That reverse psychology at work again

Are we all walking into a trap?

I’m quite aware that Donald Trump was indicted, but someone can indict a ham sandwich, too. Without getting into the merits of the case, we can bet that those on the Left are giddy with anticipation of seeing Donald Trump in an orange jumpsuit.

But while we on the Right generally think the Left is a bunch of morons, such is not the case. They ARE misguided in their quest for absolute power over us, but they have a good way of manipulating events to get a certain reaction out of people and this indictment of Donald Trump is one of those events. Radio host and fellow Substacker Erick Erickson put it this way:

What you may not know is that Donald Trump’s path to reelection just got a whole lot easier. With an economy heading down the drain and every Republican lining up behind him, Donald Trump will fully fund his presidential campaign by selling autographed pictures of his mug shot for thousands of dollars. A dim-witted county district attorney is helping to reelect the man his party fears most.

Most people either love or hate Donald Trump - there is no in-between. But is he on a glide path to re-election like Erickson believes?

Consider this set of facts: Yesterday as I wrote this I went through about a months’ worth of polling on RealClearPolitics in order to find certain data sets. There were several items on my agenda:

Biden job approval: Out of 25 recent polls I found, Joe Biden’s job approval was underwater on 23 of them. There was one that was even and an outlier where he was +4 back in February. On the average, Biden was about 9 points underwater so one can’t say he’s doing an especially good job; then again, most of our recent presidents have been underwater on approval for much of their terms so this is nothing unusual.

Perhaps the unusual thing is the amount of propping up done by the mainstream media, but that’s built into the equation when a Democrat is president.

Biden vs. Trump: There were seven polls rating Biden vs. Trump on a national scale. If it were the World Series, Biden would have won Game 7 to take the series, as he won 4 polls and Trump won 3. Trump won each of his by four or five points, while Biden ranged from 2-point victories to a 13-point outlier.

Biden vs. others: Most of these were against Ron DeSantis, although a few measured Nikki Haley against Biden. Out of six for DeSantis, he won four against Biden by one to three points while Biden had one-point and four-point victories. Biden won two out of three against Nikki Haley (by 2 and 3) but Haley beat him by four in the oldest poll. DeSantis won the last two matchups against Scranton Joe.

State races: Not many here, but they were interesting. Remember, this is how the Electoral College is won. From oldest to newest we go.

In California, no surprise: Joe Biden wins over either Trump (59-29) or DeSantis (56-34.) In Arizona, though, Biden beats Trump 39-37 but loses to DeSantis 36-35. A DeSantis victory would be a pickup from 2020. The same is true in Virginia, as Trump falls to Biden 47-46 but DeSantis wins 48-43. (Favorite son Glenn Youngkin would trounce Biden by 55-39.) A DeSantis win would be another GOP gain from 2020.

Trump loses by 7 to Biden in Pennsylvania, 48-41, while in New Hampshire both Trump and DeSantis lose to Biden, 42-38 and 42-37 respectively. (Another GOP favorite son candidacy: Chris Sununu beats Biden 44-36.)

Next is Florida. In an early March poll both Republicans win as Trump prevails 50-43 and DeSantis 51-42, but later in the month DeSantis maintained his lead (46-43) while Biden and Trump slipped to a 44-44 tie.

Finally, in North Carolina (a GOP win in 2020) Donald Trump now loses to Joe Biden 45-43 while Ron DeSantis holds the state, 44-41.

So out of seven states, Ron DeSantis puts two back into the Republican column while Donald Trump is a net loss of one and possibly two.

Yet in state after state, Donald Trump wins a head-to-head primary - Republican voters in Kansas, Arizona, Virginia, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and most recently Florida (!) prefer Trump, while DeSantis won in just California and lost earlier leads in both Florida and Pennsylvania. Trump also maintains a lead nationwide.

What’s up with that? I’m not going to say I’m a torrid backer of Ron DeSantis, but these people who back Trump regardless of what he says and does are going to give us another four years of Joe Biden and more permanent damage to our nation.

Notice that Joe Biden won four of the seven head-to-head battles with Trump, which is the previous state of play, “fortified” election and all. But these elections are won and lost in the states, and that’s where Donald Trump has to prevail. You may think his indictment is unfair, well, so do I. You may think the polls are rigged - pollaganda - and to a certain extent at this stage, so do I.

But remember that Donald Trump won the 2016 election because he received billions of dollars’ worth of free media, and the reason he got all that free media was because the Democrat-media complex correctly calculated he would be the easiest Republican candidate to beat. What they didn’t factor in was how entitled Hillary Clinton believed she was and (consequently) how lazy of a campaigner she turned out to be. That’s why she lost in her “firewall” of Rust Belt states (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin.) In 2020 Trump only held on to Ohio out of that quartet with which he secured the 2016 race, in part because the free media he now received was all bad despite a great pre-pandemic economic record and list of accomplishments.

But the independent voters who gave the GOP a chance after eight years of Barack Obama abandoned them when they got tired of the Trump circus and blamed him for the pandemic. And remember: the last time a major party nominated an immediate previous loser for the White House for a rematch was back in 1956, and Adlai Stevenson lost to Ike again.

So I’m not sold that the third time will be the charm for Donald Trump, and the Democrats are banking on the idea that the Trump deadenders will get him nominated anyway. Told you they weren’t dumb, just misguided.