You’d think they’d learn by now. When an “anti-racism” campaigner created a “Caucasians” t-shirt to protest the Washington Redskins name and logo, white folks bought them by the truckload. When the media splashed Donald Trump’s mugshot with glee, the Trump campaign made it into t-shirts and coffee mugs and raised more than $9 million.
So, what did the Democrats think was going to happen, in the wake of last week’s guilty verdict in the New York show trial?
A group of what’s been described as “Never Trump” voters are suddenly backing the former president following last week’s historic conviction.
To prove that it’s more than anecdotal, the Trump campaign’s donor website crashed within hours of the verdict, as voters rushed to pour money into the former president’s re-election.
Polls before and after suggested that the verdict would make little difference to voter intentions — other than making wavering Republicans more likely to back Trump.
As a jury deliberates on former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money charges in New York, 2 in 3 registered U.S. voters say a guilty verdict would have no effect on whom they plan to vote for in the presidential election, according to a PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll.
Overall, 67 percent of voters said a conviction would make no difference for them in November, including 74 percent of independents. That’s a significantly higher number than the percentage of either Republicans or Democrats who said it wouldn’t change their vote.
In fact, 25 percent of Republicans said they would be even more likely to vote for Trump if he were found guilty by a jury, while 27 percent of Democrats said they would be less likely to vote for him – a split that underscores hardened partisan perspectives on candidate Trump.
PBS
While a small number of Republicans said that they were less likely to vote for Trump, three times as many said it would make them more likely to.
The headline of a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Saturday stated that 1 in 10 Republicans said they are less likely to vote for Trump after the verdict. But a fair warning: Those voters are in the clear minority of their party.
In fact, in the same poll, 55% of Republican voters said the verdict didn’t make a difference to their vote, and 34% said it made them more likely to vote for Trump.
NBC News
Anecdotally, I noted a significant mood sweeping my social media feed (which, it must be acknowledged, is far from an objective measure): previously a-political folk declaring, “Fuck this, I can’t wait to vote in November”.
The sentiment is mirrored in street interviews conducted by the Free Press. Turning the Democrats’ “save democracy” narrative back on them, voters, often in deep blue areas, appear to have decided that democracy needs saving, alright — saving from the Democrats.
Shaun Maguire: “The Republican Party is less of a danger to democracy than the Democratic Party right now.”
Maguire, 38, is a Los Angeles–based partner at Sequoia, one of the most well-known venture capital firms in the country. He previously worked at Google, but left in 2019 when he says the company became too “woke.” The married father of two says he’s never voted for a Republican presidential candidate before. In 2016, he donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. But within an hour after Thursday’s news, Maguire posted on X that he’d donated $300,000 to Trump—a candidate he says once made him feel “deathly afraid” […]
Speaking to The Free Press, Maguire said Trump’s conviction “makes me want to support him even more.” But, he added, “it wasn’t the conviction as much as it was the charges being brought in the first place. These are not democratic tactics being used.
According to Maguire, he’s far from the only Silicon Valley type making the same shift. Former Brooklyn-based marketing consultant Kate Nitti echoes the sentiment.
Although until recently she had been firmly in the RFK Jr. camp, she said she would consider voting for Trump because “I feel the need to send a message to the Democrats that their dirty politics will not be rewarded […]
“I’m no fan of Trump. That said, I have a huge problem with contorting the law or using prosecutorial authority in the name of ‘saving democracy,’ which has been the Democrats’ message for the past four years.”
“I still consider myself a liberal,” she added. “I just don’t think Biden Democrats reflect what that used to mean.”
From California musicians to Chicago academics, more and more formerly Democrat voters are growing alarmed at where their country is heading — and inured to the “Orange Man Bad” narrative peddled by the media.
“I used to trust the media,” says Emery Barter, a guitar instructor and recording engineer in Oakland, California. “But now I feel the media has drifted away from reporting the truth. I just feel everything is completely made up,” he told The Free Press.
Barter, who is engaged to be married, added that Trump “doesn’t scare” him.
The Free Press
University of Chicago lecturer Adam Mortara says that “politically motivated and targeted and retributive prosecutions” are alarming. “Before, I would’ve said it’s not a danger to America if Joe Biden wins the election… Now, I kind of think it is.”
Eric Brakey, Maine state senator and “Ron Paul Republican”, says the Trump case has convinced him that American democracy really is in danger. “The principle is that the people get to choose our president… Democrats don’t preserve democracy. They’re afraid that the people, when presented a democratic choice, will not vote for them.”
Like an apparently growing number of Americans, Brakey is outraged that the Democrats are weaponising the justice system to subvert democracy. “Democracy is when the people decide,” not Democrat-appointed prosecutors and judges.
