23 Comments
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Binya's avatar

My 30,000ft view is that Biden is a far better President than Trump so as people focus on the election, they should move to his column. In addition, Republicans have an advantage from 24/365 shameless self-promotion, and that too moderates as the election nears because Democrats also focus more on campaigning.

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Bill's avatar

“ , it’s easy to imagine his handpicked judge, Aileen Cannon, dismissing his Espionage Act indictment in the days before the election, prefiguring a corrupt free-media bonanza for Trump, and no time for Jack Smith to appeal.”

If Cannon were to dismiss the indictments after a jury is sworn it would be under Rule 29. This would then be unappealable.

(Credit where credit is due, this was discussed on a recent Prosecuting Donald Trump podcast.)

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Brian Beutler's avatar

Indeed! Notice, she's moving extremely slow on purpose!

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Bill's avatar

To be clear it’s unappealable because of the law (or maybe this rule) not time constraints.

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Anand Rangarajan's avatar

If you can, please pay attention to the sentiments of the 18-30 crowd. Biden is way down with this demographic (relative to Trump) and it's not clear why. TikTok and Israel could be reasons but we could lose the election because of the younglings.

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Brian Beutler's avatar

Oh I will! I promise.

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Runfastandwin's avatar

I think it's obvious Cannon is planning to dismiss the case once the jury is seated thus precluding the government from retrying the case. I don't understand why DOJ is not moving heaven and earth to get her thrown off the case, unless it is in on it which doesn't seem so unlikely.

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Mike's avatar

The grounds for removing a federal judge from a case are extremely limited. There is no plausible hook for them to do so at this time.

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Runfastandwin's avatar

No reason not to try. I would argue the grounds have easily been met.

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Mike's avatar

On what grounds, then?

There is a reason not to try (in addition to the reason that it would lose under relevant precedent): Filing the motion would hand Cannon a free pretense to pause the case.l while the motion is resolved. It would play directly into Trump’s delay strategy

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David B Jones's avatar

ratfucking suggestion: start adding Aileen Cannon to the "potential Trump VP" lists that are floating around. It would highlight how she's apparently angling for a better job from his administration and position her as a totally biased player (which she is, but lots of people aren't looking that way).

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Brian Beutler's avatar

Love this idea.

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Alex M's avatar

I’m not sure there’s much of a case for optimism as Biden has shown himself to be completely ineffectual wrt Israel. Uncommitted voters exceed 100k in multiple swing states, and they’re not going to be swayed by messaging about how trump is worse.

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Pedro Leon de la Barra's avatar

That’s your one wish? Really? Man, you should be a little more ambitious with your wishes

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Bob Lewis's avatar

I just want him to shut up, I'm tired of the clamor.

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Kimberly Ganley's avatar

Why can’t the Trumpers understand that all the cheating and law breaking he has engaged in has hurt us - the people who pay higher taxes! He made himself richer at our expense. We have been the victims not him! We will continue to be the victims as he gets in bed with foreign interests.

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Brian Beutler's avatar

Not just taxes either. The fraud he committed makes everyone else's interest rates marginally higher.

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Luke Christofferson's avatar

Of the four buckets of things that could happen to influence the race:

Trump does stuff to make voters like him more

Trump does stuff to make voters like him less

Biden does stuff to make voters like him more

Biden does stuff to make voters like him less

Trump doing stuff to make voters like him more is clearly the least plausible. And I feel good about the odds that Trump does stuff to make voters like him less and decent about Biden doing stuff to make voters like him more.

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Brian Beutler's avatar

Totally agree with this bucket matrix (?) but I am not certain about Trump. He, personally, will do things that put voters off. But his campaign isn't all menace, threat, and lies. It's cornball stuff like this, too, which can be *very* effective. https://x.com/trumpdailyposts/status/1770594628796104756?s=46

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Luke Christofferson's avatar

Damn that's a good ad. You're right, his campaign is still able to make good appeals to voters even if he himself is not. So it won't be a total no-show there, but I still contend that's the bucket that clearly has the least potential.

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Laura Reich's avatar

People have no idea what would happen if Trump would win. It will be terrible. I am

Hopeful women will get us over the finish line.

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Frank Monachello's avatar

Earth to Democratic National Committee: Trump and the GOP are who they are. What really matters is whether or not YOU are mounting a massive ground and media campaign produced by your Hollywood friends (perhaps with key celebrity spokespersons like Swift, Beyonce, Parton, Oprah etc.) to grow voter registration, especially among the young, and maximize voter turnout among all Democratic-leaning voters in every Congressional District in 2024 (not just the blue and purple ones in the seven key States)? Have you set an 80% turnout goal? Because America's typical 63% turnout might not cut it in an election in which the stakes are the highest they’ve been since the Civil War and the authoritarians and the Christian Nationalists are energized like never before.

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Jeff McNamee's avatar

How, exactly, would Dems prepare for unknown BS? Even if they did prepare, what do you expect to come of it? “Let’s make sure we have a plan for when a Republican lies about Trump’s crimes” inevitably should generate a reply that says, “what do we expect the result of this preparation to be?”. That’s what I don’t get about this line of criticism. They could do everything you want and it won’t matter.

People saw 1/6 with their own eyes on TV and 45% of the USA is still OK with Trump. THAT, my friend, is the problem.

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