Poll indicates support for Trump indictment
I was recently interacting with several people who were jubilant at the Trump indictment. That attitude didn’t surprise me at all, although it saddened me. These people are quite bright and well-educated, but they are Democrats and they get their news from the usual sources and are surrounded by other Democrats. It is my distinct impression that, were I to quiz them on the supposed legal basis for such an indictment, they wouldn’t know and what’s more they probably wouldn’t care all that much. If I tried to inform them, they would probably think that I’m the one who’s biased.
Plus – and I can’t reiterate this enough – most people really don’t follow legal reasoning, even if those people are quite smart. It’s boring. And a lot of people feel that it consists of meaningless rhetorical tricks, so why bother to care?
So now there’s this recent ABC news poll on the subject of whether Trump should have been indicted:
Currently, just over half of Americans (52%) view the charges against Trump as serious (was 50% last week). Additionally, half of Americans (50%) say Trump should have been charged with a crime in this case, up five percentage points from last week. The slight changes in both cases look to be drawing from people who said “don’t know” in the earlier survey, a number that is down six percentage points in both questions…
In a new question, most Americans (53%) believe that Trump intentionally did something illegal in this case. About one in ten (11%) say he acted wrong but it wasn’t intentional, and a fifth (20%) believe he did nothing wrong.
Democrats overwhelmingly think he should have been charged and most also don’t think the charges were politically motivated. Republicans overwhelmingly don’t think he should have been charged and also think the charges were politically motivated. Independents are, as usual, in-between, but on this question they bear slightly more resemblance to the Democrats than to the Republicans.
You may think this poll is garbage, and it may well be. But the results seem very plausible to me. The media’s spin, plus the legal ignorance of most people, does the trick. The poll questions don’t seem to have included anything about knowledge of what is actually in the indictment or whether it’s a crime. I would wager that most people haven’t a clue, except that it has something to do with payoffs to a porn actress. But actually, it has to do with how the utterly legal (and rather commonplace) payoffs were recorded. It’s not even at all clear that Trump ever had sex (in the Clintonian or any other sense) with Stormy Daniels. Most people are probably unaware of that, too.
This poll may indeed be an accurate reflection of the lamentable fact that at least half the nation has been propagandized, indoctrinated, programmed, and conditioned to the point of being unable to differentiate fact from fiction, truth from untruth. That so many citizens are also so easily susceptible to the blandishments of advertising suggests perhaps the principal reason that many, over the centuries, have been more than a little skeptical of democracy.
The Democrats I know have a view of Trump and his associates that is based on emotions. You can tell them that the indictment has 34 counts because Michael Cohen was issued 23 vouchers which he redeemed for 11 checks, but it has no effect on their thinking. I have a 2d degree relative who tried to make the case to men for the abuse Gen. Flynn received. Most of the people you know are feckless schmucks or of unjust disposition. This is the result of 60-odd years of cultural decay.
==
Keep in mind that Democratic voters are drawn from the segment of the population that has no conception of regular rules, respect for procedure, or treating like cases like.
The entire premise of the poll is absurd. There’s a reason we don’t arrest or charge people based on popular opinion. I’ll bet not one in ten of the responders could even describe what the actual charges are, much less the relevant laws. They may as well have just asked “Do you like Trump?” as that is all the poll reveals, if even that.
And then there’s the question of whether the story would have even been reported if the numbers were reversed.
I’ve sure wondered about Stormy’s claims…she sure seems more like a woman scorned than a woman who had an ongoing affair.
I’m not surprised by the ABC poll results. Many folks (disproportionately so among Democrats) enjoy watching the government persecuting those who do not share their ideology.
For the inverse situation, many folks (disproportionately so among Democrats) enjoy watching the government decline to prosecute those who engage in criminal acts against those who do not share their ideology.
The above 2 paragraphs are consistent with the fact that at least 60,000,000 folks voted for Biden in 2020.
Neo. I suspect that, even if you were to hit your friends with scopolamine, or whatever it might be that causes them to think so that they understood the facts, it wouldn’t matter.
They’d say we need to get him for SOMETHING, and facts don’t matter except as they can be spun into something vaguely useful.
I wouldn’t try to discuss this sort of thing with such in my world since it would only enrage them and force them to confess they don’t really care that it’s bogus. Or, maybe it would be fun….
I was recently interacting with several people who were jubilant at the Trump indictment. That attitude didn’t surprise me at all, although it saddened me. These people are quite bright and well-educated, but they are Democrats and they get their news from the usual sources and are surrounded by other Democrats. It is my distinct impression that, were I to quiz them on the supposed legal basis for such an indictment, they wouldn’t know and what’s more they probably wouldn’t care all that much. If I tried to inform them, they would probably think that I’m the one who’s biased.
I’ll be blunt and very pessimistic. My impression is most Americans at a fundamental level don’t actually believe in any of the bill of rights. (This includes most historians, lawyers, and judges) What’s worse is that they don’t appreciate how bad of an idea this truly is.
I re-read 1984 in 2014 and remember thinking I couldn’t figure where the “two minutes of hate ” fit in. Guess they showed me.
I’ll be blunt and very pessimistic. My impression is most Americans at a fundamental level don’t actually believe in any of the bill of rights. (This includes most historians, lawyers, and judges) What’s worse is that they don’t appreciate how bad of an idea this truly is.
==
Oh, they do, pro forma. It’s just that the recognition of rights is premised on them getting what they want and their amour propre being attended to. You might have thought sixty years ago that a disrespect for rights was a characteristic of crude and impetuous people. In our own time, its a characteristic of the professional-managerial stratum (who have all sorts of excuses, few of them well thought out).
==
If you follow Jonathan Turley, you’ll notice how the partisan Democrats on his boards have grown escalatingly accusatory and abusive to him.
So it looks like we all read the headline and absorbed the narrative ABC wanted us to take away….
Reading the poll methodology (not sure why no one else did) it’s a random sample of 566 adults adjusted using weights they don’t specify, and one of those weights is set using
Party ID benchmarks are from recent ABC News/Washington Post telephone polls.
No possibility of bias there!
They also have tendentious questions such as
“His actions related to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021”
“His efforts to change the results of the 2020 presidential election”
This Trump fellow sounds like a bad guy! Storming the capital and changing election results!
When I was a boy (he said hitching up his belt) we had courses in school where we learned about propaganda and loaded language. Guess the poll folks were sick that day.
If I got to write the poll and I got to describe Biden’s actions in a similarly loaded way, I could get that kind of support for putting Biden in prison ESPECIALLY if I got to determine the party affiliation weights from my own polling.
I suggested this the other day, but the underlying facts are horrible for Trump and his supporters. He paid off a porn star who claims that he cheated on his wife with her while said wife was recovering from childbirth.
A crime is facts plus law. I think neo is correct that most people, even intelligent people, don’t bother themselves with the law. I would perhaps go a bit further and say that people without a law degree typically need a legal expert to explain the law to them. You can find legal experts on both sides of most issues. Which legal expert do you believe? – Most likely the one that doesn’t make you challenge your own priors.
So for most non-lawyers, the only objective thing they can use to examine the situation is the facts. And again, the facts are awful for Trump.
This is not surprising.
Exit question – How does Trump win a general election when a majority of the public believes that he intentionally broke the law? (Answer – He doesn’t.)
It’s not even at all clear that Trump ever had sex (in the Clintonian or any other sense) with Stormy Daniels.
It’s not even clear that the NDA has anything to do with sex. The only NDA I’ve seen in any of Daniels’ filings is one that does not mention her name or Trump’s name, and which Trump did not sign. Maybe someone else has seen the actual one somewhere.
If she is lying about what the NDA says–and she’s definitely been lying, since she denied ever having sex with Trump but now says that was a lie–then it’s not clear to me that Trump could explain it without violating the NDA.
So far over several judgments she’s been ordered to pay over $600,000 to cover Trump’s legal fees, whatever cases she’s been making don’t appear to be very strong….Then again, she’s making more money than ever before and can definitely afford to pay.
My father would have understood how the average Democrat hates Trump for no reason, other than that they have never heard anything but hateful things about him, and assumed that everything they heard from certain sources was true.
He was in the occupying forces in Germany after WW-II. He initially regarded himself as lucky, because many others were on their way to attack Japan, but that changed after the Atomic Bomb!
Anyway, I remember that when I was a child, he often mentioned that he thought that the war against Germany must have been the fairest of all time, since all the Nazis had been killed, and the only Germans left were ones that had been secretly anti-Nazi all along! After he said this, everyone laughed, which puzzled me.
Hardly soon enough, the day came when I finally understood, and I have never forgotten.
CC™ but of course our legal system as understood by Nancy Pelosi is one in which President Trump must now prove his innocence. The same system in which Soros-funded DAs don’t prosecute murders of children (Oakland, CA) but do prosecute those who shoot and sometimes kill in self defense (Austin TX or NYC). So, CC™, how is our judicial and legal system working out lately? Decarceration for all or random laceration and exsanguination. Be very careful when out and aboot, there be monsters aloose.
Yep, if only The Great Orange Whale weren’t so evil he would have no fears?
@Ray Van Dune:the only Germans left were ones that had been secretly anti-Nazi all along! After he said this, everyone laughed, which puzzled me.
Hardly soon enough, the day came when I finally understood, and I have never forgotten.
You may yet live to see Americans afraid to admit they ever supported Trump, without losing their livelihoods or access to banking or whatever.
Surprise.
I think we all know that there are “Ever Trumpers” who think he can do no wrong.
Then there are “Never Trumpers” who will never give him credit for anything.
Then there is a huge middle ground, and I think Trump is fast losing any of those people that he had.
I firmly believe that almost any opinion expressed with respect to the indictment will be an emotional response and will have very little to do with its merits. On merit, I personally think it is a travesty.
If I could advise Trump, I would urge him to make a public statement along the lines, “I know that I have behaved like an Ass at times; and that my habit of hurling gratuitous insults has hurt a good many people and created enemies unnecessarily. I truly regret that. From here on, I pledge that I will attack only issues and policies that I think are detrimental to the national wellbeing, and refrain from personal attacks. I will even try to tone down the braggadocio. Given the opportunity, I believe that I can again lead the country effectively and only ask for the chance to do so.”
Well, we are never too old to indulge in fantasy occasionally.
oldflyer – That might actually work. Americans love a redemption story.
Well said Oldflyer, and even as a conditional supporter and defender of Trump it would be much needed. Alas, it is also unlikely. Not totally impossible, since Trump has shown more grace than many expect, but unlikely.
Oldflyer
Never happen He’d never do it, and, it’s another indicator of a significant number of Americans love of style over substance. Mean tweets!
Those who could care less if the charges against Trump are legitimate have already condemned Trump to prison in their minds. They may be intelligent but are too indoctrinated to realize that they are enabling the fashioning of the chains of their own future enslavement. Willful blindness has made fools of them all. That it is a case of willful blindness is demonstrated by their unwillingness to consider contrary facts, even for a moment. In their knee-jerk reaction of instant condemnation of anyone who questions the validity of their assumptions. They are unworthy of the liberties which far better men and women than they bequeathed to them and in that unworthiness, they utterly lack the ability to pass on those liberties to Future Generations.
That is where their sin really lies, not in their foolishness, which we are all prey to… but rather in their refusal to see that the results of their policies has been and is robbing the innocent of their inalienable right to self-determination.
So. A poll has been conducted on Trump and Bragg’s indictment in NYC for fraudulent business records — or so it is claimed
The ordinary and every day question on this might filter out those who are not registered to vote and containing those otherwise voting. The reason being is that these people are more likely to keep track of events and facts. Would this make meaningful difference? I believe so.
Mory affirmatively, Rasmussen is noted for offering poll respondents reliably neutral even&fact prompts.
Anyone care to bet against me that these kinds of survey screenings matter to the outcome?
I also bet that we’ll see Rasmussen ask the US public
Oldflyer, did you see the interview Trump did with Tucker Carlson tonight? He was a bit less of a braggart, but from what he said, he is never going to tone his rhetoric down. Somehow, he is not capable of that. Well, I have to admit, if I had accomplished as much as he has, it might be hard to be humble.
The mean tweets seem to be a New York thing. He talked with Tucker about “hitting” people and it was clear that he meant hitting them verbally. He said that Gavin Newsome had been so nice to him during 2020 and the Covid containments efforts, that it would be hard to “hit” him. A strange way to see things, but that’s what he knows.
What I believe is his secret to success is HARD WORK. He will outwork anyone. He saved his businesses a few times by just bulldog tenacity and outworking his competition. It’s ingrained into him.
He’s not worried about the charges. I agree that they are flimsy, and even if convicted by a New York jury, would be overturned on appeal.
Tucker asked him if he would continue to run if convicted. He said it was the only way he knew how to do things – just keep going. Trump being Trump.
The man is more honest than most. If he wasn’t, they would have found something more substantial to charge him with. He’s got a rough road ahead to win the nomination, but he will not quit.
Heck, look at the bias inherent in the outtake!
53% is “most Americans”? Even a pretense at objectivity would phrase that as “a majority” rather than “most”.
But it seems this is also true…
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/majority-see-fbi-as-bidens-personal-gestapo-after-trump-raid
So…now that it also appears the “Biden White House” coordinated with the FBI to raid Mar a lago…what do we do?
David – How many angels can dance on the head of a pin. 🙂
Trump had better hope that a sizable chunk of that majority, most, or whatever you want to call it, is willing to vote for a man that they believe has willingly broken the law.
In the event that Trump wins the nomination, the rest of us had better hope that too.
there is very little evidence, but you really don’t care about evidence, you want to keep your white toga clean, until they come for you, for some crimethink, like posting here,
miguel cervantes – I’m not looking to “keep [my] white toga clean, until they come for [me].” I want to win. That’s the only way to stop them from coming for all of us. Trump cannot and will not win.
The nightmare scenario is a Democrat president and Democrat congressional majorities taking office in January of 2025. The best way to make that nightmare a reality is to nominate Trump. Heck, we went through exactly the same thing in 2022 with Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania. Mastriano’s supporters claimed that we had to support him in the primaries and that anyone who didn’t was an establishment stooge (or just “keeping their white toga clean.”) Then Mastriano lost the general by 20 points and Republicans lost control of the legislature for the first time in years.
I’ve seen this movie before.