[ad_1]
On Thursday, a Manhattan jury found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 counts of conspiracy and fraud in a case stemming from payments the former president arranged to cover up an affair with adult film actor Stormy Daniels. The presumptive GOP nominee is already a convicted felon.
He was already recognized as a sexual predator and fraudster. Trump once joked that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. Maybe not.
Sentencing is scheduled for July 11. Of course, Trump is unlikely to serve any prison time for what amounts to an accounting crime. Rather, he could be placed on probation and ordered to appear in New York probation departmentwhich is described as a “humbling” experience. Regardless, the conviction does not disqualify him as a candidate, nor does it bar him from sitting in the Oval Office again.
Practically speaking, Americans who support Joe Biden should realize that Trump’s conviction is unlikely to significantly affect his chances of being reelected president — which are already much higher than many Democrats care to admit. The betting markets are in his corner.
The deadline for additional proposals is June 27, which is also the day of the first presidential debate. Trump, who has denied the allegations against him, previously called the trial “rigged” and a “fraud.” Leaving the courthouse on Thursday, he told cameras: “This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict will be on November 5th by the people.
After his 2016 defeat in the Iowa caucuses and again after losing to Biden in 2020, he resorted to the same scheme. Regardless, his disgrace and thirst for revenge are real. Just look at January 6th. Someone who would otherwise be denied a security clearance could be the next president. For its part, the Republican Party, the so-called party of law and order, has adopted a convicted felon as its standard-bearer.
Defeat in a new York however, the courtroom is not the same as a Trump loss in November. The 45th president has the good fortune of running against an 81-year-old with a stiff gait and a wavering air.
The calendar will quickly test any boost Biden gets from his predecessor’s criminal conviction.
On June 3, Hunter Biden’s trial on federal gun charges begins in Delaware. Seemingly ignorant of this reality, the President harbored his prodigal son at a recent state dinner for William Ruto, the President of Kenya. Hunter Biden also faces trial on felony tax charges in early September, just as the fall campaign gets under way in earnest.
By the end of June, the US Supreme Court could also give Trump another boost. The Republican-dominated Supreme Court is expected to further delay the special counsel’s election interference case against Trump, allegedly over the issue of presidential immunity.
The final, first presidential debate is scheduled for June 27. It’s been four years since Biden and a Covid-carrying Trump faced off in front of the cameras. Trump came in too hot while Biden bobbed and weaved. Biden also influenced fossil fuels, making the race in Pennsylvania closer than it needed to be.
Any way you slice it, Biden’s post-State of the Union resurgence is over. He is doggedly following Trump in critical battleground states. He runs behind the Democratic Senate candidates in places like Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Let’s be clear, rejection is somewhat personal. Unrelenting doubts swirl about Biden’s continued capacity to lead and govern. Most Americans view Biden as incapable of taming inflation, let alone securing the border.
“Working-Class Voters Are Unsatisfied with President Biden’s Economy,” Axios reports.
Beyond that, the sting of inflation is actually sharper in the vicinity of the so-called red America. Ominously for the sitting president, his difficulties with non-college graduates are between race and ethnicity.
David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s top policy adviser, took Biden — Obama’s vice president — to task. It is “absolutely true” that the economy has grown under Biden, Axelrod said CNN, but voters are “surviving [the economy] through the prism of the cost of living. And he is a man who has built his career on empathy. Why not lead with empathy?”
Instead, Biden continues to tout his own record to tepid applause.
“If he doesn’t win this race, it might not be Donald Trump who beats him,” Axelrod continued. “It could be his own pride.”
from the numbers, Biden leads among suburban moms and dads and households earning more than $50,000, but lags among people with lower incomes. His electoral base bears little resemblance to the lunch coalition that propelled Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy to the White House in the last century.
“We continue to wonder why these young people are not coming home to the Democrats. Why are they [Black voters] won’t it come home to the Democrats?” James Carville, the campaign guru behind Bill Clinton’s 1992 victory, recently lamented. “Because the Democrats’ messaging is complete bullshit, that’s why.”
Once upon a time, Carville coined the phrase, “It’s the economy, dumbass.” Three decades have not diminished its truth or resonance.
Similarly, Biden ignores the reality that he must embrace the cultural center as he moves left on the economy. Working Americans want stability, safe streets and a paycheck that takes them far. Campus radicals, riots and identity politics are a twist.
Both Trump and Biden have aged and slowed down since their paths first crossed. Trump continues to display manic stamina on the stump. By contrast, Biden’s events are uninspired, under-attended and over-scripted. For the president, “spontaneity” is synonymous with “blunder”.
Whether Biden brings his A-game to the June debate could determine his fate. If it fails, expect a long summer for Democrats. Indeed, the party convention set for Chicago may reawaken unpleasant memories of 1968. And we know how that ended.
To win, Biden must quickly capitalize on Trump’s conviction. The jury is out on whether the 46th president has the necessary skill set.
[ad_2]
