A consistent feature of rhetoric from former President Donald Trump as this year’s elections approach is an extension of his despising of his various court challenges to antagonism — and outright hatred — towards what he characterizes as the direction the country has taken as a whole.
“HAPPY EASTER TO ALL, INCLUDING CROOKED AND CORRUPT PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES THAT ARE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024, AND PUT ME IN PRISON, INCLUDING THOSE MANY PEOPLE THAT I COMPLETELY & TOTALLY DESPISE BECAUSE THEY WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA, A NOW FAILING NATION,” Trump wrote in an afternoon message on Sunday, marking the weekend’s Easter holiday. He posted the remarks to Truth Social, his social media platform recently involved in a new public offering on the stock market.
A lot of this mirrors past rhetoric from Trump and the far-right, though he makes it rather explicit here, characterizing his supposed problems as indicative of societal decline.
There is no real-world evidence of ambitions to target the 2024 presidential election lying behind any of the major courtroom challenges facing Trump, meaning his criminal and most prominent civil proceedings. Neither is there any reasonable indication of ambitions to “destroy America” on the part of Trump’s political and judicial opponents.
In fact, Trump has benefited throughout his recent court cases from protections of the sort available to Americans subject to the justice system in other circumstances. And some argue the opportunities for Trump to get his side heard out have been more accommodating than what the average American would encounter.
Trump’s federal criminal case alleging attempts at election interference was put almost entirely on hold amid appeals from the former president now before the U.S. Supreme Court, and a New York appeals court in the state judiciary there lessened — by leaps and bounds — the amount required for a bond to hold off collections during appeals of a judgment spurring nearly half a billion dollars in penalties on the former president. In his Georgia criminal case, the judge allowed continued appeals in the defense’s push against the lead prosecutor being involved in the case at all. Is any of this the mark of a political scheme?
