The Outsider Perspective Issue 395 | The Beltway Outsiders

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Good Friday Morning! This week, we’ve witnessed a truly significant event as America, France, the United Kingdom, and the West commemorated the D-Day landing, a pivotal moment in history, 80 years ago. The remembrances and honors bestowed during these events have been a testament to the bravery and sacrifice of those involved.

President Emmanuel Macron awarded Christian Lamb, a former UK Naval officer the Legion d’honneur. She’s 103 now and helped draw the maps for the D-Day invasion. It was one of many such honors handed out.

It’s truly heartening to see that we still have a few of these heroes, these living testaments to courage and sacrifice, with us to honor 80 years later. These events are becoming increasingly rare, and I’m deeply grateful that the Americans and French have gone all out to commemorate them.

This week, I’m going to dive into the Trump conviction and focus on its legal and polling fallout —links to follow.

Quick Hits:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote one of the best essays of the year. Ali is a Somalian immigrant to America. She fled Islamic radicalism and became an atheist. However, recently, she converted to Christianity. She wrote a piece in The Free Press titled, “We Have Been Subverted: What is at stake in our ability to see the threat plainly? Nothing less than the preservation of our way of life.” She analyzes the various strands attacking American culture through the lens of subversion, as put forward by Yuri Bezmenov, a former KGB agent who had a theory on subverting Western democracies from the inside. Ali points to American Marxists, radical Islamists, the Chinese Communist Party, and Vladimir Putin as examples of forces pulling at the strings of American society, trying to destroy it. It’s a deep analysis and worth reading. She has a unique perspective.
In an interview with ABC News’ David Muir, Joe Biden claims he would not pardon his son. However, both Biden and his Democratic allies repeat the line: “Hunter Biden has done nothing wrong.” From my vantage point, these are mutually exclusive positions. It is politically expedient to claim he wouldn’t pardon Hunter (or James) Biden. I find it hard to believe he keeps that position.
Fox News released several battleground state polls. They polled Arizona, Virginia, Florida, and Nevada. Trump is leading all those states except Virginia. According to Fox News, Virginia is a tied race. Biden won it in 2020 by 10 points. We’ve had a few cycles now where Virginia looks close in polling before Democrats pull away. It’ll be interesting to see if that holds or if Trump has really pulled closer than people think. Virginia is not considered a swing state this cycle.
NVIDIA, the company selling the computer chips fueling the AI revolution, topped $3 trillion in valuation this week, surpassing Apple. The chipmaker is now behind only Microsoft in valuation. Apple, NVIDIA, and Microsoft are the only $3 trillion companies on earth. NVIDIA hit $2 trillion in valuation in March of this year. It’s added a trillion dollars in a few months. The AI revolution is accelerating.
The New York Post published one of the more interesting stories you’ll read this year: “Remote Amazon tribe finally connects to internet — only to wind up hooked on porn, social media.” Insert all your hot takes here.

Where you can find me this week

Please subscribe, rate, and review my podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or Google Play — the reviews help listeners, and readers like you find me in the algorithms. Make sure to sign up for the Conservative Institute’s daily newsletter.

The Trump Verdict Is A Bad Seismic Shift In American Politics – Conservative Institute

Biden’s Incapacity To Perform Returns To The Front Page – Conservative Institute

Liberals Kill California’s Economy – Conservative Institute

The Trump Conviction: Polling Fallout And More

“Trump is a convicted felon” is the number one talking point among Democrats and members of the media. If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a thousand times. That’s effectively the point, however. Democrats want two things: 1) The election to be about Donald Trump. And 2) For everyone to look at Donald Trump and think “convicted felon.”

Trump also has a simple formulation for this election: 1) Joe Biden is old and feeble. And 2) Joe Biden can’t do the job, hence why he’s a disaster.

That is the 2024 election boiled down to its essence. I’m going to focus on the Trump conviction angle today, looking at the case itself and how it is shaking out in polls. I have a column at the Conservative Institute on a story from the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that focused on Biden’s age, health, and mental capacity to do the job. Despite the Trump conviction, Biden is getting no rest from the age and mental fitness questions.

The Trump Conviction

The hush money conviction on Trump is a one-of-one case. Every time a Democrat gives the line, “he’s a convicted felon,” my question to them is simple: convicted of what? My Monday CI column made this point:

While Bragg and his cohorts claim they prosecute these kinds of cases all the time, the truth isn’t even close to that claim. A former federal prosecutor, Elie Honig, writes in New York Magazine: “The charges against Trump are unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor – in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere – has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever. Even putting aside the specifics of election law, the Manhattan DA itself almost never brings any case in which falsification of business records is the only charge.”

The Bragg case against Donald Trump is a one-of-one case. No one in American history has ever been charged or convicted of this specific misconduct. Add to this, Bragg ran for office on the grounds of going after Trump. Bragg added Matthew Colangelo to his staff. “Colangelo, formerly the third-ranking official in President Biden’s Justice Department, joined Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office in December 2022 as senior counsel in the criminal case against Trump.”

Alvin Bragg got his conviction, but it’s unclear what the actual felony is – though everyone assumes it’s the FEC violation. If so, there are open questions over whether he can prosecute that and whether he proved that point at trial.

The miscategorization of campaign funds to the FEC isn’t exactly uncommon, either. As I noted in that same column, Hillary Clinton settled an FEC complaint against her in 2022 for how her campaign categorized campaign funds to create the infamous Steele Dossier against Trump in 2016.

If that kind of thing is prosecutable now, the FEC complaint takes on a whole new light.

I expect a full appeal of this case soon. The judge scheduled sentencing for July 11, just days before the Republican convention. Once that process is settled, Trump can file his appeal. From there, the question is whether or not he fights it in NY courts or tries to get the Supreme Court to take it quickly. I have no idea how that will shake out, and neither does anyone else.

In the meantime, Hunter Biden’s cases are ongoing (and a spectacular disaster for the White House). Additionally, House Republicans have referred criminal charges to the DOJ over Hunter and James Biden committing perjury.

Just so everyone is on the same page: If Biden loses, a GOP-led DOJ will go after Hunter and James Biden. Joe Biden is now running to keep his family members from being prosecuted. The precedent set by the Trump conviction will come back to haunt Democrats. They will claim any prosecution of the Bidens is a political witch hunt. Also, if Biden loses, I’d watch for pardons for his family members.

Fun times ahead.

Trump’s Conviction And Polling

That brings us to the polls. Everyone’s big question is how the conviction has impacted the 2024 election. The answer is a bit murky, but things haven’t changed that much so far.

Trump’s lead has dropped slightly in the RealClearPolitics average. Trump currently leads Biden by 0.5 points. That includes some polls from the pre-conviction period, though. We’re still waiting on a whole barrage of polls. I expect those to start dropping in earnest over the next two weeks.

Of the polls that include post-conviction data, we can glean the following:

Emerson has Trump leading by 1 point, down from a 2-point lead. According to Emerson’s data, Trump’s lead didn’t drop, and Biden’s went from 44% to 45%. Noteworthy in the Emerson data: in two years of polling, they’ve never had Biden above 45%. If you include RFK Jr. in Emerson’s data, Trump’s lead balloons to 7 points.
Morning Consult has Trump leading Biden by 1 point: 44% to 43%. That is down from a 2-point lead from the previous week. This has a massive sample size of more than 10,000 people.
I&I / TIPP has the race tied at 41%-41%. However, in this poll, Trump gained ground. Previously, Biden led Trump by 2 points in the I&I/TIPP data. The commentary for this poll made waves with this quote: “If anyone was expecting a sudden mass exodus of Trump voters following his legal defeat they were certainly disappointed. If anything, Trump’s hand seems to have strengthened some in the immediate aftermath of his conviction.”
Forbes/HarrisX has Trump leading by 2 points. In their previous poll, the race was tied.
Reuters/Ipsos has Biden leading by 2 points, up from 1 point previously. However, it’s worth noting Reuters has had some of Biden’s better polls, with some showing Biden leading by as much as 4 points.

Trump’s lead has shrunk a little, but nothing seismic has shown up in polling. A shift of 1-2 points isn’t much movement. We may see something else in future polls, but nothing stands out right now. I expected some movement away from Trump, but the data is relatively stable.

Of all the stories Biden and Democrats wanted, this is the one. They get to call Trump a convicted felon. But it’s unclear if that does anything to the race. Trump is still leading, and Biden hasn’t made any inroads.

Final Thoughts

My takeaway is that we’re witnessing the final chapter in the Clintonizing of American politics. I was already leaning in this direction, but Sean Trende stated it better than I would: Trump’s conviction is analogous to the Clinton impeachment.

“I think this is actually, in a lot of ways, similar to the impeachment of Clinton, where Republicans just hated Bill Clinton. They couldn’t believe that nothing would stick to him. And then they finally had him dead to rights on something — he perjured himself,“ Trende said. “They didn’t get much in return, but it broke our politics. It’s one of the core things of the kind of nastiness in today’s politics.

“I think this is very much analogous. The Democrats’ response to the Clinton impeachment was, ‘Look, you’re impeaching Clinton for having an affair with an intern.‘ Republicans were like, ‘No, it’s perjury and obstruction of justice.‘ Democrats were dismissive. I think it’s kind of a similar thing here, where, yeah, you technically got Trump on some bookkeeping.

Democrats are trying to make hay over Trump paying hush money to a porn star. But they are the ones who excused Clinton’s behavior with Monica Lewinsky and lying under oath. Republicans successfully impeached Clinton, but it was a meaningless gesture that hurt them in the end. It’s hard to view this conviction as anything different.

Republicans are responding similarly to Democrats then “Why should I care about Trump paying off a porn star?”

Given the current sexual mores of the Democratic Party, I have no idea how they gin up any legitimate outrage. The complaints sound hollow, given what the far-left is pushing on society. That doesn’t make Trump’s conduct right – it’s awful to me – but it does mean Trump’s actions have precedent in American politics. You can pick which conduct is worse: preying on interns or paying porn stars.

From here, keep an eye on new polling. The early polls are technically suitable for Trump because he’s still leading or tied. If his lead reverts to the mean so far this year, the next round of Democratic panicking is right around the corner. If “convicted felon“ fails, the flailing will begin in earnest.

Links of the week

The $64 million mystery: How a wave of anonymous donations is fueling the 2024 presidential campaign – CBS News

Alex Jones agrees to liquidate his assets to pay Sandy Hook families, in move that would end his ownership of Infowars – CNN

“Ali Baba and the 40 thieves”: Emirati-Palestinian shouting match blew up Blinken meeting – Axios

Florida tire shop flies Nazi flag to protest ‘modern-day holocaust’ in Gaza — and owner insists it isn’t antisemitic – NYPost

Elderly pro-life activist, 75, sentenced to prison after abortion clinic demonstration – NYPost

Islamists Keep Stabbing People. Why Aren’t We Talking About It? Many in the West seem resigned to violence that once shocked us. – Peter Savodnik, The Free Press

‘Thank You for Your Science:’ Democrats Fail to Challenge Tony Fauci: “I see no capacity for him to admit error at all throughout the entire pandemic,” Dr. Jay Bhattacharya tells The Free Press. “I just see arrogance.” – Joe Nocera, The Free Press

Briahna Joy Gray fired from The Hill days after rolling her eyes at sister of Oct. 7 hostage during interview – NYPost

U.S. warns Israel “limited war” with Lebanon could draw Iran to intervene – Axios

George Clooney called White House to defend wife’s work on Israel warrants – Washington Post

X/Twitter Thread(s) of the week