What if Donald Trump's indictment changes *absolutely* nothing?
The case for the status quo.
Donald Trump will make history today: He will become the first former president of the United States to face criminal charges.
The moment is being treated as hugely consequential by the mainstream media. All four major cable networks closely tracked the progress of Trump’s personal plane — en route from Florida to New York City — on Monday. Media outlets declared today the real start of the 2024 campaign. Everyone, it seemed, believed that what happened in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday afternoon was going to fundamentally reshape not just the 2024 presidential race but our politics more broadly.
But, like, what if it doesn’t? While there’s no doubt that Trump being charged is historically significant, I am far less convinced that it will have the cataclysmic impact on our politics — and the next presidential race — that is being predicted.
Start here: Trump once famously/infamously said that he could “stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
While people love to roll their eyes at that quote, there’s a kernel of real truth embedded in it too.
That truth is that Trump’s people would (and will) always be with him — no matter what he said or did. They were undyingly loyal. To a fault. There was nothing that could shake their faith in him.
Not false election claims. Not embracing conspiracy theories. Not lying. Nothing.
Left unsaid in that quote — but no less true — was this: The people who hate Trump are always going to hate him. Nothing he says or does is going to convince them that he is anything but deserving of their scorn.
The numbers bear that reality out — as Trump consistently ranked as the most polarizing president in American history.
Trump’s third year in office featured “the largest degree of political polarization in any presidential year measured by Gallup, surpassing the 79-point party gap in Trump's second year in office.”
In short: The cake has long been baked on Trump. People who love him do so unquestioningly. People who hate him do so unswervingly.
It is those people who will be strewn across your TV screens — and web pages — today. The people who feel compelled to either taunt or tout Trump in person as he heads into and out of his arraignment.
While these people will get lots of airtime today, the truth is that their minds have long been made up about Trump. For them this latest development only serves as confirmation of their view — either for or against him.
It will, therefore, change absolutely nothing.
Yes, there is some evidence that Trump’s numbers have received a boost among Republicans in the days since the indictment was announced. But, remember two things:
In the immediate aftermath of the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar a Lago home for classified documents in the summer of 2022, polls showed him receiving a similar bump among Republican voters. And, predictions were rampant that the FBI had just handed Trump the 2024 nomination. But within a few months, the bump had worn off — and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was suddenly running nearly-even with the former President.
Even before the indictment was announced late last week, Trump was surging — against DeSantis and all other comers — in the Republican primary.
So, be wary of claims that this indictment just handed Trump the Republican nomination. Trump had already moved into a very strong position to be the party’s 2024 nominee before the charges dropped. The indictment might help to widen Trump’s margin, um, marginally but he was already in the catbird’s seat.
You should also be leery of claims that the indictment will fundamentally shift how electorally-critical independents view Trump.
Why? Because independents were already largely out on Trump — long before the Manhattan grand jury decided to indict him.
All the way back in December 2022, Trump’s approval rating among independents was a measly 25%, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll. In a Q poll released just days before the news of the indictment came down, Trump’s favorable rating among independents was a similarly anemic 32%.
Those numbers are consistent with where Trump has long stood with independents. Consider that in the 2020 election, he lost the group to Joe Biden by 13 points — just four years removed from beating Hillary Clinton among the crucial voting bloc by 6 points.
Is is possible that seeing Trump formally charged with paying hush money to a porn star as a means of covering up their relationship in the run-up to the 2016 election will further sour independents on Trump? Or eliminate the possibility that independents could return to the Trump fold in 2024? Sure!
But, again, these feel like changes on the margins. Independents have, by and large, already made up their minds about Trump. It’s more likely that today’s arraignment will serve as confirmation to them than as persuasive in any meaningful way.
There’s a tendency in modern politics — and the way the media covers modern politics — to assume that the thing that is happening right now is a) an inflection point and b) super consequential.
And, again, from a historical perspective, Trump being charged with a crime is a big deal! It’s never happened before!
But, it being historically significant is NOT at all the same as reshaping the presidential race.
When it comes to Trump, there’s very little evidence that there are lots of minds either a) waiting to be made up or b) persuadable based on external events.
People know how they feel about Trump — for good and for bad. The idea that any external event will change those views simply isn’t borne out by either the data or the eye test.
Just keep that in mind today as everyone and their brother is telling you how the 2024 race just fundamentally changed in this way or that way. It almost certainly didn’t.
I am so tired of Donald Trump.
Amen! You're right it doesn't change anything. I wish the US media wouldn't hype the Trump circus so much with their propaganda. Both left and right. The collective Trump obsession in the US is so tiresome.