The Producers, criminal litigation edition
By 
In case you need a detailed statistical explanation of why there’s not going to actually be a GOP presidential primary contest this coming winter, Nate Cohn provides one:
It’s populist. It’s conservative. It’s blue collar. It’s convinced the nation is on the verge of catastrophe. And it’s exceptionally loyal to Donald Trump.
As defined here, members of Mr. Trump’s MAGA base represent 37 percent of the Republican electorate. They “strongly” support him in the Republican primary and have a “very favorable” view of him.
The MAGA base doesn’t support Mr. Trump in spite of his flaws. It supports him because it doesn’t seem to believe he has flaws.
Zero percent — not a single one of the 319 respondents in this MAGA category — said he had committed serious federal crimes. A mere 2 percent said he “did something wrong” in his handling of classified documents. More than 90 percent said Republicans needed to stand behind him in the face of the investigations.
That’s pure cult logic, and it makes Trump’s nomination inevitable. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Trump presidential campaign, which started out in 2015 as a publicity stunt that spun out of control, is now among other things a fund raising enterprise to pay his legal bills:
The fateful clash between former President Donald Trump’s legal imbroglio and the 2024 election is deepening amid new signs his GOP poll-topping campaign is partly designed to bankroll his defense and beat criminal charges.
News that Trump’s leadership PAC, which raises most of its money from small-dollar donations, has spent more than $40 million on attorneys’ fees for himself and associates emerged as he tightens his grip on the GOP race – a New York Times/Siena College poll released Monday finds Trump with a monumental advantage over the rest of the GOP pack – and ramps up claims that President Joe Biden wants him arrested so he can’t pull off a stunning White House comeback.
$40 million in attorney fees from small-dollar PAC donations!
What a country.