After mulling over Trump’s predicament with New York City, I had a Eureka! moment. Since the fight between NYC and Trump is essentially a battle between good and evil, and part of a concerted effort to stop the former president from running again by depriving him of his livelihood and ruining his reputation, this ratchets up the stakes, considerably. It has now gone way beyond the borders of one man versus the system. It has become an existential national issue.

If Letitia James, her city, and a “hanging judge” can effectively destroy a former president’s chances of making a living then what they’re doing qualifies as use of a deadly (legal) weapon. Trump had zero chance of winning his case and he probably knew it, but I do not think that he thought a judgment of $355 million was in the offing. Just today, James rattled her saber, stating that if Trump doesn’t pay the fine then the city will start seizing his properties. In a normal case, this would not be challenged and considered normal procedure, but this case is far from normal especially because in order to file an appeal Trump must come up with the equivalent of the fine to do so!

James is sure she has the law on her side, and the backing of the vast army of Trump-haters in NYC and throughout the entire nation, but she is forgetting that Trump’s base of supporters is vast,                       and totaled (at least) 74.2 million people in 2020. She apparently doesn’t own a television set, or a computer, or a smartphone, or read anything but the New York Times, otherwise she would know that half the nation is behind the “orange man” and will stick with him to the bitter end as they know that Trump has been targeted for annihilation by a deep state bureaucracy, the media, Progressives, radical feminists, academia, special interest groups who are afraid of their ox being gored and ordinary Trump-hating Democrats. I'm sure Letitia is smiling when she reflects on her support.

Joan of Arc or Don Quixote?

Questions abound. Is Letitia suffering from a messiah complex? Delusions of grandeur? Does she have political ambitions or does she see herself as a female Jack the giant killer or David facing Goliath? If none of the above, what then is her motivation for bringing such a flawed case with no real victims? One might ask the same questions of Judge Engoron, a former cab driver and music instructor before elevation to the bench, and the reincarnated spirit of Judge Roy Bean. The unusually ultra-partisan “newspaper of record” (The New York Times) actually published a reasonably accurate article a few days ago that is almost objective.

Now that we understand the problem and the dangers of lawfare, what can we conservatives do except shake our heads in disbelief? For one thing, we can stand up, lean in, and push back on the tsunami of abject hatred that’s pummeling the 45th president. It’s time for a GoFundMe page.

Started 13 years ago, GoFundMe has become the leading crowd-funding enterprise and it might just be a temporary answer to Trump’s problems. If every one of Trump's 74.2 million voters contributed just $5.00 to the “Rescue America's future” (my title) campaign to thwart the appropriation of Trump’s NY-based properties, it would bring in $371 million. When GoFundMe’s cut of 2.9% is deducted, that leaves $360 million and some change for Trump to use—$5 million more than he needs to safeguard his properties.

Here’s the plan: the title to Trump Tower would be transferred to either a non-profit corporation or trust comprised of a representative group of the 74.2 million donor/owners and renamed “The People’s Tower.” The property would be held by the trust until Trump was able to win his appeal, thus keeping it out of reach of James’s and the city’s claws. Think about it—it could work. Desperate times call for desperate (and creative) measures.

Got a better idea? 

Stephan Helgesen is a retired career U.S. diplomat who lived and worked in 30 countries for 25 years during the Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush Administrations. He is the author of fourteen books, six of which are on American politics and has written over 1,300 articles on politics, economics and social trends. He operates a political news story aggregator website: www.projectpushback.com. He can be reached at: stephan@stephanhelgesen.com.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.