President Donald Trump's bid to silence his prominent critics is backfiring by making them more popular, political pundit Jonathan Chair wrote in The Atlantic.
The president in recent weeks has stepped up his campaign against high-profile opponents, cheering ABC's short-lived decision to suspend "Jimmy Kimmel Live" after the host's comments about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and pressuring officials to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, who was charged last week with lying to Congress.
But, wrote Chait, the moves aren't having the intended effect, and are instead "boosting the reputation of his enemies."
Kimmel's suspension, he writes, alienated even conservative allies of the president such as Sen. Ted Cruz, and led ABC's owner Disney to rapidly backtrack and bring Kimmel back on air, fearing an exodus of viewers and talent.
Noting Kimmel's ratings bump since returning, Chait writes that "Trump’s attempts to silence Kimmel served to make him more popular."
And on Comey, Chait writes, Trump's prosecution seems "even more doomed than his campaign against Kimmel."
Once again, a longtime ally of the president, this time conservative legal analyst Andrew McCarthy, has been among those critical of the case against Comey, while Trump's public calls for Comey to be convicted will make it easy to undermine the integrity of the prosecution, Chait argues.
Also, Chait notes, that even if Trump replaces Justice Department officials with loyalists, successfully persuading juries to convict based on meager evidence is another matter entirely.
"If—or when—Comey wins his case, he is sure to come out looking like a hero," writes Chait.
Overall, he concludes, Trump is losing the backing of supporters who long saw him as a champion against government measures like COVID-19 restrictions, and "leftist scolding."
"Trump seems to think he can consolidate power by turning the MAGA cult from a countercultural rebellion into a tool for state-sponsored submission. That is a frightening ambition. It also looks to be beyond his grasp," he writes.
