out in even larger numbers. As we move ever closer to Nov. 2024 I’m getting increasingly queasy about his utterly baffling continued viability.

So I’m in a weird “Schrödinger’s cat” state of hoping and somewhat fearing for an indictment at the same time. Should I be worried?

2

I think it helps him in the primary (more attention, more victimhood) and hurts him in the general (those few in the middle or undecided will be less likely to support someone being prosecuted).

Whether or not my analysis is accurate, it’s still vital that he be held accountable for his crimes. Not holding him accountable sends the signal that presidents can do whatever they want without consequence.

3

This sums it up pretty well I think.

For Trump, any news seems to be good news. But an actual indictment should hurt him in the general election. And he needs to be prosecuted for all his crimes.

4

He cares only about the primary. If he wins that, he gets to run against a Democrat who, he claims, has rigged the 2024 election. So even if he gets creamed, 65-35%, he gets to make the same claim if he’d lost 51-49%

And there’s always the freak chance he wins if he pulls off some kind of inside straight–see 2016.

5

I’d say yes, you should be worried. The one thing that the Trump Era has made clear is that, for whatever reason, Trump is clearly far less affected by scandals that would have killed the chances of almost any other politician. It’s essentially impossible to predict how any new scandal will affect him.

So, yes, worry that this latest one will actually improve his standing with his supporters. That’s an entirely possible outcome.

But don’t despair. Let the worry keep you motivated to get out and vote, and get others to get out and vote. There’s nothing much you can do about the sort of people who think Trump being a con man and a criminal is a good thing, but you can do something about other people. Keep your spirits up, and keep voting.

6

Also, thinking about it, because of the “Schrödinger’s scandal" aspect of this, it’s really a “Heads I win, tails you lose” situation.

Arrest and try Trump, and maybe he spins it as the Deep State persecuting him, and his supporters flock to the polls to defend him.

Let him off the hook for his crimes, and he spins it as “They had nothing on me, fake news, biased politicization of the Justice Department!” and all his supporters flock to the polls, convinced that they were “right all along!”

So, fuck it, do the right thing. Charge him and let the chips fall where they may.

7

Some legal types say that as soon as one prosecutor has the courage to indite, the psychological walls will fall and additional indictments will follow one after the after. If Trump is the defendant in, say, eight, crimes, maybe ten if mopery and dopery get thrown in, his chances with swing voters drop precipitously.

The chances that his base will react violently may also increase greatly, but swing voters also hate violence.

I wouldn’t call anything that includes violence as a win-win, but multiple indictments appear like the best outcome for the country.

8

I’d sure like to think that these inordinate delays are not the result of lack of courage.

9

David Graham of The Atlantic doesn’t think so.

Not sure if the link will work, but if it doesn’t, the gist of the article is the subheader “Despite what some Republicans are saying, getting indicted is generally a poor political strategy.”

10

Trump would never play political poker. It’s too confusing and there is a chance he wouldn’t get the cards he wants. He plays “Go Fish!” by repeatedly mucking the pot while making crude and/or vaguely threatening comments, then throwing all of the cards into the air if he is losing and then calling election officials to find him just enough extra cards to win.

If Trump is indicted he’ll use to to rile up his supporters. It won’t net him an electoral win but he can claim sour grapes and stir up more shit, which is really his ultimate goal.

Stranger

11

No disrespect to Mr. Graham, and I sure hope he’s correct in his analysis, but ‘generally’ is not an adverb used in the political sense that can ever really be applied to trump. I think Horatius said it well:

12

We need to stop thinking about how future actions of any and all kinds affect Trump’s base. The base is baked in by now. What should concern us is swinging and bringing: Swinging swing voters and bringing new voters into the system.

Swing votes are normally a segment who don’t care much about politics and have no strong allegiances to either party. They make up their minds to vote and who to vote for at the last minute, and therefore are heavily swayed by impressions at the time rather than opinions firmed by the course of events. And their demographics are those favorable to the left.

In many ways, undecided voters are in a category of their own. They tend to be younger, less well-educated and less wealthy, and less knowledgeable about politics.

But in other ways, undecided voters appear demographically similar to Democrats. Both undecided voters and Democrats have a similar share of female and Hispanic voters in their ranks. Undecided voters have a higher share of white voters than Democrats but not as high as Republicans. A smaller percentage of undecided voters are Black, though not as few as Republicans. There are no demographic categories for which undecided voters as a whole resemble Republicans. In competitive districts, which tend to skew whiter, richer, and more suburban than the average congressional district, undecided voters are whiter and somewhat better off economically.

A Trump indictment today is not the best way to swing them; it’s too early in the process. A series of indictments, with some actual consequences that would remind them of the past, might do so.

Bringing new voters in remains the major goal of all parties. They want commitment, which brings activism, money, good word of mouth, and a spillover effect into all levels of elections. Covid may have killed off an excess of as many as a half million older Republicans over Democrats. True, these were mainly in southern and solidly Republican states, but closeness depends on a thousand factors. Voters influence voters. Take away a half million influencers and the ripple effect is far larger.

Some new voters will be brought in from reaction to Trump’s troubles. My expectation, though, is that the filthy details will engender large-scale antipathy that will translate into votes. As I said, the Trump base is already solid. I don’t believe it has grown since 2016. The areas of new growth are all in the opposite direction.

If older voters are disproportionately dying, they create room for new younger voters to be recruited to replace their votes. Younger votes are heavily leftist; they will vote Democratic if given proper candidates. I can’t say whether an 81-year-old Biden will be that candidate - we may see a rise in third-party voting. But the overall net gain trends toward the Democrats.

Trump’s base is his cult of personality. Some polling shows he is already under 50% on the right. He may yet win the primaries and be the candidate. He is retribution against the left in his own words and that is a strong platform in a primary. Swinging and bringing offer real possibilities to move beyond that for the November election.

I truly dislike talking about elections this early in this political climate. But if we’re going to, let’s look at the statue and not merely the base.

13

To extend my metaphor a little further, he needs to win at poker if he wants to actually, and legitimately, win the election. I agree he’s playing Go Fish with the goals you state, but in 2016 he found that his Go Fish hand weirdly won the poker game for him.

To abandon the metaphor, he needs about eight unlikely things to happen to pull out a win, and in 2016 he got all eight: Comey’s blunder, HRC’s decision to go to certain states and ignore others, enough Dem voters staying away because she had it in the bag, and five more I don’t care to enumerate.

But winning was never his goal–complaining about unfairness always was.

14

If taken into custody, do they confiscate his hairpiece, or do they just note that he wears one?

15

Couldn’t he swallow his hairpiece to commit suicide? Isn’t that how Jeffrey Epstein died?

16

I ask, because it seems to me that he would be less inclined to showboat on a perp walk without it.

17

This.

18

An indictment hurts. There are Trump voters who will vote for Trump no matter what, and that’s what they’re gonna do. They can’t vote for him more.
There are Trump voters that will look elsewhere, especially in a primary, and some of them will.
All in all, an indictment hurts Trump.
(ETA: 2016 Republican primary was a landslide for Trump, but he was kicking around Cruz, Rubio, and W’s brother then. And he had the weird potential that Republicans lost their minds over. All he has now is grievance, and a bunch of let down insurrectionists that he failed to defend. If DeSantis does get around to announcing a run, Trump will have a fight much more formidable than he faced in 2016.)

19

It may help maintain momentum and cohesion in his popular base, but beyond that, I think that Trump is going to lose if he becomes the Republican candidate. I believe that, after everything we’ve learned about Jan 6 and Trump’s own conduct throughout the process, there is going to be a mobilization that far exceeds the 2020 election - mobilization of the left and center against Trump.

The stakes this time are too high for him to be president, and everyone knows that. If the broad, ad-hoc anti-Trump coalition was jolted into action in 2020 driven by his disastrous handling of the pandemic, you can imagine the mobilization level that can be easily put together if he comes close to being his party’s candidate.

20

2016 called and wants their false confidence back.

Stranger