From the moment he made his way onto the political scene, Donald Trump defied all odds.

He won the White House despite not having any government or military experience, a first in the country’s history. As a candidate and then as president, Trump drew his supporters closer and closer with his brash, impulsive, and decidedly non-presidential behavior, notwithstanding.

When he was denied a second term, Trump failed to retire from politics as his predecessors did. And now he’s broken again, breaking new ground is a unique skill

while facing the very real prospect of being

the first ex-president ever to face criminal charges.

For those reasons, it is reckless to predict the impact of Trump’s

legal tangle with the Manhattan prosecutor

, the first of many possible prosecutions facing Trump. He remains the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination for now and, if so anointed, he has at least a decent chance of winning back the White House in 2024.

However, there are strong arguments to be made that things have changed that Trump’s ability to defy political physics may have ended and his scot-free

days are behind him.

In 2016, a Trump presidency was imaginary. He was seen as an outsider, which many found compelling

a clenched fist against Washington and a loud, ungainly voice that spoke for the angry and grieving people who felt they had been unheard and ignored by the ruling class for too long. Some enjoyed his bombast and the way Trump gleefully razed political norms to the ground.

Others thought he was better than the alternative, the worn-out Hillary Clinton, or made peace with it

assuming once in office

,

Trump would change by executing a long-awaited but ultimately illusory “pivot” and running a more conventional presidency.

Now the voters know better.

After all the vitriolic tweets, the relentless lies, bigotry, narcissism and nepotism, the stubborn mismanagement of a deadly pandemic, after two accusations and, most blatantly, the coup attempt he flipped in the service of a lie he continues to promote, there is no doubt about the nature of Trump.

Or what his return to the White House would mean.

Chaos envelopes

Trump

like a bomb cyclone. Controversy paths

it

like the smell of a cesspool. He warned of “possible death

&

destruction” as

hi were

criminally prosecuted, once again showing his recklessness and titanic ego. the

prospect of

indictment is a dramatic reminder, if it was needed, of the former president’s essential mendacity and moral bankruptcy.

Polls show that most Americans are tired of Trump, his mess and downfall.

Not those Fifth Avenue Republicans who make up about a third of GOP voters, enough to boost Trump in the primary and make him the party’s beating candidate for the party’s nomination. (Trump famously said that

he could stand in the middle of Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue and shoot someone without losing support now seems less boastful than fact.)

Those die-hards are the ones trying to appear to pandering Republicans like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy with their claims about Trump’s

political persecution and victimization. Legislators representing areas such as McCarthy’s deep red Bakersfield neighborhood have only that small fraction of voters to reckon with.

But it’s hard to see Trump getting support beyond his base

if he was

charged in a sordid case involving hush money and extramarital sex, regardless of the outcome of the legal process.

And the idea that Trump’s impeachment

would

bringing him closer to the White House by firing supporters seems equally far-fetched; it is not that the blind believers are allowed to cast three or four extra votes for their silly messiah. (Despite the lies they may have swallowed about the venality of our electoral system.)

Trump’s repulsive effect on swing voters and non-MAGA Republicans, especially women living in the country’s affluent suburbs, has been good

proven. It cost Republicans in 2018

,

when they lost control of the house; in 2020

,

when Joe Biden won the presidency; and in 2022

,

when the GOP, despite huge advantages, failed to secure a Senate majority and narrowly recaptured the House.

Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster and not a fan of the ex-president, has conducted extensive research in recent months among GOP primary voters, including some who supported Trump in 2016 and 2020.

“They’re just tired of the circus,” Matthews said.

They may think the many criminal investigations into Trump are “unfair to him,” she continued. “Maybe they think so

politics

motivated. But the fact is that the circus continues.”

Perhaps most importantly, something else has changed since Trump first made his way into the White House and into the hearts of Republicans: He is now a certifiable, repeat loser.

“They want to win and they want to beat Biden,” Matthews said of many of those polled. “They don’t think Trump can do it.”

It’s easy, amidst all the irritability and political machinations, to forget the gist of the case against the former CEO.

In 2006, Trump

would have

had an extramarital affair with X-rated actor Stormy Daniels. A decade later, his presidential bid was about to collapse after the public release of a tape of Trump bragging about sexually mauling women.

His attorney and fixer at the time, Michael Cohen, took out a home equity loan and paid Daniels $130,000 to keep her quiet. Once in the White House, Trump signed checks to pay Cohen back. The payments were listed as “legal fees”.

It can be a daunting task to hold Trump legally accountable,

given the shaky foundations on which the New York case rests.

But the court of public opinion is something else, and the case against Trump is open and closed. The closest he’ll ever get to the Oval Office is the chair he used as president and took to Mar-a-Lago.

It’s best to lock him up at his resort and throw the key into the Atlantic Ocean.