How Can Anyone Vote for Trump?

The last time an incumbent President tried to fix a Presidential election before Trump’s 2020 effort was in 1972, when another Republican named Richard Nixon had a bunch who broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex and were arrested on June 17, 1972.

The burglars, led by a White House staffer named Howard Hunt, would get indicted in September but in November, Nixon won the election and carried 49 states. Obviously, the media interest in Watergate, which was primarily occasional reportage by Woodward and Bernstein in the Washington Post, had no impact on how voters felt about giving Nixon a second term.

I was as much of a Nixon hater in the 1970’s as I am a Trump hater today. And just as I found it rather remarkable how little interest was caused by Watergate in the 1972 Presidential campaign, I find it equally remarkable that facing multiple criminal trials for promoting the fake electors scam as well as the January 6th Capitol assault, doesn’t seem to have tarnished Donald Trump’s current attempt to get re-elected to any great degree.

In fact, now that Kamala has chosen Tim Walz to round out the Democrat(ic) slate, the GOP’s narrative about the election is focusing on the extreme radicalism of the blue team candidates versus — ready? — the moderation of Trump and Vance.