Donald Trump has warned that putting him under house arrest will bring America to a “breaking point” in the days following his criminal conviction in New York. If he is re-elected, he may attempt to bring charges against his political opponents, according to his statements. According to him, “revenge can be justified.”
The ex-president made the statement at a Thursday rally in Arizona, stating, “we are not going to have a country anymore” if he is unable to have his guilty judgment overturned on appeal.
More conservative Republicans have advocated for Trump to soften his tone after his conviction, but the former president seems hesitant to do so, casting doubt on any prospect that he can compromise his hard-line stance and gain back the moderate supporters he lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
This part of the president’s speech will always be there, according to John Watson, the former chair of the Republican Party in Georgia. “He has decided this is the way he will fight the election.”
According to Watson, the “only encouragement is that there is a pivot, and he again talks about those issues that are going to decide, in the minds of the electorate, which person they choose is best to lead the country forward.”
When it comes to his political career, Trump has barely shown any signs of modulation. As a result of his 2020 loss, the Capitol brawl, and a GOP primary where protest votes blocked his candidacy, some Republicans pushed for Trump to take a more amicable stance. The only Republican to defeat Trump in a primary this year—former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley—warned last month that Trump “would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me… and not assume that they’re just going to be with him” when she declared her intention to vote for him.
Following Trump’s trial in New York, these issues are coming to light again.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) remarked in an interview that Trump “should be conscious” of the impact it could have on voters when asked about Trump’s comments on the ruling.
Bacon expressed his hope that he is. “The other 10% is crucial, even though 90% have already decided.”
According to polls taken just after the hush money case conviction, Trump may be losing support by continuing to bring up the matter. For example, when asked about the verdict, respondents to a redo of a recent New York Times/Siena College poll revealed that Trump’s three-point lead over Biden had shrunk to just one point. An overwhelming majority of Americans do not share Trump’s belief that the Manhattan trial was “rigged.” A CBS News/YouGov survey found that 56% of individuals think the former president was given a fair trial.
Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and executive director of Republican Voters Against Trump, speculated that Trump may not have realized the need of appealing to more center-right voters. “He seems to believe that the dissatisfaction with Biden and the state of the economy will entice these suburbanites with college degrees to vote for him again.”
As she put it, “there is a little bit of that,” but she also predicted that many suburban swing voters would see Trump and think, ‘I can’t do it.’ The Given the circumstances, particularly the conviction and the events of January 6,
Nine people who had voted for Trump twice but were already unlikely to do so again were part of a focus group that Longwell ran the day after the verdict, and their opinions were confirmed. In her words, “as just more confirmation of how unfit he is,” was how they perceived the conviction.
“The weaponization of our nation’s legal institutions is a scam that voters are seeing through, and it will go down in American history as one of the greatest political miscalculations ever,” Trump’s campaign said in a statement on Friday, pointing to polls in which voters do not appear to be defecting from Trump.
Furthermore, Trump is reiterating his 2020 stolen-election rhetoric regarding the judiciary, thereby strengthening his stance on the matter. Upon leaving the Manhattan courtroom last week, he immediately started asserting that “our whole country is being rigged.” Even after friendly interviewers offered him off ramps, he has continued to ignore them. In response to Phil McGraw’s accusation that he doesn’t “have time to get even,” he has said that “revenge does take time,” but that it can be “justified.”
This is similar to the type of angry rhetoric that Trump used throughout his prior presidential campaigns to rally his base. Even after his conviction, it appears to be having the same impact, since his campaign has received massive amounts of money from internet donors.
“Check out his fundraising,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), an old friend of Haley’s who backed her in the GOP primary, explaining to AWN. What they’re doing to him is terrible, and people know it. Allow him to continue doing it. Send him to prison. Take a look at the results.
Republican Study Committee head and Oklahoma representative Kevin Hern stated he would not recommend a shift in Trump’s rhetorical style, citing the fact that moderates and independents “are concerned with the law — very concerned.”
“You have to state it as you see it,” Hern told AWN. “And every day for weeks, he sat in that courtroom, and it had to be incredibly frustrating for him.”
On Thursday, Trump held a rally in Arizona, a swing state where he was defeated by Biden in the 2020 election, and this irritated him. Even there, he didn’t try to win over anybody other than his ardent fan group; instead, he insisted that an appeals court overturn his sentence.
According to Barrett Marson, a Republican strategist in the state, “It is easy for Donald Trump to convince his most ardent supporters that first they stole the election and now they’re trying to put me away for good.”
According to Marson, Trump must address the moderate and right-leaning independents who will be crucial to his victory in the general election by providing them with additional incentives to support him. “Please tell us how you intend to reduce the cost of gasoline, interest rates, and inflation.”