Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

So she decided not to delay it beyond the election, but she kindly made sure it was past most of the important primaries and that the venue would make sure to draw a jury pool from prime MAGA country. I think a degree of skepticism is warranted.

The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s prosecution on charges of illegally retaining dozens of classified documents set a trial date on Friday for May 2024, taking a middle position between the government’s request to go to trial in December and Mr. Trump’s desire to push the proceeding until after the 2024 election.

In her order, Judge Aileen M. Cannon said the trial was to be held in her home courthouse in Fort Pierce, Fla., a coastal city two-and-a-half hours north of Miami that will draw its jury pool from several counties that Mr. Trump won handily in his two previous presidential campaigns.

Judge Cannon also laid out a calendar of hearings, throughout the remainder of this year and into next year, including those concerning the handling of the classified material at the heart of the case.

The scheduling order came after a contentious hearing on Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce where prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, and lawyers for Mr. Trump sparred over when to hold the trial.

The timing of the proceeding is more important in this case than in most criminal matters because Mr. Trump is now the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination and his legal obligations to be in court will intersect with his campaign schedule.

Indeed, the date Judge Cannon chose to start the trial — May 20, 2024 — is one day before the primary in the key swing state of Georgia. But it falls after the bulk of the primary race contests will have already taken place.

TBF, this schedule was also dictated by his other court cases, including the criminal one in March. Also I suspect ending up in the jury pool and being pretty easily clocked as MAGA/Trump-can-do-no-wrong is an excellent way to get dumped during selection.

as I understand it, this is not exactly a crazy amount of time to schedule the trial given the complexity of the case

BTW, what have this asshole's dum-dum kids been up to?

Ibdunno but one of them may have "accidentally" left cocaine in the White House but let's move on and not dwell on past indiscretions

xpost Plausible deniability.

his legal obligations to be in court will intersect with his campaign schedule.

I'm sure this has been pointed out elsewhere, but his schedule of "rallies" is meaningless. Anyone attending those shitshows is already voting for him. Be like Biden, win the election "from your basement."

the rallies used to get him media attention. Maybe they will again if he talks about his trial there.

The rallies will absolutely start to get him increased media attention again once the calendar flips to primary season.

First and likely only appearance of "be like Biden" on Ile

(I agree, tho)

I know MPR airs these pieces just to torment me, but yesterday I was listening to Young Republicans in Miami, mostly first time voters, who are ride or die Trump. It was all I could do to keep from intentionally driving off the road into a tree.

A Trump supporter across the street from me committed suicide last week. So we're one vote up.

weird bc a trump supporter across the street from my mom also committed suicide

Hi rallies next year are going to turn into late period Lenny Bruce shows.

"Suicide." Sure. It's all Hillary's doing.

Jack Smith's deep state hit squad

His rallies next year are going to turn into late period Lenny Bruce shows.

They already are! Or Jello going on about his obscenity trial

we're one vote up

More like 50 million if you believe this rather rosy article (gift link)

https://wapo.st/3pRUPs6

We have often had the discussion that demographics give Democrats false hope. And I don't necessarily wish to rehash that whole Peanuts football discussion.

Nevertheless it is true that 17-year-old people DO keep turning 18. And 80+ year old people DO keep dying.

Accordingly, there IS a possible future that contains a less old, less white, and less Christian electorate. I don't have a lot of certainty that this electorate will make the world better. Merely that it may help a bit.

This long Politico piece touches on similar themes but narrows it to specific places where young voters are making a real difference.

less old, less white, and less Christian electorate

the cities keep growing, and the north dakotas keep shrinking

'Americans need to see Trump as we see him here. We recognise him as a dishonest, untrustworthy, unreliable, tax-dodging imposter’

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2023/jul/21/the-scottish-villagers-who-defied-donald-trump

Xp, Andy, you are right, of course.

But as long as the Electoral College and its close sibling, gerrymandering, exist? Someone in North Dakota still gets something like three to five times more voting power than someone in New Jersey.

That sucks, but the disparity is structural in nature. Hence, it probably should be addressed structurally.

However, a realist would suggest that the required structural solution is unrealistic. So we are where we are.

Someone in North Dakota still gets something like three to five times more voting power than someone in New Jersey.

That's where the Gen Z'ers who can't afford to live in the expensive states moving to the cheap ones comes into play

(Which, if anything, is what I think might be the REAL real motivator behind some of the most hateful social-issues laws being fast-tracked in them.)

Even though Trump won North Dakota 65% to 32% you could take all 235,000 of his voters there and fit them into a suburb outside of an east coast city.

...where they would be miserable and never shut up about it

Nevertheless it is true that 17-year-old people DO keep turning 18. And 80+ year old people DO keep dying.

Unfortunately, by the same token middle-aged people keep getting older and turning more conservative, and so the churn continues.

by the same token middle-aged people keep getting older and turning more conservative, and so the churn continues

This feels less inevitable lately, though, because it was part of a larger process:

reach middle age -> have "good job" -> achieve material comfort/financial security -> turn conservative

Now that those two middle steps are gone for a lot of people, I think the last part is less of a guarantee.

80 year olds were 24 in the Summer of Love.

The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it is on Social Security.

Someone woke up extra catty today!

The DeSanctimonious Polls are crashing because of his stance on Obliterating Social Security and Medicare! Nothing he will ever do is going to change his votes against. Attracting small crowds that leave really early, that's never a good sign! pic.twitter.com/b5mBwvcY4N

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) July 21, 2023

A few xps but: My mother turned 80 a month ago.

She is adamant about NOT being a Baby Boomer (born in 1943, so a "war baby"). Also adamant about having been too old to be a Woodstockian hippie. She's okay with Beatnik and bohemian labels, though.

I am very much not a guardian of generational labels but the sentiments are out there.

My stepmom was a Barry Goldwater supporter, and if not an actual John Birch Society member, that's where she was during the Kennedy years

Now she absolutely despises Trump and his stans, breaks up with friends on FB over it, and claims to be a pagan but I think that just means she just likes gardening a lot

Oh yeah, a lot of 80 year olds are in the category of people who liked the Beatles until they got weird.

To be fair the Beatles did get weird.

Especially the Traveling Wilburys

xp to YMP yeah, that's my mom as well, down to the birth year. She watches MSNBC daily and would sooner vote for a dented can of creamed corn than for Trump, or any other Republican.

My mom hates Trump and tuned out after Rubber Soul so ymmv.

That's super weird, Rubber Soul may be Trump's best record.

My mom prefers Motown, which makes sense, as she grew up near Detroit. The Supremes played at her high school once.

And what is Trump's "New Jersey"

Eric, probably.

I grew up in a home where religion was discussed more than politics. My parents (Missouri Synod Lutheran) cared more about Billy Graham than whoever was president. Imagine my surprise, given how the GOP has completely kowtowed to the religious right, to find that my parents have never voted Republican. They’re 91, loathe Trump, and their views on gay marriage, abortion, and racial issues are quite progressive.

bring it

Fulton county prosecutors prepare racketeering charges in Trump inquiry

Re: Dan

I, who hail from a family that despises organized religion, stupidly attended a (now shuttered!) Missouri-Synod Lutheran middle school, which was my first exposure EVER to people who don’t accept evolutionary biology. I have to say that they weren’t *quite* as antisemitic as the Baptists I later encountered, but goodness do they think that Catholics are all bound for hell

Re: Trump I am reasonably pleased about charges and indictments and lawsuits and such. But it would be really nice to see some muthaflippin _consequences_ falling on his weirdly orange head. I am not impressed by the idea of him being "in legal peril"; as far as I can tell he has been "in legal peril" for half of my life. It keeps not turning into imprisonment and disgrace. It's just more cloudy murk of motions and depositions and procedural decisions and such.

I sometimes wish I could just go to bed for a few months and have someone wake me when Trump is actually, visibly, undeniably suffering.

lol yes re: Catholics!

xp

the fighting between the different Protestant denominations in the 70s/80s Midwest always took a back seat to the claim there are Christians and there are Catholics and those are two distinctly different groups

there are still outliers who haven’t died off but what a different time

My Unitarian grandparents were livid when my father married my mom, a Polish Catholic immigrant, in 1978. Still boggles my mind that people cared about such bullshit.