When your candidate is a mentally impaired octogenarian who has been underwater in the polls for the bulk of his failed presidency, it's understandable that you would panic about his chances of winning the next election — an election you were likely hoping he wouldn't run in.
But incumbents are untouchable, and unless they voluntarily decide not to run, you're kind of stuck with them. This is why Democrats have generally sought to find alternative ways to thwart Trump's campaign, such as booting him off the ballot or using the Justice Department to put him in jail. You know, because of the democracy and stuff.
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The effort to get Trump booted off the ballot failed when the Supreme Court stepped in, and the lawfare strategy has been slowly falling apart. As it stands right now, the Supreme Court is likely to make a ruling on presidential immunity next month, the lead prosecutor in the Georgia case is potentially going to be booted, and the classified documents case in Florida has been indefinitely postponed.
Now, it looks like the Democrats' hopes of jailing Trump rest on the New York City trial — a case so weak that the Justice Department and Alvin Bragg's predecessor refused to prosecute it. The weak case has been further undermined by damaging testimony from the prosecution's own witnesses, to the extent that there's actually a glimmer of hope the partisan jury may not convict Trump.
At the very least, Democrats have been hoping that the trial would hurt Trump's image. Except, it hasn't. He remains ahead in most polls, virtually unscathed by the efforts to put him in jail.
Not only does the public see through this partisan effort to put him in jail, but they're actually kind of sick of it.
According to CNN's Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny, swing state voters have expressed feelings of "disgust" and "fatigue" towards the ongoing trial.
“We have no idea at all, the political fallout from this, if there is any, from this trial,” Zeleny explained on Monday. “It’s kind of remarkable to think that there wouldn’t be, but if you look at these battleground states that are going to be central to this reelection, the former president is beating the current president outside the margin of error in every state but two, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”
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“We will have to wait and see what this verdict is and how voters are assessing it,” he added. “But as I talk to voters across the country in these battleground states […], many of them aren’t paying attention at all and are disgusted and sort of tired with this. But the numbers beyond the horse race are so interesting. The reason that President Biden is having problems, it’s because of young voters, voters of color, and inflation. That is the issue on the minds of voters, not this.”
We're all disgusted by it, frankly.
