Could indictments kill Trump’s candidacy for GOP nomination?

I’m just going to get this out of the way: I voted for Donald Trump twice, both in 2016 and 2020. None of this should surprise you about your hometown newspaper’s resident conservative columnist. But I also will make it clear that I would prefer to not see Donald Trump’s name on the next general election ballot.

Nope, I cannot currently call myself a Trump supporter. But if you’re looking for me to write passionately about Big Bad Orange and how his mere existence is an affront to humanity, I can’t help you. I don’t hate the guy like you do. And certainly not as much as you want me to.

I write this column on the same day former President Trump pleads not guilty to criminal charges — again. Currently, the indictments mean nothing to me. They serve only as delicious morsels to satisfy the hunger of those who crave his demise. Will it change anyone’s opinion about him? The ones who rejoice in the indictment already hated him. His unwavering devotees who profess his innocence will probably reemphasize their devotion.

Anything told to the rest of us by the indictment has already been told to us by Trump himself: That he refuses to believe he lost the 2020 election. That the people he kept around as advisers were crackpots. That even the most loyal members of his administration have abandoned him. In doing so, he’s also telling us that the Trump running today is not the same as the Trump who won in 2016. And I don’t think the Trump who’s running today can win a general election.

That's as nasty as I will get toward the guy. There's sizable list of things Donald Trump and his administration accomplished during his presidency that I will always appreciate. But I don’t want to see Republicans lose again in 2024. I don’t want to see Joe Biden reelected. I don’t want to see Kamala Harris word-salad her way through the rest of his next term if he can’t kick it for the full four years. Our best chance to prevent that is to come up with a more electable nominee. I know what current polls say, but a lot can happen in the next five months.

With that said, I would caution the most ardent anti-Trumpers who have printed themselves copies of his indictment(s) for inspirational reading to enjoy with a nice cappuccino not to sigh a sweet sigh of justice just yet — especially if their revulsion extends beyond Donald Trump to any Republican in general. What if the indictments have an effect on enough voters to actually break up the Trump base and drive those voters toward another candidate in the primaries? Would the true-blues be so eager to see President Joe Biden face off against a Republican with less baggage?

Trump and Republicans found out the hard way just how wildly different the disposition of American voters was in 2020 compared to 2016. Voters who cared neither for Trump or Hillary and stayed home in 2016 weren’t going to make the same mistake twice. Historically non-voters who showed up for Trump in 2016 weren’t enthusiastic to return. Four years of exhausting political scenes on TV and social media, the coronavirus pandemic and a season of racial upheaval soured the American mood in 2020.

It’s worth considering whether the mood of the American voter has changed again since 2020, and how different it could be in 2024. Four years after Joe Biden promised to restore sanity and take back America, he will now be a feeble incumbent with net approval ratings that have been underwater for at least half of his presidency and a record to defend that isn’t pretty. Let’s review:

Biden’s administration botched the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, during which 13 Americans and over 160 Afghan civilians were killed in a bombing carried out by an ISIS affiliate. Over $7 billion of U.S. military equipment was left behind to be taken by the Taliban and either used by them or sold on the black market to equip other insurgent-led conflicts.

He signed executive orders in mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for all federal workers and contractors, ignoring the concerns of millions hesitant to receive vaccines with zero research on possible long-term side effects. Under Biden’s leadership, OSHA was prepared to mandate that millions of private-sector workers also get the vaccine before the Supreme Court stepped in.

Federal civilian workers and contractors weren’t the only ones affected by Biden vaccine mandates: The military paid a steep price for the DOD’s version. Between September 2021 and March 2023, over 8,300 healthy U.S. service members separated from the military over refusal to get the jab. Meanwhile, the U.S. Army fell 25 percent short of its recruiting goal in 2022. This year, the Army, Navy and Air force all expect to miss their recruiting targets by 6,000-10,000 soldiers.

Elsewhere, knowing full well that similar legislation called the PRO Act can’t make its way through the Congress, Biden’s Department of Labor has been actively rewriting labor rules to make it nearly impossible for businesses to hire independent contractors, which will ruin the livelihoods of countless workers — like me — with unique conditions who require flexible working arrangements.

Don’t forget about that insane executive order to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline, a move that upset even progressive pretty boy Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada. Had Biden not revoked its permit, the pipeline, which was slated for completion in 2022, would be fully operational by now. Instead, Biden’s EPA has added new rules to refineries in the name of “safety” that could serve only to make petroleum-based energy more expensive. I guess we’ll just have to continue importing 25 percent of our oil from countries with atrocious human rights abuses and unstable governments.

Of course, we remember Biden’s Department of Education overstepping their authority just a little bit — er, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in loan forgiveness, paid for by the taxpayer, and his slam on the Supreme Court as “not a normal court” after his plan was struck down.

Then there’s President Biden’s crack addict felony gun-buying tax cheat of a son, who, as we’ve learned from House Oversight Committee testimony, put his super-influential dad on the phone with his business partners 20 different times. That would be the same dad who said in 2019, “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” That investigation — and Hunter’s court drama — isn’t going to wrap up any time soon.

And if all of the above isn’t bad enough, it’s no small fact that President Biden currently has the mental acuity of a goldfish. His staff regularly has to “clarify” his comments, such as last month when he wrapped a June speech on gun control in Connecticut with “God save the queen” or last September when he attempted to single out Indiana congresswoman Jackie Woloski at a White House conference on hunger, obviously forgetting that the congresswoman was deceased from a tragic car accident.

That’s the Joe Biden who will (presumably) be running for re-election in 2024, with no pandemic to keep him “safely ensconced in his basement, communicating to the country via a television camera” as The Washington Post put it in 2021. That’s the record that he will be defending. And if criminal indictments deal Trump a blow from which he can’t recover, that record might not stand a chance against what a better Republican candidate could bring.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com