MacKinnon believes that the more indictments Trump is hit with, the more his supporters will rally around him, sweeping him to the nomination.
Then, according to MacKinnon's theory of Democrats’ thinking, Trump will lose the general election because he has a unique ability to motivate Democrats to vote against him; whereas many would be disinclined to vote at all if the GOP nominates another candidate.
So far, things seem to be going as planned, with Trump’s lead over the Republican field expanding with each additional indictment.
It’s the second half of the theory that MacKinnon believes could be a problem.
He writes that perhaps “the strategy has gone way too far and is now making Trump sympathetic to voters who were once over him, and a potential martyr to others.”
“To a growing number of voters — and legal experts — the latest indictment of Trump and 18 other defendants in Fulton County, Georgia crossed a line where it now seems as if charges are being invented simply to get the former president.”
“Voters not attached to the extremes of either political party may now be saying, ‘Wait a minute. They are now charging Trump with what? These Democrats now want to criminalize speech and past public statements? I may not like that Trump character, but this is starting to seem un-American.’”
In the end, Democrats may wish they’d never tried to boost Trump in the primaries.
Read the op-ed at TheHill.com.
