Reading Erick Erickson’s stuff is always a bit of a trip because his viewpoint and consequential conclusions are often skewed – and, when it’s not, you wonder why. But today, this might take the cake:
There is the camp that says this is designed to bolster Donald Trump’s nomination so they can beat him. Some of you are probably in that camp. You think the Democrats calculate that by indicting Trump, they’ll help him in the GOP primary. They think they can beat him in the general, and this indictment might push him across the finish line as the GOP nominee.
Perhaps.
But the camp I’m in is that Alvin Bragg represents a wing of the Democrat Party that is on the short bus of the party. He’s not very bright. I suspect the grand jurors are just rabid progressives, too, and they are all in the wing of “let’s put the SOB behind bars.” They hate him. They call him vulgarities instead of the President. They just want him in prison, and they’ll do anything to get him there.
They are not smart enough to consider the ramifications and too blinded by rage against Trump to care.
And on and on. Significantly, Erickson, a lawyer specializing in elections at one time himself, never gives Bragg the benefit of the doubt, namely that maybe Bragg is just doing his job. The fact that a job is high-profile and may have a political facet doesn’t mean the person in that job has absolute discretion in doing that job.
The fact of the matter is that a grand jury listened to testimony and returned indictments – more than thirty, according to this CNN/Politics article. This should be a hint that there’s a fire going on. Add in the fact that Bragg’s political career would be significantly damaged by a failed prosecution and so he’d best be very sure, and yet here we are, and I found Erickson’s political calculations reprehensible.
But it’s true, his blog was called Confessions of a Political Junkie (now, in support of his radio show, it’s called the Erick Erickson Show). But it seems to be the only prism he has, this political prism, along with the occasional God is in control prism for those days when events are unpredictable.
And this is what makes him, as a pundit, an entertaining failure. I mean, he’s no doubt fun on the radio, and judging from the content of his blog, his listeners will be hearing what makes them feel good.
But if it leads to such mistakes as predicting the 2022 election to be a blow out, rather than the split-decision it turned out to be, well, that’s failure. And Erickson really piles them up.
But, as a prominent pundit, he’s certainly a window on extremist thinking.
