KIRO NEWSRADIO OPINION
Ross: Trump’s post-indictment popularity shows character no longer counts
Mar 31, 2023, 7:49 AM | Updated: 12:05 pm
Trang Le of Orlando, right, and Maria Korynsel of North Palm Beach show their support for former President Donald Trump after the news broke that Trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury, Thursday, March 30, 2023, near Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
It finally happened – not only was Donald Trump indicted, he was very indicted.
And the remarkable thing about this drama in New York City is that, in hindsight, none of it was necessary.
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If there’s any lesson to be learned from this, it’s that if a politician gets caught in an embarrassing allegation of sexual impropriety of some kind, don’t try to hide it! Don’t pay hush money!
Because voters don’t care anymore.
Trump’s numbers prove it.
The latest polls show support for Trump jumped from 43% among Republican primary voters in February to 54% in March.
So he could have just said – maybe I did it, maybe I didn’t, so what?
And he would still have been elected. All he had to do was listen to himself.
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?” Trump said.
And it’s not just Republicans, when Bill Clinton was impeached for his little recreational episode inside the Oval Office, his approval rating jumped 10 points to 73%, which was not only an all-time high for Clinton but also beat Ronald Reagan!
It’s difficult to accept this now, but in America, character no longer counts. We live in a post-character society.
By the way – how happy is Congressman George Santos right now!
And one more thing, I know there’s some anxiety over what Trump supporters might do in response to this, so let me play you this clip from former Trump fixer Michael Cohen who was on CNN and knows a thing or two about New York.
“I promise you one thing, being a lifelong New Yorker and knowing many, many NYPD officers, New York is not the place that you want to be stupid,” Cohen said. “The New York Police Department, they’re the best in the world. So any stupidity that Trump is going to try to incite here in New York, it’s not going to go over well for any of them.”
And I can also verify, as someone who once had a former New York cop working as my producer, even if you’re a tattooed Proud Boy, when the NYPD tells you to stay behind the barricade, you and your tattoo should probably obey.
Listen to Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
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