Brian Beutler had a very smart column last week pointing out something that should be obvious to everyone: Donald Trump is not so much running a presidential campaign as he is spearheading a criminal immunity racket. This “campaign” bears none of the hallmarks of a typical presidential run, no softening Melania, no silky Ivanka, no “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” messaging, and almost no discussion of policy or politics. It’s just stadium rallies and Witch Hunt postings and “Please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6 hostages.” None of this, notes Beutler, is about making an argument for the presidency, and all of it is about evading legal accountability:

Trump is scarcely running a presidential campaign. He might become president in spite of this, but his efforts are overwhelmingly fixed on evading justice or mooting judgments he’s already lost by any means necessary. He’d ideally like to prevail in these efforts before the election, but the task will become much easier if he’s able to win or steal the presidency despite the legal peril.

Beutler further faults Democrats for failing to draw negative attention to Trump’s unlawful schemes in any systematic fashion. However, as many political observers have noted, most recently David French this past weekend, it almost doesn’t matter what the media and political classes draw attention to. Huge swaths of the public have simply tuned out political outrage on both ends of the political spectrum. Those blinders are why so many prospective voters know so very little about Christian nationalism, as French notes, or about Trump’s legal woes, or even about Trump’s overt promises about what he plans to do if he’s reelected. It’s all just noise at this point, goes the complaint. The challenge for those of us who write about such things is how to punch a hole in it.

Issues can and do break through. There is good reason to believe that threats to women’s reproductive rights, IVF bans, and denial of basic health care are salient issues for voters, even voters who have tuned out of political discourse. Sen. Chris Murphy has made a strong case that fear breaks through political static, as do discussions about voter happiness. But when it comes to the stickiness of Trump’s legal liability, it remains the case that most........

© Slate