Who does Trump's indictment really help?

Special counsel Jack Smith this week charged former President Donald Trump with alleged crimes connected to his attempt to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. Smith accused Trump of fueling the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by radicalizing a mob of his supporters with "lies" about election fraud "targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government: the nation's process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election."

This is the third criminal case against Trump, who, despite mounting legal troubles, is the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination to challenge President Biden in 2024. As it did after his earlier indictments, Trump's side immediately responded to the charges by launching an appeal for donations. The Trump Save America Joint Action Committee offered "I Stand with Trump" tee-shirts for every $47 dollar contribution. His campaign said the case was like a state attack on enemies in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Trump said he did nothing wrong, warning: "If they're allowed to set fire to the law, then it will not stop with me."

The latest charges prompted many Republicans, including some rivals in the GOP primaries, to rally behind Trump, accusing the Biden administration's Justice Department of conspiring to eliminate his strongest rival. Others said the case could be a tipping point that will drive fence-sitters fed up with Trump's election lies into Biden's camp. "At a certain point, are you really going to hitch your whole party to a guy who is just trying to stay out of jail?" asked former Rep. Barbara Comstock, a Virginia Republican who lost her seat in 2018 as suburban voters turned against Trump, according to The New York Times. Will the latest indictment energize Trump's campaign or derail it?

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This is a tipping point... but for which side?

Democrats know they can't beat Trump at the polls, said Monica Crowley at Newsweek, so they're trying to undermine his campaign. "They think they're burying him under a blizzard of charges, draining his resources, and distracting him from campaigning effectively for re-election," forcing him to fight "flimsy if dangerous indictments" in New York, Florida, Washington D.C., and soon Georgia," too. But they're really just helping him fire up MAGA voters and win over people in the middle who see this for what it is: the "weaponization" of the government to take out a political rival. "Like Popeye's spinach, each new indictment has bolstered" the former president, putting him a step closer to a return to the Oval Office.

"In a normal time, in a normal country, this indictment, essentially detailing how Trump attempted to carry out a uniquely American coup, would be the stake through this political vampire's heart," said Sasha Abramsky in The Nation. But Trump still appears poised to coast to the GOP nomination. Still, the details in this indictment about Trump's "diabolically precise" plot to exploit constitutional "weak spots" to hijack the election certification and steal the White House could tip the scales against him. Trump's "overheated rhetoric about Nazi Germany" might fire up his MAGA mob, but it won't sway the voters he needs to win — "the moderate middle, made up of voters who rejected his attacks on democracy in 2018, 2020, and 2022, come November 2024." Biden will easily collect independent voters, said Henry Olsen in The Washington Post, as he campaigns freely and Trump is stuck "sitting in a courtroom for days at a time."

This could help Trump's GOP rivals... if they dare cross him

Trump's first two indictments — for allegedly covering up hush money to a porn star and mishandling secret documents — didn't do a thing to loosen his grip on the GOP, said Alex Shephard in The New Republic. But the nature and severity of the latest allegations could change that. There are finally some signs that some of the other candidates for the GOP nomination "understand what's been gift-wrapped and laid at their feet," like when Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence, responded to this week's indictment by saying, "Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States." These charges offer "the best chance for the former president's rivals to finally shift their approach and try to knock Trump from his pedestal. It may also be their last opportunity." The question is whether they'll take it.

This indictment indeed could hurt more than the first two, said Nathaniel Rakich in FiveThirtyEight. Polls show voters care more about overturning a presidential election than paying off a porn star. Go figure. But the indictments alone might not "seal Trump's fate." If nominated, he could "face more significant political damage" if he goes to trial. "And a conviction before Nov. 5, 2024 — particularly in one of the two federal cases — could be hard for many voters to look past." After all, 62 percent of registered voters said in a YouGov/Yahoo News poll that Trump shouldn't be allowed to be president again if convicted of a "serious crime." A democracy has to "hold criminal behavior accountable, to show that our Constitution and institutions and law will be defended when assaulted," said William Kristol in Politico. It's too bad GOP senators didn't rise to the occasion and vote to "convict Trump when he was impeached. But some accountability is better than none."