Trump’s troubles aren’t hindering his run

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This article was published 13/01/2024 (816 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Will Americans put Donald Trump back in the White House?”

There is no question I get asked more frequently. It doesn’t matter whether those asking are in Boulder, Colo. or Beausejour, Man. My answer is, probably. Yes, I get that Trump is facing civil court fines of hundreds of millions of dollars and criminal sentences that would see him serving buckets of hard time.

He remains highly electable because his Democratic Party opponent may not be.

Americans are living in what’s frequently referred to as a sourpuss economy. Technically, it’s the best in the world. But most Americans aren’t feeling what the charts are saying. Mortgage interests are painfully high. The price of bacon and eggs is much higher than it was four years ago when Donald Trump was president. To most Americans, the current occupant of the White House is too old.

Worse than that, many think that his eggs are scrambled. That may be neurologically inaccurate. But it’s politically truthful.

Once you put the scope to how voters feel about January, 2024 America, it’s not difficult to determine who they want putting their left hand on the Bible in January, 2025 — the one who says “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Many in the U.S. and Canada may want the coming presidential election to be about democracy, with a focus on Jan. 6, 2021. But the political truth is for most voters that historic day is ancient history.

You can watch Canadian or American news channels all day long and get the impression that this election is about Trump’s attempted insurrection. But the political truth tells us it’s about Joe Biden’s crucifixion.

Free Press readers know that I don’t pay this visit on Saturdays auditioning for journalism awards. I’ve been given more media awards than any human being deserves.

At this stage of my life, the only reward I want is to know that my Manitoba neighbours are receiving my deeply personal feelings about the real world we live in. While I may get no pleasure in telling you that our American neighbours are migrating back to MAGA, to say otherwise would be to indulge in wishful thinking — not political analysis.

I mentioned the consensus view of Canadian and American News networks.

But it would be a sin of omission to not tell you there is one major news network that doesn’t share their view — Fox News.

That network favours the Republican Party every day, 365 days a year. I don’t need to read newspaper columns about how they work. I’ve worked for Fox News. Twenty-two years ago, the chairman and CEO of Fox News, Roger Ailes, flew me into New York twice to test my ideological mettle. My job was to be consistently conservative, to clash with guests on the liberal side of the great divide.

But Ailes expected me to do much more than just confront them.

“Chuck, I didn’t bring you to New York to rile the Liberals. I want you to roll them. I don’t want you to challenge their character. I want to assassinate it.”

As you can imagine, he tested me in his office before putting me on the stage. The rhetoric I improvised in private moistened his eyes — made him surrender to his basest instincts. The proverbial pot of gold was mine if I could fire those bullets on camera.

My father, the president of Adler’s Tailor Shop, mentored me to excel at customer service.

But despite several outings on Fox News, I couldn’t bring myself to deploy the hyper-rightwing rhetoric that I offered in the C-suite at 1211 Avenue Of The Americas, New York, N.Y.

If I were a rhetorical assassin on Fox News tonight, I would be telling the American homeland that Joe Biden is responsible for the home invasion of the United States — that his liberals want barbarians to pour into the country — to plunder the economy and poison their children. I would declare that Joe Biden’s liberals are dismantling the American dream. That four more years of Democrat disease will make the living envy the dead.

The next time a friend asks you if Donald Trump is returning to the Oval Office, you can reliably give them a one word answer — probably. Why? Because a critical mass of American voters believe the words Mike Adler’s son will never say to a live camera.

Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster. charles@charlesadler.com