Maryland Governor Wes Moore tried to put a fine point on former President Donald Trump‘s imminent priorities, saying that they are necessarily self-directed and less concerned with the futures and freedoms of the American people than with his own.
It is a message the Biden campaign was pleased to share on social media, as Moore said that Trump’s major focus in the upcoming months will be on “fighting for his freedom and fighting for his future.”
One thing we’re “not going to hear,” Moore says, “is [Trump] fighting for any of ours.” Moore, an author, U.S. Army veteran and Rhodes Scholar, serves as the 63rd Governor of Maryland.
Gov. Moore: Over the next 10 months, we're going to watch Donald Trump fighting for his future, but one thing we're not going to see is him fighting for any of ours pic.twitter.com/wwHQIHlPrx
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) January 4, 2024
Trump has acknowledged that he will need to focus, at least in part, on fighting for his own freedom in the coming months, as Moore suggests. There is no getting around the fact that Trump faces 91 criminal charges in four separate cases — three federal and one in Fulton County, Georgia.
But the former President has repeatedly sought to equate his own personal freedom and future with that of the American people, telling supporters at his rallies that he is being “indicted for you.”
Promoting the idea that he is being attacked by political opponents for purely political reasons — rather than because he allegedly broke numerous laws and illegally tried to retain power after being voted out of office — Trump hopes to use his own legal peril as fuel for his campaign and candidacy, not — as Moore asserts — a drain on it.
It’s a tactic with which Trump hopes to defang Moore’s assertion that the he is merely a self-serving political animal, and a narrative that recasts Trump instead as a victim and a martyr.
Former Republican and current Atlantic writer Tom Nichols discusses the martyr strategy and how it is designed to eliminate governance guardrails, in the video below.
