You can reasonably disagree with the indictment of Donald Trump in Manhattan, claiming it is a legal stretch to charge the former president with a felony for the hush-money payments in 2016 to a porn star with whom he is accused of having an affair.
If you are into conspiracy theories, you could even make the argument that the New York prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, is secretly trying to bolster Trump’s chances of securing the 2024 nomination by fueling the persecution complex of Trump and his supporters. The theory there would be that Bragg’s objective is not to secure a conviction but rather to set up the opponent who Democrats feel gives them the best chance of holding on to the White House.
The immediate reaction to Trump’s arrest by some of his toadies, such as Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, fits nicely, even if unwittingly, into that hypothesis.
Within hours of Trump’s arraignment in New York on 34 criminal counts, Hyde-Smith jumped on Facebook to defend the former president, attack Bragg and, in another heavy dose of fawning from her, endorse Trump for another term.
As first reported by the Magnolia Tribune, Hyde-Smith gushed about Trump’s accomplishments during his one tumultuous term in office.
“President Trump’s policies made America better. Because of his agenda, we secured hundreds of miles across the U.S.-Mexico border, we cut taxes, we appointed conservative judges, we had a healthy economy, wages were increasing, we were respected around the globe, and we were energy independent. I support a return to those policies and to President Trump’s effective leadership.”
There was nary a word from her, though, about how petulantly Trump left office, inciting a riot at the Capitol that endangered many of Hyde-Smith’s own congressional colleagues and their staffers, put a target on then-Vice President Mike Pence’s head, and resulted in the arrest of hundreds.
Hyde-Smith has joined the collective amnesia that has taken hold within a segment of the Republican Party, which would like to pretend that the most violent domestic assault on democracy in the history of this nation was really not that big a deal.
She’s been part of the propaganda machine that has been working overtime since Trump lost his reelection bid to Joe Biden. She joined the election deniers in Congress, voting against the certification of Biden’s victory even after the insurrection, as did all three of Mississippi’s GOP House members. She and they refused to acknowledge what had been amply documented in numerous court decisions, extensive news media coverage and the observations of Trump’s own attorney general — namely, that Biden won the election fair and square. They will not go down well in history for it.
Hyde-Smith’s decision to line up so early behind Trump for the 2024 race, 10 months before the first party primary and while the GOP field of contenders is still forming, could prove to be embarrassing to her, even in a state as pro-Trump as Mississippi has been.
The Manhattan indictment is the least of the former president’s legal problems and arguably the weakest case in the four investigations into his possible wrongdoing. Georgia is still looking into whether he illegally interfered in that state’s 2020 election, and a special prosecutor is investigating not only Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection but also whether he absconded with top-secret documents when he left office and then tried to obstruct the government’s efforts to reclaim them.
There seems to be a diminishing appetite within the criminal justice system, at both the state and federal levels, to give Trump a pass while he campaigns for office. Thus, it is possible that Hyde-Smith, before the year is out, could be looking at supporting an aging multiple indictee over a handful of better-suited, law-abiding and younger GOP candidates.
The Republican Party has a good shot of winning the presidency in 2024, particularly if Biden runs for reelection, as he has indicated he plans to do. The 80-year-old president, who was showing some signs of cognitive decline even before his 2020 victory, does not particularly excite members of his own party, much less those voters who don’t identify as Democrats.
What would, though, again energize Democrats and independents — and cause middle-of-the-road Republicans to stay home — is having Trump as the alternative.
Hyde-Smith doesn’t seem to recognize that. When you’ve grown accustomed to denying reality and ignoring the facts, the habit is hard to break.
- Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
