At this writing, a Fox News subheading reads, "EXCLUSIVE: FBI found classified documents during search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence."  Did they think this would bowl me over?  I'm disappointed in Fox for feeding me this completely predictable propaganda couched as original material.  Former Trump adviser Kash Patel told Breitbart News back in May that Trump was in possession of documents he himself had declassified.  I would expect the FBI to be claiming that these are their smoking gun.  Calling it "gaffe-davit" late Friday, Greg Gutfeld expressed what many of us were thinking:  "It sounds like every hoax we've heard before."

At this point, it looks as though Fox News may jump on the bandwagon to pummel Trump with more allegations from the liberal hit machine.  These stories may pan out to be as meaningless as all the other "shocking" anti-Trump exclusives the media have been throwing at us since 2015.

In a recent broadcast, Glenn Beck said, "I don't think there's anyone in American history ... ever been a politician or anyone in the public view ... that has gone through what he's gone through."  Beck then reviewed the onslaught of lawsuits they've racked up against Trump that most people aren't even aware of.

That said, I regret to report that among my own supposedly conservative acquaintances, I've begun to hear a plan of escape.  "Well, we have to admit he is emotionally unhinged," a man from my church told me.  "I'd rather have DeSantis anyway."  He then repeated "unhinged" numerous times while discussing Trump, as though he were reading the Democrat's talking points.

His "unhinged" tirade came on a 9 A.M. phone call while I was receiving an antibody infusion for COVID.  I was nervous to begin with — after all, I'd chosen not to be vaccinated because of numerous allergic reactions throughout my life.  Now I was sitting in a doctor's office hooked up to an IV, a blood pressure monitor, and an O2 sensor, listening to a new strain of Trump Derangement Syndrome coming through my phone.  My normally low blood pressure was elevated, and I had to embarrassingly tell the nurse it was from a phone call I shouldn't have taken.  (Thankfully, my COVID was like a mild flu, and I was no worse for the wear.)

Another subject of that phone call, and I suspect the real reason this man was unhappy with me, was that I'd recently called his attention to Rod Dreher's long history of attacks on Trump and his supporters.  Dreher had been invited to an upcoming event with our church primarily because of his 2017 book, The Benedict Option.  It was this book, largely, that carved Dreher a niche market as a pseudo-theologian.  A polarizing political pundit, I did not think he was a proper speaker to invite to an important church event.

The thing is, if you push back hard enough, the masks begin to come off.  The man from the church wasn't critical of Dreher because he had secretly agreed with his politics. 

Despite hardcore conservatives continuing to support Trump, like those voting in the CPAC straw poll, Dreher and his ilk keep trumpeting the "drama mantra":

I'm sick of the craziness of Trump, and just want a conservative president who believes what Trump believes (or said he did), but who can be counted on to be a damn grown-up, and spare us the drama.

(I can only hope we can get a candidate with a personality Dreher approves of.)

To be taken seriously and stay in the game, Dreher has to push Ron DeSantis to the forefront.  We, the "ordinary people" (his words), have been so caught up with Trump "the messiah" that we can't think for ourselves; thus, we need to listen to people who sell books — like Dreher.

So it was that another friend of mine texted me, the night of the raid on Mar-a-Lago, that she prefers DeSantis over Trump anyway because if Trump gets in again, it "will be four more years of hatred and fighting and he won't be able to get anything done.  It will tear the country apart."

"What makes you think they won't do the exact same thing to DeSantis?" I asked.  "Oh, no," she said.  "He has a stellar record.  They can't!"

Do you not think that the haters can spin lies as easily about any Republican candidate as they did about Trump?

They can, and they will.

It seems as though some folks are willing to throw Trump to the wolves because we have a DeSantis in our back pocket that we hope will both serve our needs and placate the liberals.

But if the liberals completely destroy the man I voted for for president — if they can stop him from running for public office again, or, dare I say, arrest him, imprison him, or worse — then nothing else matters.  I believe that if we do not stand up and speak out to defend this one man who has sacrificed so much for our Republic, we're no longer the kind of people who deserve a Republic.

Susan D. Harris can be reached at www.susandharris.com.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.