For time and immemorial, the standard playbook for dealing with a disgraced former leader has been the same. You let them ride off into the sunset and everyone forgets about him or her. This even includes the criminals. I have always been taught and always believed that criminalizing political behavior would lead to bad ends. The last guy has taught those of us in that camp that we shouldn’t politicize criminal behavior.

Polling data indicate that he’s gaining for 2024. No, he would not win an election if it were held today, but it’s certainly close enough to make people nervous. What seems more outrageous historically is that he is in front of the entire GOP pool. What’s more, when someone loses by eight million votes the normal course is for all of the next candidates to fall over themselves convincing us that they aren’t that guy. Except, every blasted one of them is doing the exact opposite.

I’d say things will change once the indictments start rolling in, but I think it will take him actually wearing an orange jumpsuit for there to be a dent. Even then, it would just be a dent. I don’t know how many times I can say the word “normally” before we all realize that normal will just be one of those quaint words we don’t use anymore. They will convince themselves that it’s all a sham like my mother in law who convinced herself that Joe Biden was resigning. This one is going to take a few election cycles to clear.