An interesting detail emerged from a recent CBS/YouGov poll on how well Republican voters understanding the stakes of Donald Trump's campaign for the White House. Only 35% of Republicans polled, as noted by The Washington Post's Aaron Blake, say they know that Trump has been indicted for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. Almost the same number — 34% — don't think he's been indicted for his attempts to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
As readers here undoubtedly know, special counsel Jack Smith has, in fact, charged Trump with multiple counts of conspiring to defraud the government and hold onto power. "The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified," the indictment charges.
Those charges are on hold pending a Supreme Court decision on Trump's claims of presidential immunity. But for a majority of Republican voters, those charges simply do not exist.
Welcome, once again to Trump's fact-free alternate reality universe, in which Trump is relying on disinformation, ignorance, and voter amnesia to propel himself back to the Oval Office.
This is a preview of Charlie Sykes's latest article. Read the full column here.
