The State Of Play? Advantage Trump

The state of play in the war against Trump has now become pretty apparent. It's difficult not to see Trump with a decided advantage--and that from several perspectives.

First of all the Dem strategy is obvious: Twist the law and constitutional processes and then get their media surrogates to shout about it 24/7. It's doubtful that the Dems have a leg to stand on from the standpoint of law in the "whistleblower" controversy--even as they prepare to trot out additional "whistleblowers." The whiff of collusion and conspiracy is strong in their machinations. The same goes for their maneuvering in the House committees. Nancy Pelosi is quite simply refusing to follow normal House procedures, acting for the nonce as if the House is a private Democrat preserve and allowing no input from the GOP.

It may have seemed for a time--a short time--as if this strategy was working, but it's increasingly unraveling in a very public way.

First of all, the "whistleblowers" are being exposed as Deep State operatives acting in collusion with the Dems. The ring master of that circus, Adam Schiff, has been exposed in repeated shadings of the truth and, now, in outright lies. Even liberal media types resent being played like that--thus, the Amazon WaPo awarded Schiff "four Pinocchios" for his outright lies, handing Trump and his allies powerful talking points, and the Dems a big media setback. And AG Bill Barr is in the background, ready and very, very willing to protect the Executive.

Second, Pelosi can pretend that the House is a strictly Democrat preserve, but it's not. Trump is playing this angle masterfully, refusing to even recognize Pelosi's "inquiry" as an actual House procedure in the absence of a vote by the full House. Of course, Pelosi's refusal to hold the vote exposes her lack of support from her full caucus and ensures that this kerfuffle will play out with Trump calling the shots. The further this goes into the campaign season the more it favors Trump. The voters will want clear positions from the candidates. Trump will be more than happy to provide that--stressing his record, the corruption of the Bidens, the corruption of the political and constitutional order by House Dems. The Dem candidate, presumably Warren now, will find it very difficult to court the center and independents without either severely criticizing fellow Dems or offending the center and independents she will need.

Chris Dunn, in an excellent blog at American Thinker, Nancy in the swamp of despond, sums it up nicely:

What Nancy has done is to hand the entire deck of cards to Donald Trump. The President can now shuffle them or not as he pleases, and set them down one by one as the spirit moves him. This can’t possibly be a good feeling for the Speaker. And it’s only going to get worse.

As for shuffling the cards, Trump is only just now flashing what appears to be a real trump card--Dem collusion with China. That will play very well for Trump, very badly for Dems.

How could it get worse?


That's where the investigations of the Russia Hoax and, now, the Ukraine Hoax will come in. IG Horowitz's FISA report will be out soon. It could, and should, be a real blockbuster. In fact, I don't see how it can fail to be such without AG Barr rejecting it out of hand for inadequacy. Horowitz is undoubtedly a Democrat, but can't risk that sort of reception.

Bad as that could be, however, the Barr/Durham investigations will be much worse. Those will focus on Dem and Deep State collusion with foreign intelligence services to undermine our very constitutional order and electoral integrity. That's very big stuff, and very big names will undoubtedly be named. Right up to Obama. It's inevitable and the Dems have been caught sitting on the tracks as this train begins coming around the bend. They're paralyzed, they're trying all sorts of ploys, and none seem to be working in the way they need them to work. The only solution that will work for the Dems is to actually derail the train that is Barr/Durham, and that's just not happening.

The final bit of bad news is that this won't really play out until the campaign season is well under way. How do you message that? I just don't see it.