One thing that fascinates me about the current Donald Trump indictments — and I'm not saying it fascinates me in a good or bad manner — is how many different ways this scenario can play out. Most of the possible ones look like Trump taking a very hard landing and he'll certainly be tied-up in court proceedings for an awful long time. (Everyone talking about how long seems to forget that when you lose, you appeal…so each trial can turn into several.) It kinda amazes me that at this stage of his life when he seems to have had to actually begun paying his lawyers — albeit with donors' money — he still can't seem to find any good ones.
People keep asking me for my predictions as to where this thing is going because, after all, who is more expert at this kind of thing than a guy who used to write Yogi Bear comic books? But if you insist, here's why I reply with such a resounding "I dunno." Think of all the things that could happen between now and when we get some sort of resolution in the courts and ballot boxes. There would be new scandals, new evidence, new indictments. None of us saw the stolen documents raid matter coming. Why couldn't other crimes outta nowhere be alleged?
Someone could die. I'm not wishing this for anyone but you have a lot of people involved as alleged conspirators, lawyers, witnesses, etc., some of them rather elderly and under massive stress. This whole story could take unexpected turns if someone dies, especially since almost no one will believe it wasn't murder. (A fellow I knew who was heavy into Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy theories refused to believe that the wife of Texas Governor John Connally wasn't killed as part of the cover-up even though she died 43 years after the assassination at the age of 87.)
Trump could do the unexpected…and don't ask me what that might be. But people do strange things when they're desperate and if the alternative is prison, something we'd think he'd never do might seem like it's worth a try.
Most of my friends insist his die-hard supporters will never desert him. That's probably true of some but the smarter ones — i.e., the ones wise enough to not be interviewed by Jordan Klepper — might leave him if they had a real alternative…
…which they don't right now. Trump is way out ahead of Ron DeSantis and all the other contenders are polling at numbers <5. Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy are at 2% in surveys where the margin is plus or minus 3% — so one or both of them could be at a minus-one. But I think the reason a lot of Trump fans are still with him, indictments and all, is because they've become convinced that America as we know it is doomed if "one of them" (a Republican, preferably a rabid right-winger who is white and male and willing to toss Liberals in concentration camps) isn't elected.
Right now, Trump is the only candidate who seems to stand a chance of making that happen. They may love him but they love winning more and he's starting to look like kind of a loser. It's still not too late for a Donald surrogate — same positions, no indictments — to emerge. Okay, it's not likely. But not so long ago if I told you that a politician who was in Trump's position now — all those charges plus a jury found that he'd committed rape, even though it isn't called in the state where he was found liable — you'd never believe that guy could be in the presidential race at all, let alone with a wide lead in his party.
I'm not predicting any of this will happen; just noting that these twists and a lot of others that now seem unimaginable could. This is a volatile election in a volatile environment in a volatile country. With all that volatility, you can't rule out anything except that if Trump fails to reclaim the White House, he will never admit that he lost that election or any before it. My prediction, which is worth about two dollars with a margin of error of three dollars, is that Trump will never be President again but that a lot of crazy, unprecedented shit will happen before and even after the 2024 election.