The secret to Trump’s success is America’s distress

Donald Trump’s staying power despite scandal, corruption and malfeasance is truly remarkable. By all rights, his presidential campaign should be deader than South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s (R) dog. But he easily won his party’s presidential nod and is running about even with President Biden in the national and battleground state polls. 

There are so many reasons why Trump is riding so high while his fortunes seem so low. 

The secret of Trump’s success is America’s distress. An overwhelming majority of Americans are mad as hell and just won’t take it anymore. The innate impulse of unhappy voters is to take out their frustrations on the incumbent, President Biden. The media reinforces sad state of affairs all day and every night with tragic images of violent deaths, weather disasters and political corruption.  

Voter pessimism about government’s failure to stop these tragedies has eroded trust in government. Trump has capitalized on this resentment.  

Democrats view government as a benevolent force. But Trump’s acolytes see the federal government as a runaway car like a Lamborghini: powerful, expensive and foreign. Many Americans want a strongman like Trump who will slash the tires and break the windshield. 

The former president’s attack against the court system is a metaphor for his hatred of the political process. His hostility to the system finds so many receptive eyes and ears. Hate doesn’t make America great but it does work well for Trump. 

He and his lawyers have masterly manipulated the legal system. Anybody but Trump would already be doing serious prison time. I’m not a lawyer and haven’t even played one on TV but I’ve stayed in enough Holiday Inn Expresses on the campaign trail over the years to know that Trump has dangerously perverted the criminal justice system. 

On the very same day porn star Stormy Damiels embarrassed Trump with salacious details of their alleged tryst, he celebrated two big legal victories.  

The federal judge, Aileen Cannon, who Trump appointed to the bench, effectively delayed his trial for hoarding top secret documents until after the presidential election. A post-election trial means that voters won’t have the opportunity to decide whether the failed former president threatened U.S. national security by exposing military secrets to prying eyes. If Trump wins, his new attorney general can simply refuse to prosecute the case. I fear Judge Cannon won’t put up much of a fight. 

On top of that, the Georgia Court of Appeals announced that it would hear arguments on the motion to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting Trump and his co-defendants for interference in the vote count in the 2020 presidential election.  

Even if the court decided Willis can continue to prosecute the case against Trump, the delay in the proceedings could jeopardize the possibility of a verdict before November.     

Nothing negative about Trump in the media shakes the faith of his hardcore disciples. They see everything through orange tinted glasses. In the words of the legendary singer-songwriter Paul Simon, “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”  

But fortunately, there are some GOP dissidents who could be the decisive factor in a closely contested presidential election. A hardy band of Republicans are ready to challenge Trump’s domination of the Grand Old Party. Twenty percent appears to be the magic number. 

A new national ABC News poll indicates that one in five Trump supporters might jump ship if he’s convicted of a serious crime.  

The same day Daniels testified, a fifth of the GOP presidential primary voters expressed dissatisfaction with the apparent nominee. These brave souls voted for former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. She continues to draw significant support against Trump even though she dropped out of the race months ago.  

Recently, two prominent Republican officials from battleground states broke with Trump.  

Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, formerly the Speaker of the House and the party’s vice  presidential nominee in 2012, announced he would not vote for the former president. Ryan declared “Character is too important to me.”

Geoff Duncan who was lieutenant governor of Georgia went even further and said he would vote for President Biden. “I’m voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass.” 

The jury is still out on the presidential race with six months to go. Hopefully the verdict in Trump’s hush money case in New York  comes before Election Day. Justice delayed for Trump is justice denied for the voting public. 

Brad Bannon is a Democratic pollster, CEO of Bannon Communications Research and the host of the popular progressive podcast on power, politics and policy, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon.