Megyn Kelly to Trump fans: What happened to "lock her up"?

I … did not expect to find Megyn Kelly and Breitbart on the same side when it comes to Trump letting Hillary off the legal hook. And if they were fated to end up on the same side, I would have guessed that they’d each end up applauding him for not wanting the DOJ to pursue Clinton, Breitbart because it’s enthusiastically pro-Trump and Kelly because she’s part of a mainstream media that’s always frowned upon prosecuting Hillary. Instead, Breitbart jabbed Trump yesterday for his “broken promise” while Kelly spent the segment below twisting the knife in Trump backer Rep. Sean Duffy for backing off the “lock her up” stuff as soon as it was no longer politically expedient. Strange days indeed, my friends. Most peculiar, mama.

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Kelly’s motives aren’t so strange, really. She’s just having fun taunting Trumpers over the first of many promises Trump will end up breaking (cough) as he grapples with the realities of governance. But she’s right that “lock her up” was no ordinary promise, like bringing back waterboarding was. It was a staple of Trump rallies, a la “build the wall.” It was proof that Trump really did intend to drain the swamp and wouldn’t let dumb conventions of political politesse, like letting the loser off scot-free for any crimes she might have committed, stop him from holding elites to account. That’s why Trump superfans like Breitbart and Ann Coulter felt compelled to smack him yesterday. It really is a big break with a core theme of his campaign. But not all Trumpers are on the same page. Other superfans, like Twitter favorite Bill Mitchell, are more forgiving…

https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/801250739989295104
https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/801251045988962305

…even though they were saying things like this a month ago:

https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/785475670050734080

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Oh well. Trump’s real problem here, as always happens with criminal matters that are charged with partisan considerations, is that half the country will oppose prosecution for political reasons unless there’s a smoking gun of wrongdoing. If the Justice Department discovers evidence that Hillary Clinton promised Saudi Arabia favorable treatment once she’s president in return for a gigantic donation to the Clinton Foundation, should the AG act on that? Absent proof that’s rock solid, i.e. video or audio of the bribe that can’t be denied, most Democrats will screech “banana republic!” if she’s charged and accuse Trump and Jeff Sessions of a political vendetta against Clinton based on flimsy evidence to please their right-wing base. There’s too much partisan juice to be wrung out of something like that for the left to stand down and say, “Yeah, okay, this offense is serious enough that the case should be pursued.” And it goes both ways. If Democrats take back Congress in 2018 and start digging in on Trump’s conflict of interests, how solid would the evidence of self-enrichment need to be before Republicans admitted “This is a big deal”? More solid than it’s realistically capable of being, probably.

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Speaking of which, in lieu of an exit question, read this. Still think it’s unlikely that that building project in Buenos Aires came up when Trump spoke to Argentina’s president last week?

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