By Chris Satullo
“They’re not just after me, they’re after you. If I fall, you’re next.”
Donald Trump has been flinging variations of that riff at his supporters since the day in 2015 when he made that fateful escalator descent. He’s had many occasions to use it. You see, when you’re as crooked and intemperate as that guy, a lot of people are going to find a whole lot of reasons to try to rein you in.
He has no reason to abandon the trope. He has achieved the holy grail of the demagogue, a visceral connection with his base that leads them to equate his well-being with their own. How does he do that? By telling people who feel forgotten and scorned that he sees them, that they matter – in fact, matter way more than the other people his enemies cater so slavishly to. What’s more, he gleefully insults the “elites” whose scorn MAGA voters so resent – and he reduces those elites to spluttering indignation. And he gets away with it.
Getting away with it is a key part of his hold on his fans. If he ever stopped getting away with it, that would mean the elites are back in the saddle. Then, supposedly, it’ll be open season on the people who eat at Applebee’s and savor NASCAR.
So I had not a shred of doubt that Trump would trot that line out last Tuesday night as he fulminated at chaotic length (he knows no other way) about his arraignment on charges stemming from his hush money payments to a porn star. Even knowing why so many voters equate his fate with their own, I still wonder whether there’s some way to pierce the enchantment, to blunt the virtuosity with which he plays them, the way he toys with their very human anxieties, resentments and need to feel seen.
I play out possible conversations in my head, usually to unsatisfying conclusions. Like so:
So, you’re upset about the indictment?
Damn straight I am. It’s an outrage, a witch hunt, just vicious and partisan. They’ll stop at nothing.
So you think the women whose stories are at the heart of these charges are lying?
I think the radical left will grab at any straw, any rumor, to harm President Trump, because he cares more about people like me than people like them.
OK, let’s talk about people like you. You seem like a nice, solid person. So pardon me for asking, because I’m sure the answer is no: But have you ever slept with a porn star, just after your wife gave birth?
No, of course not. But –
Bear with me a moment: Did you then happen to employ a maniacally loyal lawyer/fixer who would do anything, no matter how shady, to make this little PR problem go away for you? And did you also happen to count as a bosom buddy the publisher of one of the most popular, lucrative magazines in America, a guy who was also willing to help you make your problem disappear, no matter what it cost? And did all of you conspire together to fool American voters just as they elected a president?
No, of course not, but you’re twisting things, missing the point.
Missing the point…which is?
The liberal media. The racist prosecutor. The left-wing judge in George Soros’ pocket.
Humor me a moment. Let’s stipulate that all those people don’t like Donald Trump one bit and would smile to see him in an orange jumpsuit. But none of them decided just on their own hook to charge him here. The charges came from a grand jury made of people just like you, probably including some that voted for Mr. Trump. They’re the ones who looked at the evidence and said, “Boy, this is bad; he has to be held accountable.”
A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if the prosecutor told them to.
Ah, you’ve heard that line. Good one. Point taken. But wouldn’t you agree that this Manhattan district attorney had to know he’d be in for a whole lot of abuse and risk if he charged someone as powerful, beloved, and outspoken as Donald J. Trump? If he loses this case, this Bragg guy is toast, right? He’s done in politics. Even Democrats would hate him for blowing this one, don’t you think?
I suppose so.
Dunno about you, but I wouldn’t stick my neck out like that unless I was sure I had the goods, and that the case was important enough to stake my career on it.
Or just so full of hate for a great president that your judgment is twisted.
Can we perhaps recall something? It’s been established that there was a crime here. Michael Cohen pled guilty to it and spent time in jail.
Michael Cohen is a weasel, a liar, a turncoat, and a traitor. Who cares what he says?
You forgot “a Benedict Arnold.” I agree that Cohen only gets the sliver of credibility that someone who’s an admitted liar should get. But the DA has brought the receipts; the company records show the hush money payments, while disguising what they were for. Cohen’s story checks out, down the line. And the National Enquirer guy, it seems, has confirmed it.
I can’t even follow what the crime is supposed to be here. Neither can any of my friends. I’ve even read liberal writers whining that the indictment was weak, not what they hoped for.
You’re right. Those writers were showing a degree of fairness and attention to fact that you’d be hard-pressed ever to get from Fox News. But I digress. Let me get back to my real point. I hear you: You feel that any charges against Donald Trump are also an attack on you. That if he is not there to protect you, “They” somehow would come after you.
Of course I think that. Why wouldn’t I? It’s the truth.
Is it, though? You look to be what, 50 years old?
Just 48, thank you very much.
My apologies. You look marvelous. So, in your lifetime, we’ve had four Democratic presidents: Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden. During their tenures, did anyone from the government come after you legally, without basis, whether in a criminal case or a civil suit?
No. I’m a law-abiding American. I pay my taxes, even when I think they’re ridiculously high.
Of course, you are. Of course, you do. You’ve never cheated – massively – on your taxes. (Hey, we all slide a little dubious deduction in, here and there.) You never set up a company to bilk students out of their money. You never built a casino, then stiffed the contractors who did the work. You never stole money from your own charitable foundation. You never told 30,573 public lies over four years, which by one count, a certain president did while he was in the Oval Office. You never ran a company named after yourself that was found guilty in court of cooking the books and evading taxes. And, as we’ve already established, you never slept with a porn star – out of wedlock. None of that, right?
Of course not. I’m a Christian and an ethical businessperson. I would never do any of that.
I know that. I know. Neither would I. So why in the world would the government ever come after a person like you or me, who has never, ever, done the things Donald Trump has done? What I’m also asking is: Why would an ethical, Christian person like you tie yourself to this deeply flawed man and his fate? Why twist yourself into a pretzel defending a man who has been proven, in courts of law or by rock-solid journalism, to have done all those bad things? He’s flat out unworthy of you, of the support you give him.
Those aren’t proven. They’re media lies, witch hunts.
I can see that you think people make all this stuff up because they hate Trump, and that they hate Trump because people like you love him. And I’m not denying some people just hate the man. But I gotta ask, what’s more likely:
That people who hate Trump for no good reason made up all this stuff about his lies, cons, and crimes? And then, somehow, a whole bunch of prosecutors, judges, and juries in places all over America, people who have never met one another, people who in some cases get paid to be impartial and stick to the facts, all just decided to go along with all these false charges?
Or could it be that the fellow really is a liar and a con man who keeps doing illegal and unethical things, which makes some people feel they must do something to stop him and hold him accountable? That they don’t just hate him for no reason, that they want to stop him because he’s mocking the rule of law, harming our nation and, worst of all, betraying precisely the people like you, who believed in him, trusted him, and counted on him to make their lives better?
Boy, you have the worst case of Trump Derangement Syndrome I’ve ever seen.
No, sadly – and it gives me exactly zero pleasure to say this – I think maybe you do. Tell you what, though, let’s not waste another second talking about that guy. Let me buy you a beer and you can tell me about the wife and kids and that fine business of yours.
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Chris Satullo, a civic engagement consultant, is a former editorial page editor/columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a former vice president/news at WHYY public media in Philadelphia