CHAUTAUQUA — If Donald John Trump were as (fill in the blank) as some of his most ardent and most vocal critics say, one might think they’d have enough faith in the American people and be smart enough to let him self-destruct and thereby defeat himself.

But they seem never to that.

Instead, they keep piling on.

At some point — and we’re way past it — it behooves the rest of us to wonder to what extent they believe what they’re saying and to what extent they’re afraid of the 45th president of the United States, who may — come Jan. 20, 2025 — be the 47th.

Whether they believe what they say is hard to assess, because ultimately we can’t really get inside their heads.

Yet for at least two reasons, there’s a case to be made that — deep down –they’re afraid of him.

All the more so when he and his staff keep his internal circuit breaker in good working order so that he speaks not just with boldness, inspiration, and good humor, but also with grace, nuance, humility, gentility, and carefulness, as a head of state and a head of government should, while refraining from uttering every unedited thought that comes to mind.

Yes, faithful reader of this column, you’ve read that sentiment, in one form or another, here before.

Now, as for the two reasons:

≤ First, he’s expanding the Republican and conservative base.

When this columnist sought the Republican and Conservative parties’ nominations for New York attorney general in 2018, he–with his then-future wife at his side–promised the assembled at the state-GOP convention in New York City that as their candidate, he’d go to places where his fellow party members sometimes don’t go enough.

This prompted, for example, Orthodox Jews–if you’re from Chautauqua County, you probably don’t have the pleasure of meeting many Orthodox Jews–among state-GOP-convention delegates to invite him to their neighborhoods.

They said that many of their neighbors think they’re Democrats, yet philosophically they’re not. What they need is for someone to reach out.

Trump is reaching out like that in all sorts of neighborhoods all across the country. People who haven’t exactly been in the habit of voting for Republicans are coming his way.

“Will we get them all in one election? No, we will not,” this columnist said in 2018. Yet one by one, they can be converted. Trump is doing that, and his opponents know it.

≤ Second, as you, faithful reader of this column, will recall, Trump stands up to the Washington establishment in both major political parties.

It’s no secret that much of that establishment doesn’t–shall we say–share his skepticism of judicial activism; opening America’s southern border; trade deals in which America is a trade pushover, not a trade partner; America’s in effect being the world’s police department by involving itself in wars in far-off corners of the globe; or inflation that has substantially resulted from Joseph Robinette Biden’s substantially curtailing American energy production when he first moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

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So what have some of Trump’s opponents done?

Why, some of them have turned him into a martyr by engaging in “lawfare” against him.

It’s a long time until the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November 2024, yet it doesn’t take a political genius to see that martyring Trump isn’t what opponents of his hoped to do by engaging in lawfare against him.

In short, their lawfare against Trump is backfiring.

“Lawfare” is a “new word in the American lexicon,” said Gregg Jarrett, a lawyer and Fox News contributor.

It’s “warfare in a courtroom,” Jarrett said. “It happened, because Democrats were in full panic mode.” Why? Because “every major policy that Biden instituted proved to be a calamity.”

As examples, Jarrett cites the opening of the southern border, inflation, soft-on-crime policies, a climate agenda that has reversed American energy independence, the “bungled” Afghanistan withdrawal, and foreign policy toward Russian, China, and Iran.

The “original sin” of their lawfare was the Russia hoax by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 opponent, Jarrett said. The perpetrators “lied” to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA, court, and no one was ever held accountable, which incentivized the lawfare of today.

Speaking to Advocates for Balance at Chautauqua, or ABC, on June 24, Jarrett, who stressed that he’s neither a Republican nor a Democrat, in effect observed that Trump’s 2024 opponent is not only Biden but Biden plus the establishment press. This is “collusion between Biden Democrats and the media.”

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On its website, https://www.abcatchq.com, ABC posts videos of all of its speakers.

ABC was formed in 2018. Its mission is “to achieve a balance of speakers in a mutually civil and respectful environment consistent with the historic mission of Chautauqua” Institution. ABC is its own Section 501(c)(3) organization, legally separate from the institution.

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Dr. Randy Elf’s Aug. 20, 2020, ABC presentation, on “How Political Speech Law Benefits Politicians and the Rich,” is at https://works.bepress.com/elf/21.

(c) 2024 BY RANDY ELF