There is surreal and then there is the 2024 presidential election.
Just when you think it can’t get more bizarre, it does. Earlier this week, the Colorado Supreme Court offered up a ruling barring former President Trump from the GOP primary ballot in the state.
The Colorado justices — all appointed by Democratic governors — voted by a 4-3 margin that Trump had engaged in “insurrection” that disqualifies him from office under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Okay.
Look for that ruling to be struck down by the Supreme Court faster than a fly at a picnic. Former White House lawyer Ty Cobb predicted that the Supreme Court could rule unanimously in favor of Trump in an appeal of the Colorado ruling. “I think this case will be handled quickly. I think it could be 9-0 in the Supreme Court for Trump,” Cobb said in an interview on CNN.
After the ruling, I spoke with two major Democratic operatives. Both had the same question: “Are these justices trying to get Trump elected?”
They were joined in their collective tongue-in-cheek suspicions by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis is now in a free fall of epic proportions and is looking for any straw to grasp onto to slow his descent into becoming a national punchline.
This past Wednesday, DeSantis called the Colorado ruling part of a pattern of “stunts” from the media and the left intended to “solidify support” for Trump, on the basis that the former president is purportedly more beatable in a general election. In other words, DeSantis is trying to sell the fairytale that Democratic justices, prosecutors, district attorneys and far-left members of the media believe Trump beatable in November and are therefore all in cahoots as they roll out a foolproof strategy to ensure that Trump is the Republican nominee.
That “strategy” predicated upon the belief — as DeSantis is seemingly pushing — that the more Trump gets indicted and banned from ballots, the more infuriated his base of tens of millions of Americans will get. And the more infuriated they get, the more likely for them to go to the polls in droves to vote as one to spite the Democratic justices, prosecutors, district attorneys and liberal media. And by virtue of their “spite” vote, they doom GOP chances by getting Trump the nomination.
While that fantasy might make DeSantis feel better, it is not so. Recent and consistent polling has shown that the anti-Trump argument being pushed by the likes of DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — as well as a number of Democrats — that “Trump would be unelectable against Biden” has blown up as Biden’s numbers continue to crater.
A much more plausible argument to be made is that these justices, prosecutors, district attorneys and members of the media simply and truly hate Trump. That over the course of the last eight years — like so many on the left and so many of the Republican “Never Trumpers” — they have become unhinged by “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” As such, they are looking for any “legal” opening to take him out of the 2024 race.
Now, what they may see as being loyal partisan operatives in service to the Democratic Party, others see as unethical and illegal election interference. To be sure, millions of Trump supporters see these “legal” attacks against Trump as an overt attempt to take out Biden’s leading opponent and as something that is truly un-American.
Worse for the Democratic Party is the growing concern that millions of independent voters may see it that way as well. All of these justices, prosecutors and district attorneys going after Trump are Democrats or appointed by Democrats. As such, these continual legal shenanigans are not only becoming a bridge too far for millions of Americans, but a tactic many find disturbing and chilling.
There is no doubt that — counterintuitively for some — the more Trump gets indicted or banned, the higher his poll numbers soar. Lofty numbers which may not drop.
Come election night in November of 2024, Trump may very well gloatingly look into the camera and say, “I’m back.” And if that turns out to be the case, future presidential historians may lay the blame — or the credit — at the feet of these activist Democratic justices, prosecutors and district attorneys.
Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration.