⚖️ How to Spin Guilt 101

Good Morning,

Politics is exhausting, draining, yet ever present: one big evolving sociology experiment that impacts us whether we’d like to participate in it or not.

But I would strongly recommend participating.

Anyways, Trump is now a convicted felon. So lets explore that shall we?

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How to Spin Guilt 101

Donald Trump has become the first President to ever be convicted and found guilty of criminal conduct after leaving office. The trial itself, and the resulting guilty verdict, was actually an unsurprising outcome given the mountain of evidence that was presented in the case.

Trump really did falsify business records to hide hush money payments made to women during the 2016 election. The goal of which was to prevent damaging stories from surfacing and thus help influence the election outcome in his favor.

This included using shell companies and disguising transactions to conceal the nature of the payments, which is also election interference by deceiving voters. He was unanimously found guilty in a court of law by a jury of 12 citizens; our peers.

But if you listened to the GOP ecosystem of politicians and talking heads, you would hear a different story. One that paints this trial as a sham. A secret Biden administration plot to weaponize the justice system against a political opponent.

The GOP’s playbook for addressing this trial has one clear overarching strategy: talk about literally anything else but the facts of the trial itself:

• Fox News and other conservative news outlets are spinning this conviction in a positive way; that it will only boost Trump’s poll numbers, fire up his base, and guarantee a victory in the general election. Yet a poll of independent voters found 49% said he should drop out of the race entirely.

• Ohio Senator JD Vance tried to frame Trump’s crime as some kind of bookkeeping accident, telling Wolf Blitzer “They’re trying to throw him in prison for a paperwork violation, Wolf.”

• And finally, there is this narrative that the Department of Justice is just on a witch hunt for Republicans, ignoring that Bob Menendez, an influential Democratic senator, is currently on trial for corruption after being indicted by Biden's DOJ.

All of this is a reminder of why it is both so difficult, and so rare, to see a figure with Trump’s platform actually be held accountable for their crimes. Its not just one man on trial, but an entire political party of donors, strategists, news outlets, and party politicians that are in many ways on trial themselves for their support of Trump.

Yet the GOP has fully submitted itself before Trump, opting to go down with this clearly sinking ship instead of cutting its losses and nominating a different candidate.

Trump’s sentencing is on July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention (a date that Trump’s own lawyer proposed, mind you). Four days after his sentencing, American voters will watch the RNC nominate a convicted felon, who was also found liable for rape, who also owes several hundred million dollars in civil penalties, and routinely takes credit for overturning Roe v Wade, be selected as the Republican candidate for President.

The Bigger Picture

Last July I made the prediction that Biden will likely win the 2024 election in more or less a landslide. I stand by that prediction. There is lots of data you can look at to support that claim:

• In the 2022 midterm elections Republicans vastly underperformed expectations, and barely kept control of the House of Representatives, despite many predicting a “red wave”.

• In the Republican 2024 primaries: Trump underperformed expectations in each state, often seeing Nikki Haley eating up 10-20% chunk of the votes, despite her dropping out after March. As in, people were showing up and knowingly voting for someone who was not even in the running, rather than cast their vote for Trump.

On top of that:

• Vitally important swing states for general elections like Michigan, have seen their Republican leadership devolve to infighting, while being essentially flat broke as no one is donating their state party money.

• The Republican National Committee (RNC) fired their chair, then promptly cleaned house, and appointed Trump’s inexperienced daughter in-law as chair, whose express mission is to divert donations to Trump’s mounting legal funds.

• And then you have this list: Trump’s former campaign chairman, former campaign vice chairman, former personal lawyer, former personal adviser, former White House aide, former campaign adviser, former CFO, former White House national security advisor, and former chief strategist have ALL been previously charged, convicted, and/or are awaiting sentencing.

These are not the hallmarks of an organized and successful political campaign, but rather that of the mob. So despite the angst you might see coming from the media, the above facts paint a damning fate for Trump.

Trump is not campaigning to be President. He is campaigning to not spend the rest of his days in prison.