SCOTUS POCUS

Or, Magical Thinking Until Monday

Now that the Court of Appeals has issued its 57-page ruling rejecting Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity, cable news is going into overdrive, accelerating everyone’s stress levels with predictions of a) Trump never going to trial, b) Trump’s trial starting too late or c) maybe not…

In other words, as they say in Hollywood, nobody knows anything.

The question of the moment is whether the Supreme Court will take Donald Trump’s appeal, or if they’ll let the lower court ruling stand. Turn on MSNBC and you’ll hear how Tuesday’s ruling was carefully constructed to give the Supreme Court a platform from which to take a dive decline the appeal.

If that happens, the DC case gets back on the fast track. So take a deep breath, don’t panic about something that hasn’t happened yet, and maybe read a good columnist.

Newspaper columnists add wit, insight and fine writing to the day’s news, and the Washington Post’s Philip Bump has always been one of the best. I’ve quoted him in this space before, and here he writes on another favorite theme of mine, that we really don’t know what the political effects of Trump’s trials will be because THEY HAVEN’T HAPPENED YET (Caps mine…sorry…but this is frustrating!)

I’ll return to a theme I raised in this screed:

Before 9/11, we had no idea what the aftermath of a terrorist attack in the U.S would feel like, or its’ lasting and changing impact. The same applies to Trump’s trials.

Assuming, as stipulated above, that we see Donald Trump in the dock before the election, we don’t know today what the impact will be of daily revelations of Trump’s crimes when the trial gets underway.

And as Philip Bump point out, most people aren’t following the news yet anyway.

There is an assumption, probably particularly among those who cover the news and those who read it, that Donald Trump’s legal travails are common knowledge.

But this is a sort of vanity: Just because it is interesting to us certainly doesn’t mean it is interesting to others. Polling released by CNN on Thursday shows that only a quarter of voters seek out news about the campaign; a third pay little to no attention at all.

As it turns out, even major developments often fly under the average American’s radar. New polling conducted by YouGov shows that only a bit over half of the country on average is aware of the various legal challenges Trump faces. And among those Republicans on whose political support he depends? Consistently, only a minority say they are aware of his lawsuits and charges.

As I’ve also written ad infinitum in this space, if you ban the words “because he’s Trump” from your thinking and stop believing he can get away with anything, you can see the political problems nominating a convicted felon present to a (once) Grand Old Party.

Poor Granny! People are starting to notice something’s wrong. This article in The Hill reports,”Majority of swing-state voters in new poll wouldn’t vote for Trump if convicted,”

The Bloomberg News/Morning Consult survey found that among voters in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, 53 percent of respondents said they were unwilling to vote for the former president if he is convicted in one of his multiple criminal cases.

Stories like this are the first wave of what we can expect now that the media realizes this will be the “longest general election campaign in memory.” What’s a 24/7 news cycle to do? Cover gaffes, stumbles, third-party candidates, fundraising scandals…boring!

I think Trump’s legal troubles will get more attention as the primaries sputter to a conclusion, as will speculation over how the GOP Establishment might hijack the Republican convention. If you accept the fact that there will be a D.C. federal trial (and we’ll know about that soon), get ready for daily bombshell testimony that will reach the half of the country which has so far tuned out the trials.

Then, with more polls that show voters having second thoughts about a convicted felon at the top of the ticket, we’ll see even more of the quadrennial speculation over whether there will finally be an “open convention” that throws the nominating process to the floor. I’ve been watching these things since 1968 (I know, poor me) and they’re all about rules. Conventions are like mini-nations, with the first order of business electing officers and setting rules for every step of the process.

If Donald Trump goes into the convention as a convicted felon, and the polls show that he is not only losing badly to Joe Biden in those swing states but is dragging previously-safe Republican Senators down with him, watch for a move to change the rules when they get to Milwaukee in July.

Maybe they stipulate that their nominee can’t be facing multiple 20-year prison sentences, or that he has to be able to construct a coherent sentence.

Maybe the other candidates who have “suspended” their campaigns reanimate themselves and make a last run at the prize, along with J.D. Vance, Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Greene and every other Republican who looks in the mirror and sees a President.

We’ll know as soon as Monday if the Supreme Court will take this case, or if they’ll let the lower Court ruling stand. Until then, maybe turn off the TV and pick up a newspaper.

Do you have a favorite columnist? Leave your thoughts in the comments—I’ll start.