There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute

Donald Trump enters Manhattan for his arraignment hearing 4/4/2024.

* A common origin story attributes the quote to P.T. Barnum, but that is unlikely. Versions of it have been around for centuries. It probably was in widespread usage among 19th-century gamblers before anyone attempted to smear Barnum with saying it.

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Some have referred to the Republican Party as the “stupid party”. Certainly, more than a few use the phrase to denigrate anyone who disagrees with them. However, if the last three elections are any indication, the GOP might not be “stupid”, but they are proving themselves to be susceptible to Lucy’s tactics to get Charlie Brown to kick the football.

Trump is a loser because he’s repulsive, but all the Democrats have to do to get the Republicans to make Trump the face of the party is to make a grand show of persecuting him in impeachments, investigations, serial attacks on him and his family, and now indictments. Indicting him worked wonderfully for the donkey party. Trump, at least for now, is the face of the GOP. The result could be a four-peat after 2018, 2020, and 2022. Simply put, Donald Trump is the Democrats’ most effective weapon against the Republicans. And watch Republicans walk right into it. Lucy walks away laughing, thinking that “There’s a sucker born every minute” as Charlie Brown lies flat on the ground in humiliation.

May be an illustration of text

The Democrats’ Lucy has learned that the Republican Charlie Brown walks right into the confidence scheme every time, like a moth drawn to the light. Opinion polls show, once again, that it is working. Trump’s approval numbers and donations skyrocket. Polls abound showing Trump with a growing and sizeable lead over DeSantis as publicity built in anticipation of the indictment mounted (see below). Since last Thursday, the day before the indictment, a Trump campaign spokesman said the campaign reeled in $7 million in contributions (see below).

A measure of Trump-mania in the GOP could be a comparison of the reactions to the possible indictment between the general public and registered Republicans. Right off the bat, I believe the indictment to be a moral monstrosity; yet, the comparison sets the stage for what will likely happen in a 2024 general election. Two polls a week before the indictment indicated 55-56% of Americans found the Bragg investigations into Trump fair. But for Republicans, 80% considered it to be a “witch hunt” (see below). However you slice it, a thoroughly senescent Democrat candidate in 2020 – or a Democrat stroke victim in a Pennsylvania Senate race against a Trump-endorsed opponent in 2022 – becomes competitive in the general election when running against Trump. What’s popular in Republican circles – like Trump – turns out to be not so popular among the general voting public. We’ve got a history to prove it.

If GOP partisans brush me off by pointing to the 2016 shocker, you are like the big post man in basketball who couldn’t make a free throw but drains a three-pointer at the start of the game. For the rest of the game, he’s camped at the three-line launching airballs. Trump hit a three in 2016 but then threw bricks in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Now, Republicans are ready to reinstate Trump at the three-line once again with the now usual result.

Is John Fetterman's wife, Gisele, the 'de facto candidate' for Pennsylvania Senate? - Fox Latest ... — The senescent Joe Biden is greeted at the airport by the stroke victim John Fetterman.

The Democrats are ready, as they never were in 2016, with their fount of small-dollar donations, big-chunk contributions of lefty billionaires, and vote-by-mail harvesting schemes. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. The Democrats aren’t waiting to be fooled.

But Republicans are. The Democrats are doing whatever it takes to keep Trump in the limelight and therefore the face of the party. They can’t run on an inflation-rattled economy; energy costs driving people into the poorhouse; soaring crime; fiscal insanity; a bumbling foreign policy; boys in girls’ sports, locker rooms and bathrooms; neo-Marxist school curriculums; and greenie utopian campaigns that are destroying livelihoods. But they do have Trump. Trump is repulsive; he turns off more people than he turns on. He’s a winner among a rattled base in a party primary, but loser in the general. The Democrats know it.

The Democrats are quite crafty. They know enough to indict a ham sandwich, and watch Republicans flock to the rancid ham sandwich. Apparently, Republicans never listened to The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. They are all into that – getting fooled, that is. Gamblers are right: there’s a sucker born every minute, and there’s a lot of them in the GOP.

May be an image of sky and text — Trump baggage!

RogerG

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