Trump’s Legal Mess Triggers Shocking New Levels of Right Wing Grift

This week, we learned that Donald Trump’s fundraising committees channeled an extraordinary $50 million toward bankrolling his myriad legal defenses throughout 2023. Such sordid trickery has a long history on the right: For decades, shrewd fundraising gurus have raked in cash from conservative voters with hallucinatory alarmism about leftist villains and other apocalyptic threats. We talked to Geoff Kabaservice, the author of a “Rule and Ruin,” a history of the GOP, to situate Trump in this hallowed tradition of grifters. It turns out Trump may have outdone them all.