Last Tuesday, Trump’s former fixer confessed that he was guilty of a campaign finance violation involving the payment of hush money at Trump’s direction, while his former campaign manager was convicted of eight counts of various kinds of fraud. The president went to a rally in West Virginia later that day. The crowd chanted “Lock her up!”
I was incredulous when I heard this the first time. Were these people living in some sort of parallel universe? Later, however, I began to understand the real significance of “Lock her up!” It scares the daylights out of me.
The message behind “Lock her up!” is that the base will support any effort by Trump to become a true authoritarian. They have processed all of the information about his incompetence and corruption, and they simply don’t care. They love his swagger and the fact that he is on their side–that’s all that matters. If he has to turn the country into Hungary in order to stay in power, he has their blessing.
Don’t think for a minute that he didn’t hear them.