True peace rests on the pillars of individual freedom, human rights, national self-determination, and respect for the rule of law. – Ronald Reagan (Republican)

If Jon Stewart & Stephen King collaborated…

‘This is the Final Battle’

Republicans, as you’d imagine, are taking the news very well.

As is often the case these days, GOP reactions to the verdict took place in pro-Trump split-screen: One faction uttering po-faced denunciations of the New York jury’s supposed violations of cherished American norms, the other openly gibbering for Democratic blood.

Shortly after the verdict was announced, Trump posted a video to social media with audio from a recent rally set to ominous music: “This is the final battle,” he said in voiceover:

With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media. And we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.

The Federalist’s Sean Davis has some thoughts on how Trump might go about doing that: “In 2016, the presidential race was decided based on candidates releasing lists of potential Supreme Court nominees,” he tweeted. “In 2024, I want to see lists of which Democrat officials are going to be put in prison. This is what happens when you cross the Rubicon.”

Davis went on: “Biden and Garland should be indicted in Texas tomorrow for their ongoing criminal human trafficking conspiracy across the border and into the state of Texas, in direct contravention of state law.”

The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh was thinking on a similar track: “Donald Trump should make and publish a list of ten high ranking Democrat criminals who he will have arrested when he takes office. First on the list should be Joe Biden. Second should be Joe’s crackhead son.”

Or here was lawyer Mike Davis, a pro-Trump attack dog whom Donald Trump Jr. has floated as a possible pick for attorney general in a second Trump term: “Dear Republicans: If your response to Biden’s Republic-ending lawfare against Trump is: 1. We must respect the process and/or 2. We are too principled to retaliate, please do two things: 1. Fuck off 2. Leave the party. You are too weak, stupid, and dangerous to keep around.”

“Import the Third World, become the Third World,” tweeted Tucker Carlson. “That’s what we just saw. This won’t stop Trump. He’ll win the election if he’s not killed first. But it does mark the end of the fairest justice system in the world. Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your family.”

Elected Republicans mostly stayed in the po-faced camp. But what was most striking about their statements was how quickly they came out. “Today is a shameful day in American history,” House Speaker Mike Johnson tweeted minutes after the verdict. “The weaponization of our justice system has been a hallmark of the Biden administration, and the decision today is further evidence that Democrats will stop at nothing to silence dissent and crush their political opponents.”

“This verdict is a disgrace, and this trial should have never happened,” Sen. John Cornyn, a candidate for the top Senate GOP job once Mitch McConnell steps down, tweeted just minutes later. “Now more than ever, we need to rally around @realdonaldtrump, take back the White House, and get this country back on track.”

About an hour after that, Sen. John Thune—Cornyn’s top rival for the top job—weighed in too. “I’ve been on a flight, but I just landed and saw the news,” Thune wrote. “This case was politically motivated from the beginning, and today’s verdict does nothing to absolve the partisan nature of this prosecution. Regardless of outcome, more and more Americans are realizing we cannot survive four more years of Joe Biden.”

These GOP leaders may have been wise to get their statements out quick. Team Trump was stalking the party fence last night, ready to purge anyone who got off message.

Here, for instance, was Larry Hogan, the centrist former governor of Maryland and Trump skeptic who is Republicans’ best hope to win a Maryland Senate seat in years: “Regardless of the result, I urge all Americans to respect the verdict and the legal process. At this dangerously divided moment in our history, all leaders—regardless of party—must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship. We must reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law.”

Trump senior adviser Chris LaCivita responded: “You just ended your campaign.”

—Andrew Egger for The Bulwark

MEANWHILE

Jonathan V. Last, also with The Bulwark, reminds us:

It would be nice to believe that a felony conviction will cause the scales to fall from the eyes of American voters. That over the next 20 weeks the public will realize that Donald Trump is manifestly unfit for office.

But we wake up this morning and the American people are still the same people.

• 55 percent of them think the economy is shrinking, when we’re actually the envy of the world.
• 49 percent think the stock market is down when it’s at historic highs.
• 49 percent think unemployment is at a 50-year high, when it’s at one of the lowest sustained levels, ever.

These are not the views of people who live in the real world. They are the views of a decadent people who believe that they have the luxury to play make-believe with political life.

And as encouraging as Trump’s conviction is, we’ve gotta go back to the real world in which those people are at least 45 percent of the country, and possibly more.

It isn’t Alvin Bragg or Joe Biden that brought us to this place.

We are here because—and only because—of the actions of Donald J. Trump.

And the people who are tut-tutting are basically saying that it’s the rule of law’s fault for wearing a red dress to the bar on a Saturday night.