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Peter Zeihan Geopolitical Strategist
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Will Trump’s new federal indictment impact the 2024 election?

Peter Zeihan Geopolitical Strategist
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Former President Donald Trump is facing 37 federal felony counts related to his mishandling of classified documents. Trump has denied all wrongdoing, claiming the investigation was politically motivated.

Although the charges are serious, Straight Arrow News contributor Peter Zeihan doesn’t think they’ll impact the election. He argues we’re still looking at a 2020 rematch — with the same results.

Excerpted from Peter’s June 13 “Zeihan on Geopolitics” newsletter:

If reading the headlines gave you some major déjà vu … welcome to the club. Trump is getting hit with a series of new indictments, but will it impact the election?

For those who love their red hats, Trump can do no wrong. If you try to tell them otherwise, it’s either a plot or a conspiracy theory. And regardless, you can run for president from the comfort of your prison cell … so he’ll be all right.

But none of this matters anyways. Biden will take the independent vote since Trump threatened to take away their voice, allowing Biden to run (or slowly and carefully walk) off with the election.

As long as these two spring chickens can keep clucking until the election, we’re looking at a 2020 rematch with the same results. So you get a double dose of déjà vu today.

Hey, everybody, Peter zine here coming to you from the world’s best Fourth of July fireworks over a look at the Denver Skyline there behind me. Today we’re going to talk about all of the new indictments of Donald Trump. A lot of people have written in asking what sort of impact this is going to have on the election. And the short answer is not a bit. Just to give you a quick review of how I see things going, Donald Trump is so solid with his base, that he’s going to get the nomination, there’s no way around that. And Joe Biden has been

the best way to put this independents have thrown in for the Democrats, they the independents think that the Democratic position in the administration are really hurting them economically. But they’re so opposed to what the Maga Republicans want to do with the general election, because it would gut their ability to have any influence on the country at all. So their hearts are definitely against the Democrats, but they’re voting for them in number. And in that sort of situation, you’ve got 10% of the population, who are the swing voters who are upset all of a sudden or not. And that means we might even see Biden when places like Texas, they only lost by a few percentage points last time around, it’s going to be wiped out. Anyway, this isn’t going to change that the the indictments are not gonna change that. First of all, there’s many coming, we’ve got the espionage ones related to the documents, the issue that is different here, between what Trump did and what everybody else who seems to be leaking these documents did is number one, most of these are top tier security, national security issues. Number two, they were unsecured. And number three, Trump was actually sharing with them with people. So you know, I’m no national security lawyer, but that strikes me as a fairly open and shut case, which is why we’re seeing so many counts and is moving so quickly. Second,

East van what’s, what was his first name, can’t remember. Anyway, he was one of Trump’s lawyers back during the January 6 stuff. And he’s the guy who came up with the legal theories that have been proven wildly inaccurate, in order to overturn the election. He is now in the process of getting disbarred. And if you look at the list of people who are testifying as part of that there are people who were all close to the administration who haven’t spoken yet. So there’s probably some interesting bombshells especially from Eastman himself, that are going to throw some more indictments Trump’s way. But that doesn’t really matter. You can run for president from prison. There’s an open question about if you win, what happens? Let’s just say that the security issues would be complicated.

But that doesn’t matter for Trump’s base. Maga. Republicans assume that anything that reflects badly on Trump as a plot or maybe even something to boast about. And Trump is now at the point where he’s so ensconced as a leader of a cult of personality, that he could livestream the abortion of his trans lover, and he would still get the nomination. Remember, in the Republican system, first pass, the post wins, you need one more vote than the other guy. And as soon as we had four people in the race with him, that meant that he couldn’t lose. And now we’ve got like eight or nine. In fact, the pence declaring for President of former Vice President Mike Pence seals the deal, because it means that if you’re an Evangelical, if you want to take a moral stance, you’ll vote for pence, that’s only going to be a few single digit percentages, which means that the mogga vote is going to be that much more potent for Trump, we’re in a position now where he gets 20% of the votes, he’s automatically the nomination, and he’s probably gonna get twice that. So that doesn’t change at all. And then on the other end, it doesn’t change at all. Because if you have a

somebody or indictment or god forbid, a convicted felon running for President, that is going to sour for all moderates in the country, not to mention everyone who normally would try to stay on the sidelines. So we were already looking at a pretty big wash out of Trump versus Biden round two. This just makes it that much more extreme. Now, of course, this is all dependent upon two things. Number one, Joe Biden has to live until the election, not a non risk. And number two, Donald Trump has to live until the election. People like to point out that if Biden wins, he’ll be the oldest president we’ve ever had. And that is true.

But if Trump wins, he will be the oldest elected president we’ve ever had. So you know, we’re not exactly choosing between some spring chickens here. Alright, that’s it for me. You guys. Take care

 

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