photo by: Creators Syndicate

Keith Raffel

It’s not often that Donald Trump engages in understatement, but he did in his oft-repeated statement back in January 2016: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, OK, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” he marveled just before that year’s Iowa caucuses. “It’s, like, incredible.”

To my knowledge, the ex-president has never actually shot anyone. However, he has taken actions that led to the deaths of innocent people and to his conviction on 34 felony counts. And no one seems to care.

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, then-president Trump reassured the public that things were “under control,” although he had multiple reports from his advisers to the contrary. He went so far as to speculate publicly whether bleach or ultraviolet light were suitable treatments for the virus. Later, he admitted to the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, “I wanted to always play it down.” A Columbia University report estimated between 130,000 and 210,000 Americans unnecessarily died in the first 10 months of the pandemic due to decisions made by Trump and his administration.

In May 2024, a jury of 12 New Yorkers found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts for falsifying records to hide damaging information that would have influenced the 2016 presidential election. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg explained, “Mr. Trump went to illegal lengths to lie repeatedly in order to protect himself and his campaign.”

Neither the high COVID-19 death rate nor the felony conviction appears to have affected the public’s view of Trump. The “incredible” result he predicted has come to pass. He is more popular now just before next month’s election than he was eight years ago. On the eve of the 2016 election, the Gallup Poll found him with a favorability rating of 36%. Last month, his rating hit 46%.

As the metaphor goes, Trump can just about get away with murder. Weeks before the November 2016 election, a tape emerged in which Trump said he could grab women by their private parts without repercussions. While some called for him to withdraw from the race, he won the presidency nevertheless. Last year, a New York court found Trump had raped E. Jean Carroll “as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.'” Trump went on to win the Republican nomination for the presidency this year with little opposition.

It’s recently been disclosed that Trump reacted to rioters calling “Hang Mike Pence” on Jan. 6 by saying, “So what?” If anything, his polling numbers have since risen.

Polls and commentators alike agree that Trump was crushed by Kamala Harris in their Sept. 10 debate. Trump lied when he said tariffs are paid by foreign countries, not U.S. consumers, and again when he said, “millions of people (are) pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums.” His rambling, deceitful performance cost him… nothing. According to 538.com’s poll averages, Trump was 2.6% behind Harris the day before the debate and 2.6% behind four weeks afterwards.

Trump’s threats to turn the American military on his “evil” enemies, his lies about the efforts of FEMA in the wake of the hurricanes in the Southeast and his refusal to acknowledge the results of the last presidential election do not seem to affect the polls either.

Nothing seems to matter. Not even the endorsement of Kamala Harris by superstar Taylor Swift. According to an ABC News/Ipsos poll, only 6% of potential voters said it made them more likely to vote for Trump’s opponent. Thirteen percent said it made them more likely to vote for Trump.

In 1983, former representative Patricia Schroeder said on the House floor that Ronald Reagan “has been perfecting the Teflon-coated presidency: He sees to it that nothing sticks to him.”

In 2021, scientists harvested a lubricant from the legs of beetles that’s even more slippery than Teflon. Is Donald Trump, then, the “Beetlejuice” candidate? After all, he can twirl heads away in response to almost any charge.

— Keith Raffel is a syndicated columnist with Creators.