A federal judge appointed by none other than failed former president Donald Trump — Aileen Cannon — appears to have sealed the fate of the Republican Party in the 2024 election by scheduling the ex-president’s trial on charges of mishandling classified documents and violating the Espionage Act to begin on May 20, 2024.
How so? By making it almost certain that chaos will rule as the GOP tries to find a presidential nominee to face President Joe Biden.
As Aaron Blake of the Washington Post explains, there’s a “nightmare scenario” brewing for Republicans that could spell doom for their chances and result in Democrats controlling the House, Senate, and White House when the dust clears after Election Day 2024.
The date could, again, be delayed. It’s not inconceivable that those delays could still kick it till after the election. But a trial date at the end of the primary schedule means the case could well be decided between when GOP voters have decided on their nominee and when general-election voters will decide the president.
Trump might still face some adverse verdicts before then — as he did in the first Carroll civil case. But if he’s convicted of any felonies, it will most likely come long after the point of no return for the party in its nominating contest.
Since most of the major GOP primaries are held before the end of March (with Super Tuesday on March 5, most Republican voters won’t know if they’re nominating a felon to be their nominee. And that’s bad news for Republicans up and down the ticket.
Yet despite the very real specter of a felon being the leader of their party, polling shows that 48% of Republicans say Trump should still be allowed to serve as president even if he’s convicted of multiple felonies. 50% say he shouldn’t drop out of the race if he gets convicted.
As Blake notes, much of this is just hypothetical at this point, “But there is certainly the possibility that Trump solidifies the nomination, is then convicted and is looking like a severe liability in the general election, but Republicans face severely alienating a huge portion of their party by trying to do anything about it.”
The possibilities are endless, but almost none of them end well for the GOP, which could well mean they’re on the verge of never winning another national election for the next couple of decades. And that would be a welcome outcome for those of us who actually cherish the ideas of freedom, democracy, and unity.
