At CPAC, a desperate Trump gets what’s right terribly wrong

It isn’t often that Donald Trump gets something right. On the rare occasions that he does, the sliver that’s right usually is so for the wrong reasons.

March 4 was one of those days.

In his two-hour-long authoritarian diatribe at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), he framed the 2024 election as existential. “This,” he proclaimed, referring to the 2024 election, “is the final battle.”

Trump is right, in this sense: He knows the law is closing in, and he likely sees November 2024 as HIS final battle to stay out of prison.

If Special Counsel Jack Smith indicts Trump and he’s still elected president, he gets presidential immunity while in office. And if he is indicted — even convicted — in Georgia, it’s certainly conceivable that he might attempt some version of martial law to keep himself on this side of a jailhouse door. Indeed, at CPAC, he threatened to call the military into cities — where Democratic majorities typically reign — in the name of “law and order.”

That’s ironic, since it’s generally illegal for a president to use the military as a domestic police force. The point is that pulling out all these stops is surely the sign of a desperate man.

For the country, there’s good news and bad. The bad is that a desperate Trump is, if possible, more dangerous than ever. He has not just doubled down, he’s deviled down on divide-and-conquer, no matter the harm to the country.

In this, Trump is pure Machiavelli, the 15th century Italian maestro of power who advised seeding distrust within a foe’s own ranks and causing the enemy “to separate his forces and . . .  become weaker.”

Although Trump’s motivations may differ from those of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, they too are masters of disinformation campaigns designed to “sow discord” in order to divide us.

No one who cares about America as a constitutional union should underestimate the danger Trump poses. He made clear he would bring totalitarian wrath to his enemies if elected when he told his CPAC audience, “I am your warrior . . . your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.”

Nor should anyone ignore how likely it is that Trump will become the GOP nominee. His divide-and-conquer approach is central to the significant, “Only Trump” base of white evangelicals — many of whom believe that he is on their side in an “end times” battle over a diversifying America.

At the same time, the good news is that avid Trump supporters are a solid minority among the general electorate.

With the majority of voters, Trumpism failed in the last three national elections, if one includes the 2022 midterm races that were not gerrymandered beyond competitiveness.

In addition, we have typically seen Trump unwilling to tailor his tactics to a general electorate in order to win — and his indulgence in alienating extremism only seems to wax with his desperation. Trump seldom trims his narcissistic sails. In September, he all but threatened widespread violence on the streets if he was indicted. On March 3, he found new ways to align himself with violent insurrectionists — he released a pseudo-patriotic recording featuring himself and the “J6 Prison Choir.”

None of this will play well with the swing voters in battleground states who determine presidential elections.

Of course, no positive 2024 election outcome will occur automatically. Organizing early and persistently will be necessary for any and all who seek to preserve our democratic republic.

At CPAC, Trump summarized 2024 by saying: “This is it. Either they win, or we win, and if they win, we no longer have a country.”

Again, he got it partly right: If he is the nominee, there is one side whose winning likely means “we no longer have a country” — at least not one most of would recognize or want. It is no small error, however, getting wrong which side that is.

Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor, currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy.