Campaign Update: By all means, Judge Cannon, put Trump under a gag order

If you do, Trump will win in a landslide

News broke on Saturday that special counsel Jack Smith has asked the federal judge in the Florida classified documents case, Aileen Cannon, to impose a gag order on Donald Trump. Trump, of course, replied with one of his standard bombastic posts at Truth Social:

Text:

“Deranged Jack Smith has asked Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida for a Gag Order on me, so that I cannot talk about all of the Crimes he has committed, including the Illegal, Unconstitutional, and Unwarranted RAID of Mar-a-Lago. I guess they’re hoping they can silence me from telling the TRUTH like the Corrupt and Highly Conflicted Judge in New York City has done. Gag Orders have a very strong tendency to BACKFIRE, and if anybody should be GAGGED, it should be Deranged Jack, who was recently caught doing very bad things - and I should be able to talk about that, and everything else having to do with this Hoax - from which Crooked Joe Biden was FULLY EXONERATED!”

[End]

I would submit to all of you that Judge Cannon would be doing Trump an enormous favor by imposing a gag order that lasts right through Election Day. If she did that, he would win in an electoral landslide.

No, really: Hear me out on this.

Take a look at what has happened in the polling data on the presidential race since Judge Juan Merchan imposed the gag order on Trump in the Soviet-style Manhattan show trial. Trump has gone from trailing in virtually all polls to leading in virtually all polls. He has opened up leads so substantial in both North Carolina and Nevada now that some pundits are no longer talking about them as battleground states.

This movement in Trump’s favor in the polls corresponds to a period of time in which the public didn’t see Mr. Trump engaging in the sort of bombastic, often incoherent diatribes typified by yesterday’s Truth Social post. It is the exact sort of diatribe that turned off so many millions of potential Trump voters in the 2020 elections.

What voters saw instead during this time was Trump holding daily press availabilities after court had adjourned in which he had to engage in a little self-discipline to avoid violating Merchan’s gag order. Those almost daily events displayed Trump calmly and rationally engaging with the press in a way everyone now knows Joe Biden is mentally and physically incapable of doing. They showed Trump at his presidential best.

Along these lines, the Editorial Board at the New York Post wrote this on Saturday:

Here’s an excerpt from that excellent editorial:

“We are going to win New York!” Donald Trump boasted at what he described as his Bronx “love fest” Thursday evening.

Well … maybe. 

But Trump’s unexpected rally did show he can win enough of the country to take back the presidency. 

First was the setting itself.

You don’t see Joe Biden flying into Texas or Louisiana for a rally; he has a hard enough time convincing registered Democrats that he’s not a failed president. 

Trump has an energized base, giving him the flexibility to, say, spend a weekend on a New Jersey beach or an evening in the Boogie Down Bronx.

He’s actively courting black and Hispanic voters, and it’s having an impact.

Democrats have taken these groups for granted for so long that Trump rightly sees that they’re hungry for change. 

Biden’s speech at Morehouse College was an appeal to victimhood, claiming that America has been and always will be a racist nation.

Trump is pitching opportunity, a better life.

Speaking of which: Trump spent part of his Bronx speech talking about his career as a real estate developer, about perseverance, about his love of New York City.

It’s a welcome change from the parade of grievances that marked his rallies last year. 

Our advice to Trump: Do this more! Your business background was part of what appealed to voters in 2016.

[End]

Trump’s speech at that Bronx rally was uplifting. It was optimistic. It was incredibly inclusive, inviting Blacks and Hispanics tired of decades of Democrats taking them for granted to think differently about their futures and the futures of their children and grandchildren.

I will assure you that this would have been an entirely different speech if Trump were not under that gag order. It would have far more likely been a speech filled with shots at Judge Merchan and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels and everyone else involved in that kangaroo court.

In other words, it would most likely have been exactly the kind of speech that turned so many away from Trump in 2020.

I’ve written a lot here over the past year and a half about the incalculable damage Trump does to himself due to his utter lack of self-control and discipline. It is his personal Achilles’ heel. But Merchan’s gag order forced the former President to develop these aspects of his personality, and it was a big factor that helped to create that speech in the Bronx, one of the finest stump speeches Trump has ever delivered.

So, by all means, Judge Cannon, please do invoke a gag order on Mr. Trump this coming week and work hard to ensure it remains in place through November 5. In doing so, you might just save this country.

That is all.