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Trump's 'living in fairyland' if he thinks he's not getting convicted: conservative pundit https://t.co/2xzFk9wjW5

— Raw Story (@RawStory) January 31, 2024

Host John Roberts noted during a panel discussion on Fox News that a Trump conviction "could really swing people's preferences in terms of who they vote for for president." 

Roberts then asked Common Sense Society Senior Fellow Christopher Bedford, "How much risk is all of that to Trump?" 

"Well, it's real," Bedford warned. "And I've got to take that seriously." 

"A lot of these attorneys or attorney generals are throwing everything that they can, and prosecutors are throwing anything they can at the wall," he added. "So Trump's got to be living in fairyland if he thinks that none of these things are going to be convictions and none of these things are going to stick." 

But Bedford said that most voters had made up their minds. 

"Either they think that this guy is guilty of all the above or they think that it's completely a hoax or it's something he's just being politically persecuted," he explained. (emphasis added)

Polls dominate our political narrative. What the polls say is true, is true. And when polls determine voter turnout, as in the famous election year when AP called the Presidential race hours before polls closed in California and people literally left the lines at polling stations and went home, we can definitively say polls affect elections. But otherwise? It’s sheer guesswork, and every conclusion is based on…polls

Might as well say it’s turtles all the way down; it’d be more honest.

Now polls tell us Trump loses votes if he’s convicted of a crime before November. Which is probably true, but how will we ever know? But my real interest is that highlighted portion. I don’t think the election is all but decided by now. My experience is that campaigns mean something (which partly explains why we are in perpetual campaign mode. Political reporters start in on the next election the morning after the last one.). I don’t think the electorate is even paying attention yet. But my support for that position is…polls.

Or turtles; all the way down.

And if I’m wrong, or if Trump is convicted and loses in November (I expect both to happen, but I don’t necessarily draw even a correlation between both events. Except I think most voters don’t want a felon for president. Local politics can elect a crazy; even state politics. POTUS is our only national office. We tend not to want a crook there.), how do we prove any criminal conviction (if there’s more than one) was the cause? Maybe the electorate is locked in, and Trump has already lost. Maybe a criminal conviction is the “October surprise” voters are waiting for to change/cement their decision. Maybe none of the above.

We can’t know now; and we can’t know in December. It will be what it will be, and we can’t predict it and be safe in our expectations. That’s how Hillary lost in the first place. Nobody wanted to vote for her, but nobody thought Trump could win. Had it not been for the electoral college, he still wouldn’t have. And now we’re in a post-Dobbs world and arguing over whether the 14th Amendment means what it says. I think we should worry less about what the polls say “they” will do, and spend more energy on what we can do.

Otherwise, we just abdicate to the turtles. All the way down.