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In a week where former President Donald Trump was indicted for a fourth time, a
majority (63%) of Americans say that the charges approved by a grand jury in
Georgia related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state
are serious (47%) or somewhat serious (16%), according to a new ABC News/Ipsos
poll.



Trump's latest indictment was handed up on Monday in Fulton County and charges
him and 18 others in what District Attorney Fani Willis alleged was a "criminal
racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia's presidential election results."

Trump maintains he did nothing wrong and has claimed the four cases against him
are politically motivated and "un-American," which prosecutors deny. He has
pleaded not guilty to his three previous indictments but has not yet appeared in
court in Georgia.

The public’s view on the gravity of Trump’s latest charges is similar to an ABC
News/Ipsos poll conducted in early August right after Trump was indicted by a
federal grand jury in the nation's capital on charges related to Jan. 6 and
efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.

That poll found that 65% of Americans thought Trump’s federal indictment was
serious or somewhat serious.

MORE: Sweeping indictment could be Trump's biggest legal challenge yet: ANALYSIS


Only a quarter of adults say the indictment this week is not too serious (10%)
or not serious at all (15%). Earlier in August, a similar number (24%) said
Trump’s Jan.6-related charges were not serious.

A plurality of Americans -- 49% -- think Trump should have been charged with a
crime in the Georgia case, while 32% do not think he should have been. Fifty
percent of Americans say Trump should suspend his presidential campaign, while
33% don’t think he should, per the ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos'
KnowledgePanel.

At the same time, a plurality (49%) think that the charges in Georgia against
Trump are politically motivated, while 35% think they are not. All of these
findings are similar to the poll taken right after Trump’s Jan. 6 indictment.

These results depict a public that thinks Trump’s charges in Georgia are more
serious than his two non-election-related indictments earlier this year.




In ABC News/Ipsos polls in the wake of those previous indictments, 42% of
Americans said the charges in the federal case in Florida concerning Trump’s
alleged mishandling of and refusal to return government secrets after leaving
office were very serious; and fewer, 30%, said the state case in New York City
over hush money payments to an adult film actress in the days before the 2016
election was very serious.



In this week’s poll, 47% think the Georgia counts are very serious. By contrast,
51% thought Trump’s charges related to Jan. 6 were very serious.

The new ABC News/Ipsos poll also comes on the heels of Attorney General Merrick
Garland’s appointment on Friday of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss as a
special counsel in his investigation of President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden,
who has pleaded not guilty to tax charges.

A plurality of Americans (48%) are not confident that the U.S. Justice
Department is handling its investigation of Hunter Biden in a fair and
nonpartisan manner, while only 32% express confidence in the investigation.



And during the week that the investigation into the president's son was assigned
a special prosecutor and the former president was criminally indicted again, the
favorability numbers for both Biden and Trump -- their parties’ 2024
front-runners -- remain well under water but unchanged in the two weeks since
the last Trump indictment.

Biden and Trump’s favorability ratings both stand at 31%, and most Americans
view both Biden (54%) and Trump (55%) unfavorably.

METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted using Ipsos Public Affairs'
KnowledgePanel® August 15-16, 2023, in English and Spanish, among a random
national sample of 508 U.S. adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of
4.7 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 26-25-41
percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents. See the poll’s topline results and
details on the methodology here.

ABC News' Ken Goldstein and Dan Merkle contributed to this report.




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Rosaline is a 60-year-old Floridian who hopes she doesn’t get seriously ill
because she’d be wiped out by the increase in her already burdensome medical
debt. She has no insurance, and won’t qualify for Medicare for another 5 years.

Ron DeSantis is just fine with this. Cruelty is his trademark.

During the pandemic, Congress appropriated billions to help states expand their
Medicaid programs. That money is coming to an end this year, meaning Florida —
which refused to expand Medicaid with the federal subsides offered by the
Affordable Care Act — is set to throw another 2 million or so residents off
their only possible source of health insurance.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

Still, Ron DeSantis refuses to expand Medicaid, even though 93 percent of the
cost is covered with money from Washington, DC. It’s the principle of the thing,
apparently: he’s one of 11 red state governors who believes that working poor
people simply shouldn’t get health coverage. After all, they didn’t have the
good sense to be born into a wealthy family!

Michael, 30, lives in Orlando and has asthma, but running his little business
buying and selling used furniture hasn’t earned him enough to cover his medical
bills and to pay rent. He recently got an eviction notice, telling the Florida
Health Justice Project:

> “I was given a list of homeless shelters to choose from but I hope it doesn’t
> come to that.”

Ron DeSantis is just fine with this. Cruelty is his trademark.



Violence, hate, bigotry, and cruelty are the four cardinal points of fascism.
Compassion and concern for the greater good, for the poor and weak, for the
victims of fate and accident have no place in the fascist world.

Historians and political observers have been predicting that America would get
our very own Mussolini ever since the days of Barry Goldwater. And there’s been
no shortage of candidates: bribe-taking Nixon; Central American fascist-loving
Reagan; Gitmo torturing and war-lying Bush; and, of course, Trump.

But with Ron DeSantis, we may finally be facing an all-American politician who
has Mussolini’s guile, ruthlessness, and willingness to see people die to
advance his political career, all while being smart and educated enough to avoid
the easily satirized buffoonishness of Trump.

Mussolini was a famously short man who strutted with his muscular chest pushed
out and his chin jutted forward, just like DeSantis, who Trump says is
musclebound, likes to do.

Both men were socially awkward, craved power, lacked empathy, displayed casual
cruelty, sucked up to the wealthiest men in the nation, and demonized opposition
politicians — literally calling or implying their fellow citizens are “the
enemy” (a favorite trick of Hitler and Orbán, as well) — to encourage their
followers to support them or entertain the rhetoric of violence and threats of
violence to achieve political ends.

Miriam, a single parent of two young children, discovered a lump in her breast
but postponed visiting the doctor for months because she had no health insurance
with her job as a housekeeper.

Finally, she realized the potential gravity of her situation.

> “I needed to live to be there for my children,” she said.

She got treatment through the charity ward of a hospital, but even that
treatment came with a cost of $2,183. She slipped behind in the $200 monthly
payments when her job vanished with the pandemic and now she’s struggling to pay
the $1783 she still owes in co-payments from her treatments. She’s been sent to
collection and is living in fear of what’s next when the court finally comes
after her.

Ron DeSantis is just fine with this. Cruelty is his trademark.

George Washington, in his Farewell Address, warned us of the possible rise of
politicians like DeSantis who would suggest other Americans are enemies of the
nation’s values, who would exaggerate policy differences in war-like terms, and
who would ascribe the most evil of motives and intentions to simple political
opponents.




> “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit
> of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries
> has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.”

But it wasn’t just that calling other politicians enemies or attributing evil
motivations to them produced dissension and could tear a society apart, although
those concerns were at the top of Washington’s mind.

He also knew that such rhetoric was the platform from which a literal strongman
could arise in America, destroying the democracy he’d fought the Revolutionary
War to create:

> “But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism,” he told
> the nation. “The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the
> minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an
> individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more
> able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the
> purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

Such a warlike approach to politics, Washington said, could only lead in one
direction:

> “It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms,
> kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot
> and insurrection.”

Such rhetoric, Washington argued, produces:

> “A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its
> bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.”

It’s been 225 years since George Washington uttered those words. And now we’re
here.

Hipolito, the father of four, is worried about his life’s partner, the mother of
their children.

> “My wife has been in pain for weeks now but we can’t afford to find out why,”
> Hipolito told the
> 
> Florida Health Justice Project
> 
> . “I swear, I’m very afraid. She is pale and suffering every day.”

He notes that his wife hasn’t visited the doctor because their family can’t
afford the expense when they must also house, feed, and clothe their kids on his
job as a cook.



Ron DeSantis is just fine with this. Cruelty is his trademark.

Arresting black men for voting, terrifying them and ruining their lives while
making sure they all get paraded in chains before the cameras.

Threatening public school teachers with prison for simply teaching history.

Lying about medical science regarding vaccines to suck up to the Trump base,
resulting in fewer Floridians being protected from a disease that is killing
literally hundreds of Americans every day.

Using rhetoric that feeds bigotry and hate against gay, lesbian, and trans
people.

Intimidating the college board so they strip the Black Lives Matter movement out
of their advanced placement African-American Studies curriculum.

Lying to asylum-seekers to get them on a plane to Martha’s Vineyard as a stunt
to elevate his own political fortunes.

Ron DeSantis is just fine with all of this. Cruelty is his trademark.

Ignoring the health and safety of his state’s citizens, DeSantis led Florida
into a veritable Covid Armageddon, letting (as of January 16) 84,176 of his
citizens die from the disease. As former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb
told CBS’ Face The Nation:

> “They let the virus spread largely unchecked in terms of personal mitigation.
> People weren't wearing masks. They weren't encouraged to wear masks.
> Vaccination was encouraged for the elderly population, but not widely… So they
> made policy choices, and the consequence was an infection that largely
> engulfed most parts of the state.”

After this orgy of death and disease, at the end of 2021 about 12 percent of
Florida’s population — almost 2.6 million — still lacked any form of medical
insurance because of DeSantis’ refusal to expand Medicaid for low-income people.

And now as many as 2 million more Floridians will join the ranks of the
uninsured in the coming months.

Ron DeSantis is just fine with this. Cruelty is his trademark.


RECOMMENDED LINKS:

・A neuroscientist explains: Trump has a mental disorder that makes him a
dangerous world leader

・A neuroscientist explains why Trump extremists will grow violent as Election
2024 approaches

・A neuroscientist explains the problem of ignorance and how we can fight it

・A neuroscientist explains why certain Americans will never quit Trump no matter
what the ex-president does

・A neuroscientist explains why stupidity is an existential threat to America




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