The Bright Side of the Supreme Court's Decision to Hear (and Delay) Trump's Immunity Case
It seems like a devastating blow now, but there's some good that will likely come out of this decision
A couple weeks ago I wrote a post that explained why Trump is likely shooting himself in the foot with his delay tactics, because it increased the chances that his D.C. election fraud trial would literally finish right before the election, therefore imposing maximum damage on his electoral victory chances (see “Trump is About to Commit Election Interference - On His Own Campaign”). The Supreme Court’s decision to agree to hear his immunity claim, and do it on a de facto delayed schedule, although technically “expedited” by their standards, absolutely keeps this scenario in play. The process would have to be conducted quickly from here, but it’s very feasible that the trial starts in the late summer/early fall, and ends right before the election, giving voters all they need to make the most informed decision possible.
On the other hand, this decision by the Court increases the likelihood that this trial will get pushed beyond the election. This scenario hasn’t been considered as much in the media lately, due to the focus being squarely on the idea that for justice to be served, the trial must be finalized before the election so that voters have all the facts before casting their votes. I’ve always been a bit skeptical about this claim, as it’s a little hard for me to believe that in our hyper-informational tribal world that a significant number of people would have the attention span and contemplativeness to use a trial to inform themselves of the pros and cons of voting for Trump. But recent polls have in fact suggested that a sizeable segment of voters would use the trial verdict in their decision-making regarding Trump.
So let’s examine solely the scenario where we don’t have a verdict in the D.C. election fraud trial before the election. In this case, appropriate justice will not have been served up on a silver platter to the electorate; voters don’t know if he’s been found guilty or innocent via tidy resolution; people will have to decide for themselves if, based on the information they know, Trump is worthy of their vote or not. I think this scenario has some great benefits for those that want the election results to favor democracy and future of America.
Turnout will be even higher
If Democrats, Democrat-leaning independents, and Never-Trump Republicans were already fired up and geared for a high turnout, the lack of legal resolution for Trump’s D.C. trial will only increase this potential energy through fear and love of country. Anyone left that is on the fence about getting out of their homes to vote will feel much more pressure to take responsibility and do their part to steer the country in the right direction.
Many Gaza-oriented Democrat voters that may feel now that they can’t or won’t bring themselves to vote for Biden due to his Israeli-Palestinian policies will have this new wrinkle to grapple with come election time. Sure, not all of them will come back on board the Biden train, but some will. The prospect of Trump not being politically damaged with a guilty verdict, and therefore the more real possibility of a Trump victory, will motivate them to reexamine their priorities. This will put extra weight in their minds on the state of our democracy, and will have to influence at least some of them to put aside their strong convictions on Biden’ Israeli support and vote for Biden.
Low-propensity voters that may be thinking of sitting out this election will be more inclined to vote. There will be more peer pressure applied to them by the people that are more energized to help increase turnout due to this development. They’ll hear more and more in this peer pressure campaign, through social media and word of mouth, that they must vote to hold Trump accountable.
As it sinks in that we can’t rely on any institutional hero to render justice, more people will be energized to take it on themselves, not just through their own vote, but by encouraging others to vote and getting the turnout totals higher and higher.
Early voting will hit records
High-propensity voters simply won’t be able to wait to vote in this election regardless of whether there’s a trial or not. But as it becomes more apparent that a trial will not occur before the election, the high-pressure turnout campaign will be even stronger and heavily encourage anyone and everyone to vote as early as possible. Early voting greatly increases the potential for higher turnout, and will favor Biden and Democrats this cycle, as Republican have flipped their script on this method in recent years by denouncing it as fraudulent and unreliable.
As Simon Rosenberg has stated several times in his newsletter Hopium Chronicles, one of the advantages of early turnout is that it takes voters off the board early so that precious resources can be directed towards more productive ends. The focus is perpetually on people that have not yet voted. This ensures that money and energy is utilized to maximal effect and resources are not spread thin. The postcards and phone calls will go to where it’s needed most—to motivate those that have not yet voted.
As this occurs, and prominent MAGA Republicans denounce early voting as they have been prone to do, the advantage will continue to be heavily toward Democrats. By putting all their eggs in the Election Day vote basket, Republicans are effectively capping their turnout and potentially suppressing their own vote totals.
Ambivalent Republicans will still have to make a risk assessment
The Republicans that have said they will not vote for Trump if he is convicted will have to assess their risk tolerance without a clean resolution to the trial. It can be assumed that the opposite case is true for them: that they would vote for Trump if he was acquitted. In the face of neither conclusion, what are they to do?
They’ll have to decide if they want to risk their vote on Trump without full knowledge. They’ll have to do a moral analysis of their electoral selves and decide, based on what is known at that time, if Trump is likely guilty or not. There probably won’t be as many people not voting for Trump as there would be if he was found guilty. But the fact that these voters are even considering not voting for Trump suggests they have a conscience and are not simply members of the Trump cult. Therefore, many of them would decide not to vote for Trump if they don’t know the results of a trial.
Even if just half of them vote for Trump and half don’t, this would work against Trump and be very damaging to his chances. Personally, I think more than half of them would vote against Trump. If they are the type of person that would pay attention and think about an ongoing trial, they likely would assess the existing public evidence to be bad for Trump, and therefore not risk voting for him, especially considering he’s on the record pressuring election officials to “find” him votes and directing rage at his VP during an insurrection at the Capitol. By the "preponderance of the evidence” standard that most people would be forced to adhere to if they are assessing on their own, he certainly appears pretty damn guilty.
At least he won’t be acquitted right before the election
This hasn’t gotten much serious attention, but there is always the possibility that Trump is acquitted. The trial may not go well in some way. A cooperating witness may be intimidated to not testify after all, or the prosecutors may make a fatal mistake. Even if the trial generally goes well, maybe it can be effectively argued that the prosecution didn’t prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Juries have done surprising things before in the face of what seemed like an obvious outcome. Perhaps one or two jurors hold out from the rest and there’s a hung jury, which wouldn’t be an acquittal, but would be relentlessly promoted as such by Trump and his surrogates.
This is unlikely, of course, but not impossible. And if this happens, it muddies the waters enough to cause real problems heading into the election. This could cause enough Democrat-leaning voters to be demoralized to the point of not getting out to vote. Turnout could be less than otherwise overall, but increased on Trump’s side with more energy and motivation due to this cathartic victory. It’s unsettling to think about, but if an acquittal was going to happen, you’d want it to happen after the election, when the least amount of electoral damage to the side of democarcy can be done.
MAGA grievances would be blunted with a “fair and square” election
If this trial went away before the election, along with the other main trials (the Florida documents case and the Fulton County, Georgia case), then the screams of “Election interference!” or “Lawfare!” by MAGA would be blunted to the point where they couldn’t effectively use it as a rallying cry to further motivate their base and persuade susceptible undecided voters. Since these have been ongoing investigations known by the public for over a year, that knowledge has been baked into the sentiments of the electorate. The main question at this point is if the trials will occur before the election and, if so, what effect they will have.
Well, if they don’t occur right before the election, their level of interference will be minimal, and therefore the results will be as “fair and square” as possible. I’m not naive; I know that MAGA won’t see it exactly this way. But this will be the logical pushback against their claims that the attempts by the Biden DOJ to commit lawfare were the reason Trump lost. At the very least, a mirror can be held up to Republicans to emphasize that they did the exact same thing when they investigated Joe and Hunter Biden and pushed questionable narratives about them into the media sphere.
Any election illegitimacy claims by MAGA will be greatly diminished. They’ll have to resort to whatever “rigged election” or “cheating” claims they will surely make when Trump loses, but these tactics are old and tired now, and America is wary of such obnoxious clamoring at this point. The power of MAGA to create new rounds of intense fear and anger, and potentially incite violence, will be significantly reduced.
Tensions would be reduced if Trump is not all over the headlines
Could you imagine the stress induced on the nation with a trial concluding right before the election? We might say we crave a resolution to the trial beforehand, but the reality of that considering the current timeline does not seem like it would be a pleasant experience at all.
The fanfare and bold headlines when Trump was indicted was unsettling enough. We wondered if there would be protests or violence and how the system would hold up under this level of scrutiny. It turned out that the system held up just fine, and that the level of violent support for Trump was limited and not nearly as widespread as it seemed. While I’m confident that this would play out similarly in the face of a guilty verdict, it’s hard to say for sure, given it would be one of the single most historical developments in the country’s history.
It’s a great unknown we’d be heading straight for, and with an election of such consequence right around the corner, it may be too much for our nation’s psyche or system to take. I think we can handle it and move forward as needed, but the level of stress and emotion during this period for so many people would be challenging, and tensions across the county would be as heightened as they’ve ever been.
Now imagine an election period with no headlines about trials or verdicts. It does seem a bit more peaceful, doesn’t it? It would be much less distracting on all of us, and we could just focus on our lives, getting out to vote on any particular day, and then going back to our lives. In this case, the typical racehorse election coverage actually seems somewhat serene by comparison.
Don’t fret about the Trump trials, just vote
The reality is that the trials are unlikely to have a determinative effect on the election. According to primary election exit polls, there’s already a significant segment of Republicans that say they won’t vote for Trump regardless of the trials’ results. This has already made Trump’s chances at victory very small. If Trump was found guilty, it would perhaps help intensify a Democrat blowout, but if it is a blowout, it was already going to be one anyway. A Trump guilty verdict won’t be the cause of it.
It may be hard to accept that our institutions didn’t work fast or efficiently enough for there to be clean resolutions to the cesspool of Trump’s criminal behavior before people made their choice for president before the election. But in the end, the people decide the direction of the country. And if a trial’s conclusion is the basis for people to make their choice, and that is the deciding factor in an election, that could be more worrisome for our democracy than the power of a criminal politician.