Dear America,
Have you gone completely bonkers?
I say this as a Brit from across the pond with a deep and abiding love for your country and its people.
But seriously, what the hell is going on with your 2024 presidential race?
A stunning New York Times poll shows Donald Trump surging ahead in the Republican nominee battle despite facing a slew of criminal charges and the imminent likelihood of more to come.
It seems the more charges he faces, the more his party embraces him as their candidate.
Incredibly, 22% of Republican voters polled even said they preferred Trump to his nearest rival, Ron DeSantis, in a head-to-head contest despite believing the ex-president has committed serious federal crimes!
So they’d rather have someone they think is a crook in the White House than a non-crook, despite knowing that if Trump wins, he’ll be so tied up in court cases, he won’t have time to run a bath, let alone the country.
And should he lose one of those cases, I have two questions:
How do you make America great again if you’re convicted of serious crimes?
How do you serve your country if you’re serving a prison sentence?
Trump supporters can blame the Department of Justice all they like for their hero’s legal woes, and I’ve no doubt there’s some validity to their belief that the DOJ has been heavily politicized.
But evidence is evidence, and the more actual evidence I see presented against Trump, including both alleged crimes and cover-ups, the worse his situation looks.
At what point do even his most die-hard fans understand that Trump’s primary motivation right now is winning the presidency so he can pardon himself?
And thus, he’s the complete opposite of the Joan of Arc-style martyr he’d like them to believe he is?
It emerged yesterday that Trump’s political action committee Save America, which fundraises mainly through small donations from regular Americans, has spent over $40 million on legal fees this year.
That’s more than double what the PAC spent on legal fees in the whole of 2022.
So Trump’s literally using his supporters to try to bail himself out.
When he says, “They’re not coming for me, they’re coming for you,” he knows that’s nonsense. They’re coming for him, and he is using them, his supporters, to protect himself.
Do they know this?
Do they care if they do?
I fear we’ve reached the point where Trump’s “joke” in 2019 that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose voters is now probably true.
Certainly that’s the only explanation I can think of for why none of the indictments seems to diminish his appeal to his base.
We’ve also reached the point when deluded Democrats must take off their own blinders and admit Hunter Biden’s conduct wasn’t just shameful but also criminal, and that despite all his indignant protestations, his father, President Biden, was up to his neck in his errant son’s sleazy, scheming and corrupt shenanigans too.
As The Post’s editorial said on Saturday: “BOTH Trump and Biden can be crooks.”
Exactly.
Which begs the question: How on Earth can these two deeply damaged, divisive and unpopular men be heading toward the least wanted rematch in political history?
And that’s before we even get to the issue of their advanced ages.
Both men — Biden’s 81, Trump’s 77 — would be octogenarian presidents if they win next year.
In Biden’s case, his physical and mental well-being is already a real and present problem.
If he’s not falling over, he’s talking gibberish or falling asleep, and it seems like every time he appears in public, something embarrassing happens.
It’s not a question of his actual age.
I was at the England/Australia cricket match in London on Saturday with Sir Mick Jagger, who has just turned 80.
As we chatted, I saw firsthand that the Rolling Stones frontman has got the energy and vitality of a man half his age.
Biden, by contrast, has the energy and vitality of a man of 100.
Yet as things stand, he wants to serve another five and a half years as president of the United States.
This is insane.
As is the idea of a convicted criminal being leader of the free world.
But this increasingly seems the most likely choice facing the American electorate unless the Republican and Democratic parties both wake up and put the interests of the American people before their current partisan inaction.
For common sense to prevail, it’s going to take a viable presidential alternative to emerge on both sides.
None of the other Republican candidates, including DeSantis, has yet made a dent in Trump’s poll numbers despite all the mayhem engulfing him. They need to raise their game.
As do the younger, more dynamic Democratic contenders like California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
They all know Biden can’t possibly do another term in office, so Carpe diem.
It’s time to put the country’s interest first.
Most Americans want someone who can fix the battered economy and their cost-of-living woes, not someone who will be constantly distracted by criminal legal actions, or struggling to remember what day it is.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
